Lecture presented at the ArtDataBanken meeting in Stockholm on September 21, 2009

1. Literature and XML: or How to Have More Time to Think Donat Agosti Plazi ArtDataBanken Stockholm, Sept 21, 2009

2. Who is this? What do I know about her? Where does she live? Who are you? What do you do? Where are you from?

3. The answers are in several hundred million pages of printed species descriptions in our libraries, including the descriptions redescriptions of an estimated 1.8M species, and an estimated 50K new (re-)descriptions annually.

4. Taxonomists at work …… T. E. Lawrence: Seven Pillars of Wisdom – a triumph. 1st published for general circulation, 1935: p. 535

5. The traditional flux of information … … a more or less closed, intransient system

6. What has this to do with XML, semantic, enhanced documents?

7. Access

8. Scanning Pdf-conversion (WWW)

9. Before antbase.org, Harvard‘s Museum of Comparative Zoology could claim to be the only location with a complete set of ant systematics publications from 1758 - present. Through antbase.org‘s digital library, access to this body of literature is worldwide, and it is actively used (>10,000 visits in one month only).

10. The Biodiversity Heritage Library is currently digitizing and make accessible >100 million pages, most of them out of copyright, ie older then 1925. ........ to be finished in 2048...

11. Access to ant taxonomic publications through antbase.org /Smithsonian Institution, including currently the entire body of non-copyrighted publications since 1758 (>4,000 publications or 85,000 pages)

12. Can taxonomic work be copyrighted? Copyright legislation is national but is based on the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works which defines a minimal standard. This international copyright standard does not require the recognition of treatments, the building stones of taxonomic publications, as works.

13. “ work ” does not mean “text”, does not mean “data”, does not mean “information”. A “ work ” is something more. That kind of something more has many different definitions in the various legislations, but it is always there: It may be called originality, individuality, creation, personal expression, creative shaping or anyhow else, but it is a condition for qualifying a product as a work: “Work” is an intellectual product that is in a certain sense particular, individual, original, new. (Egloff: EDIT IPR and Copyright, 2008)

14. Taxonomic treatments are highly structured and homogenous, part of a global >100 million page corpus growing at a rate of ca 20,000 new species descriptions per year, not counting 5 times more redescriptions. Its structure is tightly controlled by a peer review process enforcing standards, a domain specific vocabulary, not written as poem or in flowery language but scientific jargon. Treatments do not qualify as work. The publications including the treatments might. (Egloff: EDIT IPR and Copyright, 2008)

15. It is about digesting millions of pages: >>100 M pages taxonomic literature 25M scientific publications / year 25K journals >1K with taxonomic descriptions 20K descriptions of new species / year

16. Is this is the access we need?!

17. No, we need open access to content , not the PDF per se .

18. It is about machines (not we) doing a great deal of the work for us, extracting data, formulating hypothesis, ....

19. It is about data and information in context

20. „ Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of treatments“.

23. In a semantic Web environment (where machines talk to each other and do most of our work), data need to be able to talk to each other: “ protein-protein interaction networks” John Wilbanks, Neurocommons 27,266 papers 4,563 papers 41,985 papers 10,365 papers 128,437 papers

24. Relational to Ontological Mapping Drug Neuron Pathological Agent Receptor Channel inhibits inhibits Agent Neuronal Property Pathological Change involves involves inhibits Compartment has is_located_in is_located_in slide courtesy of kei chung, yale

25. It will open up scientific literature for data mining “ protein-protein interaction networks” John Wilbanks, Neurocommons

26. TREATMENT Cremastogaster mimosae Likely Diagnostically Related to: Cremastogaster tricolor Likely Diagnostically Related to: Cremastogaster tricolor Likely Diagnostically Related to: Cremastogaster amabilis Likely Diagnostically Related to: Cremastogaster tricolor Likely Diagnostically Related to: Cremastogaster amabilis Associated with: Acacia sienocarpa Living in: Mombasa Lviing in: Tanga

27. It is more: it is about access to the original or source data

28. The semantically enhanced treatments, extracted, stored on Plazi.org, and served in a human readable form, are linked to the underlying data: Fisher & Smith, 2008, PLoS ONE.

29. Semantic, enhanced treatments do the job ...

30. ... and XML is one way to go .

31. XML XML stands for EXtensible Markup Language XML is a markup language much like HTML XML was designed to carry data, not to display data XML tags are not predefined. You must define your own tags (schema) XML is designed to be self-descriptive XML is a W3C Recommendation

32. XML Being open and non-proprietary XML is an optimal archival format for the treatment/publication Being a stable and rich data format, XML can be repurposed for a variety of purposes

33. XML XML application design is an art in itself .... and thus can not be explained in 15 minutes Plenty of resources to dive into XML on Web, eg http://www.w3schools.com/, etc.

