Linked Thesaurus fRamework for Environment - Institute for applied mathematics and information technologies
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
LusTRE - IMATI
Citation
Abstract
LusTRE is a multilingual Thesaurus Framework (TF) for the Environment developed as part of the eENVplus project about infrastructures for the INSPIRE implementation. The Framework aims to provide shared standard and scientific terms for a common understanding of environmental data among the different communities operating in the different field of the Environment. It shall support better metadata compilation and metadata discovery for describing and finding INSPIRE data and services.
LusTRE addresses the needs of different user communities in sharing digital information at cross-border level, i.e. concept inter-operability and concept-availability in multiple languages as it is needed in metadata compilation and information discovery. It can be exploited by the National Environmental Agency, the International Environmental Agency, Environmental Communities as well as Terminological Experts and the Semantic Web Community.
LusTRE is characterised by three main components:
1. The knowledge infrastructure LusTRE-VOC, accessible by Vocabularies navigation tab, consists of a compilation of various environmental vocabularies and in the matching between the concepts addressed by them. In such a way, it is possible to navigate the vocabularies as one virtual integrated linked data source. The knowledge infrastructure includes vocabularies related to different INSPIRE data themes: multi-purpose environment thesauri as well as vocabularies for Biodiversity, Habitat, Biotopes, Species Distribution, Biogeographical Region, Protected Site, Geology, Air Quality etc. Moreover, their concepts are linked with the concepts of other vocabularies exposed in the LOD cloud.
2. The Web Service infrastructure LusTRE-ES, accessible by the Services tab, a set of Thesaurus Framework Exploitation Services that allows making optimum use of the knowledge contained in the knowledge infrastructure for improving existing metadata tools and geoportals. Different tools such as metadata editors, metadata validators, CSWs, information portals or specific application solutions, can use the services. Some use cases:
the exploitation services can deliver to a search engine synonymous, broader, narrower or related terms from several interlinked thesauri or controlled vocabularies which facilitates the cross-domain, cross-corpus, cross-boundary and multilingual search.
The automated cross-walking service between terms from different interlinked controlled vocabularies supports easier working beyond the scope and limitations of a single thesaurus or controlled vocabulary alone.
3. The explorative tool LusTRE-WEBe, accessible by the Exploration tab, which provides a human-accessible interface to search and browse the concepts of the knowledge infrastructure LusTRE-VOC exploiting the LusTRE-ES services. One specific subcomponent of LusTRE-WEBe is a tool for visual browsing LusTRE-WEBe-Vis, that allows the semantic explorative search among interlinked thesauri.