Evolution of Database Designs for Knowledge Management in Agriculture and Natural Resources

Abstract

A general purpose framework is presented for organizing knowledge at many levels within and across both specialized and broad domains within agriculture and natural resources. At the core of this framework is an ontology management system, which is an object-based database system for storing, organizing, and reasoning about data, information and knowledge. This framework has evolved over 25 years as an effort to organize knowledge within the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida, encompassing the research, extension and teaching missions of the institution. Several major systems have been developed and deployed which utilize the framework. The elements of Lyra, an ontology management system developed to implement the framework, are presented. Three examples of deployed systems in the area of digital libraries, eLearning, and modeling/simulation are presented in detail.