34. This means to develop a schema that models the logic content (e.g TaxonX), insert those tags that define what a word means, so a computer can understand as well. To assure, that everybody talks about the same species, the name can be linked to a reference name server Azteca instabilis Taxonx-schema Would then read like External schema <tax:name> <tax:xmldata> Normalization of data <dc:Genus>Azteca</dc:Genus> <dc:Species>instabilis</dc:Species> </tax:xmldata> Azteca instabilis </tax:name>

35. This can also be applied to entire sections of text, such as the treatment of a species and its parts. <tax:treatment> <tax:nomenclature> <tax:name> <tax:xid source=&quot;HNS&quot; identifier=&quot;193329&quot;/> <tax:xmldata> <dc:Genus>Mystrium</dc:Genus> <dc:Species>leonie</dc:Species> </tax:xmldata> Mystrium leonie </tax:name> <tax:status>n. sp.</tax:status> Fig 1 D - F </tax:nomenclature> <tax:div type=&quot;description&quot;> <tax:p>HOLOTYPE WORKER: TL 3.95, HL 1.02, HW 0.95, CI 93, SL 1.30, SI 137, PW 0.73, ML 0.38. Mandible outer margin strongly curving to a sharp apical tooth, the apex parallel to the anterior clypeal margin. (Holotype with material in mandibles, so mandibles and anterior clypeus $ described below from paratypes.) Median clypeus .... </treatment>

36. global unique identifiers (e.g. LSID) link up data

37. LSID for scientific publications LSID for treatments LSID for names (Zoobank/ HNS..) LSID for specimens LSID for DNA sequences / characters (ontologies) LSID for repositories GPS fixes for locations

38. Azteca instabilis Would then read like <tax:name> <tax:xid source=“ LSID&quot; identifier=“urn:lsid:biosci.ohio-state.edu.osuc_concetps:13452 &quot;/> Link to external database <tax:xmldata> Normalization of data <dc:Genus>Azteca</dc:Genus> <dc:Species>instabilis</dc:Species> </tax:xmldata> Azteca instabilis </tax:name>

39. We need XML-schemas, tools to convert and expose semantically enhanced documents.

40. Plazi workflow: overview Plazi deliverables TaxonX XML schema GoldenGate Dspace application Exist application SRS Exchange protocols (SPM, TAPIR, REST)

42. Plazi Search and Retrieval Server: Access to data TAPIR, SPM You You You human machine

43. Materials examined from literature in GBIF

44. Plazi workflow: content 11,000 descriptions online 500 publications 4,500 publications Handle, SPM and Tapir services Feeds into HNS and Zoobank (soon) Is harvested by GBIF, EOL Support from GBIF, EOL, US-NSF, DFG

45. Does the retro mark-up process scale up to the millions of pages needed to be processed? Only partially: Mark up takes about 5min/page: For 100 M pages = 700 man years (but it is only a first tool...)

46. Does the mark-up process scale up to the millions of page needed to be processed? Only partially: Mark up takes about 5min/page: For 100 M pages = 700 man years (but it is only a first tool...); wizards can reduce the time by several factors But: How much does it cost to digitize specimens, and what is its quality?

47. The cost of converting legacy publications can be avoided by producing marked-up publications up-front

48. NLM/TaxonX schema allows publishers to maintain richly encoded articles whose data can be distributed and presented in multiple formats for a variety of uses.

49. NLM/Taxonx XML Document Print

50. NLM/Taxonx XML Document PDF Print

51. NLM/Taxonx XML Document HTML PDF Print

52. NLM/Taxonx XML Document HTML SPM /RDF PDF Print SPM /RDF SPM /RDF

53. NLM/Taxonx XML Document HTML SPM /RDF PDF Print Database HTML / Species Page HTML SPM /RDF SPM /RDF HTML / Species Page HTML / Species Page Eg. EOL, scrathpads

54. NLM/Taxonx XML Document HTML SPM /RDF PDF Print Database HTML / Species Page LSID resolver HTML SPM /RDF SPM /RDF HTML / Species Page HTML / Species Page Eg. EOL, scrathpads

55. NLM/Taxonx XML Document HTML SPM /RDF PDF Print Database HTML / Species Page Google Dataminig, ... LSID resolver HTML SPM /RDF SPM /RDF HTML / Species Page HTML / Species Page Eg. EOL, scrathpads

56. Semi-automatically generated semantic, enhanced e-publications are the only way to describe the missing 10 M species, and to deal with an increasing flood of data.

57. ms submission („Taxon-x-version“) new ms alert Posting for review Edited ms Revised ms Publication: pdf Publication: hard copy Publication database („taxon-x-version“) analysis & ms preparation Taxon DB New Data feedback Accepted ms New taxon alert The future of publications: The publication semiautomaticall generated ontology bibliography ZooBank / NS Character DB Specimen DB Description DB Distribution DB Char. Matrix DB Phyl. Tree DB Char-state Im. Specimen Im. Habitat Image Leg. Publicat.

58. Word MS DB Input forms export export convert NLM taxpub Indesign NLM taxpub author author author publisher publisher publisher Journal authoring and production workflow Ctd.

59. NLM/Taxonx XML Document HTML SPM /RDF PDF Print Database HTML / Species Page Google Dataminig, ... LSID resolver HTML SPM /RDF SPM /RDF HTML / Species Page HTML / Species Page Eg. EOL, scrathpads Ctd.

60. Word MS DB Input forms export export convert NLM taxpub Indesign NLM taxpub author author author publisher publisher publisher Journal authoring and production workflow: What do we miss? available prototypes to be developed

61. Where do we stand? 2008 LSIDs, external links

62. Where do we stand? 2008 LSIDs, external links, XML

63. Where do we stand? 2008

64. Where do we stand? 2009 LSIDs, external links, external data via doi, export services

65. Where do we stand? 2009 LSIDs, external links

67. Self archive (the Green Road): UNIZ as one of the global leaders in self archiving

69. OECD Declaration for Access to Research Data from Public Funding (Spring 2007) How to implement this?

73. http://plazi.org Thank you very much! Donat Agosti [email_address]