ALBERT

Description: The Kiel Data Management Infrastructure (KDMI) started from a cooperation of three large-scale projects (SFB574, SFB754 and Cluster of Excellence The Future Ocean) and the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR). KDMI key features focus on the data provenance which we consider to comprise the entire workflow from field sampling or measurements through lab work to data calculation and evaluation. Managing the data of each individual project participant in this way yields the data management for the entire project and warrants the reusability of (meta)data. Accordingly scientists provide a workflow definition of their data creation procedures resulting in their target variables. The central idea in the development of the KDMI presented here is inspired by the object oriented programming concept which allows to have one object definition (workflow) and infinite numbers of object instances (data). Each definition is created by a graphical user interface and produces XML output stored in a database using a generic data model. On creation of a data instance the KDMI translates the definition into web forms for the scientist, the generic data model then accepts all information input following the given data provenance definition. An important aspect of the implementation phase is the possibility of a successive transition from daily measurement routines resulting in single spreadsheet files with well known points of failure and limited reusability to a central infrastructure as a single point of truth. An interim system allows users to upload and share data files from cruises and expeditions. It relates files to metadata such as where, when, what, who etc. As a proof of concept we use a 'truncated workflow' to migrate a selection of marine chemical data files and their structured metadata into the generic data model. A web application will allow data extraction for selectable parameters, time and geocoordinates. The availability of these widely used data is expected to motivate more scientists to design their own workflows for their upcoming work and their resulting data. This data provenance approach in terms of human workflows has several positive side effects: (1) the scientist designs the extend and timing of data and metadata prompts by workflow definitions while (2) consistency and completeness (mandatory information) of metadata in the resulting XML document can be checked by XML validation. (3) Storage of the entire data creation process (including raw data and processing steps) provides a multidimensional quality history accessible by all researchers in addition to the commonly applied one dimensional quality flag system and thus (4) improves the reuseability of the data. (5) The KDMI concept focuses on bringing data management infrastructure into the daily measurement routines instead of the final data management hassle at the end of each project. (6) The KDMI can be extended to other scientific disciplines or new scientific procedures by simply adding new workflow definitions. The data input can start from this point while domain specific outputs with the newly added data instances will be created by the KDM-Team. The KDMI follows scientists' requests for Web 2.0 like (net)working platforms but instead of sharing privacy or making friends it is all about sharing daily scientific work and data with project partners. For this purpose we have deployed a portal server (Liferay) where individual scientists are assigned to project communities and working groups or have their own working spaces. All these features are expected to raise the acceptance of the integrated data management applications and advance scientific collaboration.

Description: The identity of authors and data providers is crucial for personalized interoperability. The marketplace of available identifiers is packed and the right choice is getting more and more complicated. Even though there are more then 15 different systems available there are still some under development and proposed to come up by the end of 2012 ('PubMed Central Author ID' and ORCID). Data Management on a scale beyond the size of a single research institute but on the scale of a scientific site including a university with student education program needs to tackle this problem and so did the Kiel Data Management an Infrastructure. The main problem with the identities of researchers is the quite high frequency changes in positions during a scientist life. The required system needed to be a system that already contained the potential of preregistered people with their scientific publications from other countries, institutions and organizations. Scanning the author ID marketplace brought up, that there us a high risk of additional workload to the researcher itself or the administration due to the fact that individuals need to register an ID for themselves or the chosen register is not yet big enough to simply find the right entry. On the other hand libraries deal with authors and their publications now for centuries and they have high quality catalogs with person identities already available. Millions of records internationally mapped are available by collaboration with libraries and can be used in exactly the same scope. The international collaboration between libraries (VIAF) provides a mapping between libraries from the US, CA, UK, FR, GER and many more. The international library author identification system made it possible to actually reach at the first matching a success of 60% of all scientists. The additional advantage is that librarians can finalize the Identity system in a kind of background process. The Kiel Data Management Infrastructure initiated a web service at Kiel for mapping from one ID to another. This web service supports the scientific workflows for automation of the data archiving process at world data archive PANGAEA. The long-lasting concept of the library identifier enables the use of these identifiers beyond the employment period, while it has nothing to do with the institutional IDM. The access rights and ownership of data can be assured for very long time since the national library with its national scope hosts the basic system. Making use of this existing system released resourced planed for this task and enabled the chance of interoperability on an international scale for a regional data management infrastructure.

Description: Altered volcanic ashes (K-bentonites) in the late Ordovician (Caradocian) Utica shale of New York State are the product of explosive arc volcanism. Most of the 30 K-bentonites examined in this investigation contain fragmental crystals and rock fragments (microliths) up to 600 (xm in diameter that generally are neither detrital contamination from the surrounding black shale nor igneous phenocrysts. The dominant phases are garnet ($two groups; Gr_{15_20} Alm_{45_75} Py_{35_0} Sp_{2-5}; Gr_{2_5} Alm_{55_85} Py_{10-40} Spi$), plagioclase feldspar ($An{80-10}$), alkali feldspar ($Or_{99_0}$), clinopyroxene $(Wo_{50-40} En_{50-30} Fs_{0-30}$), and orthopyroxene ($Wo_{1-2} En_{77_32} Fs{32_66}4$), accompanied by lesser quantities of hornblende, aluminosilicate, quartz, sphene, Fe-Ti oxides, apatite, and zircon. Most of the fragmental crystals appear to be derived from the same source as the metamorphic microliths, which possess minerals with similar compositions. Both crystals and microliths are interpreted as xenocrysts and xenoliths from the ancient continental crust on which the Ordovician arc was constructed. They became entrained in the volcanic plume during explosive eruptions. A Precambrian age acquired on K-feldspars from one K-bentonite using the $^{40}Ar/^{39}Ar$ method shows that these xenocrysts were derived from depths of less than 5-10 km in the microcontinent at the time of late Ordovician volcanism. The occurrence of xenocrysts and xenoliths in these K-bentonites underscores the importance of performing detailed petrology on ash layers prior to the onset of more sophisticated tasks (e.g., isotopic age determinations; regional stratigraphic correlations of K-bentonites based upon chemical compositions).

Description: The scientific site of Kiel provides support for projects with data management requirements due to project size or interdisciplinarity. This infrastructure is the Kiel Data Management Infrastructure (KDMI) and was initially created by SFB574, SFB754, Excellence Cluster ‘The Future Ocean‘ and the GEOMAR | Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. To achieve public data availability from publicly funded projects by the end of the funding period it is necessary to initiate the data acquisition during the data creation process. Accordingly the KDMI uses a three level approach to achieve this goal in SOPRAN III. Data management is al- ready involvedin the planning of expeditions or experiments. The resulting schedule for data files can be used by the project coordinationto increase the efficeny of data sharing within SOPRAN III. The scientists provide files with basic metainformation, which are available within the virtual research environment as soon as possible to all project members. Final data will be transferred to PANGAEA for long term availability when the data are analysed and interpreted in a scientific publication or by the end of SOPRAN III. The Kiel Data Management Team offers a portal for all GEOMAR and University Kiel marine projects. This portal will be used in SOPRAN III in combination with PANGAEA to fulfill the project’s data management requirements and to enhance the data sharing within SOPRAN III by a file sharing environment for preliminary data not yet suitable for PANGAEA.