A Web-Based Software System for Model Integration in Impact Assessments of Agricultural and Environmental Policies - Environmental and Agricultural Modelling - page 224

interoperability. The use of ontology has proved to be very useful if not essential
both for the technical integration of knowledge in the SEAMLESS Integrated
Framework and in understanding the meaning of communicated words of the diversity
of people within the project.
The client and server technologies that were adopted in SEAMLESS-IF have an
advantage in the field of stability and security by replacing custom coding with
well-known and tested open source frameworks, use of well-known design patterns,
and component-oriented programming. By replacing XML with the binary AMF
format for exchange of information between clients and server, we improved
performance. Tests show that this is at least four times faster. Another advantage
and an important requirement for the system is in the field of maintainability and
flexibility. There is less custom source code to maintain because of use of popular
open source frameworks and standards, and part of the source code is generated
from a higher level ontology.
References
Athanasiadis, I. N., & Janssen, S. (2008). Semantic mediation for environmental model components
integration. Information Technologies in Environmental Engineering, 1 , 3-11.
Bezlepkina, I., Domínguez, I.P., Heckelei, T., Romstad, E., & Oude Lansink, A.G.J.M. (2007).
EXPAMOD: Component to statistically extrapolate from FSSIM models to other farm types
and regions including aggregation to NUTS2: Motivation, description and prototype .
PD3.6.11.2, SEAMLESS Integrated Project, EU 6th Framework Programme, contract no.
010036-2 (p. 28), from www.SEAMLESS-IP.org
Britz, W., Pérez, I., Zimmermann, A., & Heckelei, T. (2007). Definition of the CAPRI core modelling
system and interfaces with other components of SEAMLESS-IF . SEAMLESS Rep. No. 26,
SEAMLESS Integrated Project, EU 6th Framework Programme, contract no. 010036-2
(p. 116), from www.SEAMLESS-IP.org
Cash, D. W., Clark, W. C., Alcock, F., Dickson, N. M., Eckley, N., Guston, D. H., et al. (2003).
Science and technology for sustainable development special feature: Knowledge systems for
sustainable development. PNAS, 100 (14), 8086-8091.
Dahl, O.-J., Dijkstra, E. W., & Hoare, C. A. R. (1968). Structured programming . London: Academic.
Farquhar, A., Fikes, R., Pratt, W., & Rice, J. (1995). Collaborative ontology construction for
information integration (Tech. Rep. No. KSL-95-63). Stanford, CA: Knowledge Systems
Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University.
Fowler, M. (2007). Patterns of enterprise application architecture . Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., & Vlissides, J. M. (1994). Design patterns: Elements of reusable
object-oriented software . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.
Gijsbers, P.J.A., & Gregersen, J.B. (2005). OpenMI: Glue for model integration. In A. Zerger &
R.M. Argent (Eds.), MODSIM 2005 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation
(pp. 648-654). Australia/New Zealand: Modelling and Simulation Society.
Gijsbers, P.J.A., Wien, J.E., Verweij, P., & Knapen, R. (2006). Advances in the OpenMI. In
Proceedings of 7th International Conference on Hydroinformatics, HIC 2006 (pp. 72-81).
Gregersen, J. B., Gijsbers, P. J. A., & Westen, S. J. P. (2007). OpenMI: Open modelling interface.
Journal of Hydroinformatics, 9 (3), 175-191.
Griffen, E. M. (1997). A first look at communication theory . New York: McGraw-Hill.
Gruber, T. R. (1993). A translation approach to portable ontology specifications. Knowledge
Acquisition, 5 , 199-220.