This paper presents a use case for Germany's Bundessortenamt.

1. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
1
Sixth International Conference on Topic Maps Research and Applications – TMRA 2010
Leipzig, 29 September – 1 October 2010
Gerhard E. Weber, Ralf Eilbracht, Stefan Kesberg
Nexxor GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany, www.nexxor.de
Topic Maps for improved access to and use of content in relational
databases – a case study on the descriptive variety lists of
Germany's Bundessortenamt

2. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
Unternehmen
2Problem statement
Physical access ubiquitous web access to data in relational databases
Unternehmen
Few perspectives only low number of views provided
available views limit the number of answerable questions
Data-centrism frontends reflect data-centric information architecture
= restricted usability of content
+

3. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
Unternehmen
3Suggested solution Unternehmen
Subject-centrism offer subjects networked by knowledge models
instead of data organized by relational data models
Many perspectives render relational views automatically from the underlying graph
not only from queries preformulated for anticipated questions
Many access paths offer many access paths to users‘ target views
rather than a few hierarchical navigation structures
Topic Maps-driven as access layers „on top“ of relational data stores
frontends
increased usability
+
+
+
=

4. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
4Anwendungsbeispiel
What is it? a national compilation of
several thousand agricultural plant cultivars („products“),
their properties such as yield, quality, processing, resistance, etc.,
and their breeders („producers“)
German federal authority: BundessortenamtWho creates it?
URL www.bundessortenamt.de
farmers, growers, co-operatives, advisors, processing industryWho uses it?
repeated, randomized multi-year and multi-site growth trialsBasis of property
assessments?
Use case: variety lists of Germany‘s Bundessortenamt

5. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
5Anwendungsbeispiel
Source:Bundessortenamt
Bundessortenamt – web app showing data on wheat cultivars
www.bundessortenamt.de

6. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
6Anwendungsbeispiel
Cultivars variety distribution over a particular kind of property in an assortment?
distribution of barley varieties over susceptibility to mildew?
position of a particular variety in the assortments distribution?
barley variety “Emily” susceptibility to mildew?
assortments of activity of a particular breeder?
what are the assortments of breeder KWS Lochow?
breeders dominating in a particular assortment - to what extent?
dominating breeders winter wheat?
the two most important breeders?
Breeders
Some questions not answerable with the authorities web app

7. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
7Topic maps creation Anwendungsbeispiel
Data source relational database updated annually
no direct access to source
downloaded ASCII- and html-files from authorities website
Ontology creation ontology design based on in-house expertise in application domain
Data preprocessing address fields preprocessed
for entity recognition of locations, and breeders
for type recognition such as person, company, organisation
all source data transformed into topic maps
all maps merged
Transformation
Knowledge models assortment specialization, property specialization, geographic containments

8. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
8Variety lists as topic map based web app Anwendungsbeispiel
Topic Maps
package
topicWorks with Topic Maps engine, configurable frontend,
template system, integrated PivotViewer
URL www.topicmapsforge.org/topicmaps/sorten
individuals by default rendered in „topic view“
topic view collocates names, associations, and occurrences
types by default rendered in „table view“
table view lists instances and statements about them
customization for topics of particular interest (templates, tolog)
Visualization
patterns

9. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
9Subject-centric information on wheat cultivars Markt
wheat
topic:
year of
admission
topic:
susceptibility
to mildew
topic:
year of
admission
2004
topic:
the breeder
KWS Lochow
topic:
breeder
topic: mildew
susceptibility rating 5

10. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
10Markt
text filter: kws
breeder KWS
offers 12 wheat
cultivars
What are the wheat cultivars offered by KWS?

11. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
11Markt
text filter: kws
mildew susceptibility
sorted in ascending
order
What is the KWS wheat cultivar least susceptible to mildew?
the wanted cultivar
topic:
susceptibility
to mildew

12. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
12Markt
mildew
susceptibility
Wheat cultivar distribution over mildew susceptibility
Relational view automatically rendered
from underlying topic map.
No preconfigured query required.
No view configuration required.
hierarchy
browser
how to judge
midlew susceptibility
of „Tommi“?

13. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
13MarktHierarchical knowledge model – drill-up
drill-up a knowledge model:
from a particular property
(wheat disease)
to more generic properties
(all relevant wheat diseases)

14. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
14Markt
susceptibility for wheat diseases
Wheat diseases
80 „records“ on
wheat diseases
available
Relational view automatically
rendered from underlying topic map.
No preconfigured query required.
No view configurarion required.

15. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
15MarktHierarchical knowledge model – drill-down
drill-down to a
particular wheat
disease

16. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
16Markt
winter wheat cultivars
grid view of all winter
wheat cultivars
PivotViewer as graphical visualization tool – wheat cultivars
properties of the winter
wheat cultivars available
for faceted filtering
cultivar distribution
over susceptibility
rating for mildew

17. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
17Markt
cultivars grouped
by yield rating
PivotViewer – wheat grouped by yield
cultivar distribution
over year of
admission

18. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
18Markt
winter wheat cultivars
PivotViewer – wheat grouped by yield and filtered by year
cultivar distribution
over year of
admission
filtered for year of
of admission < 2001

19. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
19Markt
winter wheat cultivars
winter wheat cultivars
grouped by yield rating
PivotViewer – zoom-in
cultivar distribution
over year of
admission
zoom-in to
a particular
cultivar…

20. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
20Markt
cultivar
properties
PivotViewer – wheat cultivar Batis
switch to
topic view

21. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
Topic view of the wheat variety Batis 21Markt
cultivar
properties
hierarchical
knowledge model
properties seed production areas

22. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
rel DB TM app
number of pages 3.000 20.000
internal links < 9.000 > 1.000.000
overviews 80 5000
22
relational DB Topic Maps app
few hierarchical access paths
low number of overviews
many relevant questions not answerable
many access paths
large number of networked overviews
many more relevant questions answerable
22Anwendungsbeispiel
knowledge models
on assortments,
properties,
locations
Variety lists in two different web apps

23. Weber, Eilbracht, Kesberg @ TMRA 2010
Topic Maps-based web app* on top of
a relational data store
of the German variety lists
(seed properties of agricultural species).
23ZusammenfassungSummary and conclusion
Use case
Conclusion Topic Maps-based web frontends
on top of relational resources
improve content usability
by subject-centric information delivery.
* www.topicmapsforge.org/topicmaps/sorten