HR: 0830h
AN: SH51B-14    [Abstracts]
TI: Conceptual Design of a Generalized Complex Science Resource Query System For Virtual Observatories
AU: * Fortner, B
EM: brand.fortner@jhuapl.edu
AF: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723 United States
AU: Morrison, D
EM: Danny.Morrison@jhuapl.edu
AF: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723 United States
AU: Immer, E
EM: lis.immer@jhuapl.edu
AF: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723 United States
AU: Hashemian, M
EM: Mohammad.Hashemian@jhuapl.edu
AF: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723 United States
AU: Holder, R
EM: Robert.Holder@jhuapl.edu
AF: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723 United States
AB: With the growth of NASA mission data centers, there is increased interest in 'virtual observatories', which will provide homogeneous access to heterogeneous resources such as distributed and disparate scientific datasets, models, and tools. A common selling point of the virtual observatory concept is that of providing complex query mechanisms that would not be possible within the current data environment. An example of such a query is: 'what are the solar wind and geophysical indices when at least three near-Earth orbiters are simultaneously observing the auroral region?' As new information discovery and retrieval capabilities are being developed under virtual observatory programs, here we build on those capabilities to design a general mechanism to specify and execute complex, multi-step scientific queries. In our design, complex queries are constructed from a series of smaller processing components that provide data creation (e.g., calculators, models), data retrieval, data conversion (e.g., units, coordinate systems, formats), and data integration (e.g., plotting, analysis) capabilities. Each component resource must be sufficiently well defined via metadata (specifying inputs, processing, outputs) to enable its use as a building block in constructing complex, scientific queries from high-level user requests.
DE: 2499 General or miscellaneous
DE: 2799 General or miscellaneous
DE: 7599 General or miscellaneous
DE: 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings)
DE: 9820 Techniques applicable in three or more fields
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly