Towards reusable process-based models of dynamical systems: A case study in the domain of aquatic ecosystems

Storing metadata about models of dynamical systems in a machine readable form is one of the key steps towards their accessibility and reusability. In the domain of process-based modeling of dynamical systems, the task is to construct an explanatory model of a dynamical system from domain knowledge and data. In this paper, we present a workflow for annotation, storage and querying of process-based models specifically in the domain of aquatic ecosystems. To provide the vocabulary of key terms about the process-based modeling paradigm, we use the Ontology for Process-Based Modeling of Dynamical Systems (OntoPBM). Next, to capture the domain-specific characteristics, we extend OntoPBM with terms specific for aquatic ecosystems. The annotations for each process-based model are stored in an RDF triple store. This enables us to execute SPARQL queries on facts asserted in the annotations, as well as facts inferred from the domain knowledge encoded in the ontology. Finally, by following the proposed workflow, we generate the minimal information about a model, which takes us one step closer towards reusable research.