Using metadata formats and AGROVOC thesaurus for data description in the agrarian sector

Abstract

The paper deals with a general solution of semantic description related to various electronic data formats in the domains of agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, food industry, environment, horticulture and rural areas. The solution presented was developed on the basis of metadata formats analysis and then complemented with its own software superstructure. It is based on the VOA 3 R metadata application profile (AP) that was developed within the framework of the Virtual Open Access Agriculture and Aquaculture Repository project for the sake of describing research papers and scientific publications. However, thanks to its complexity and comprehensiveness, it is also suitable for different kinds of data and while combining it with the AGROVOC thesaurus, which is elaborated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it can become a robust and universal tool for data characteristics and semantic description. The potential of the proposed solution is illustrated by means of two examples. While the first example brings a metadata description of a photograph depicting anthocyanin pigmentation of barley straw caused by phosphorus deficiency, the second example is related to a research paper description. The developed system of metadata description is broadly applicable in agriculture such as in precision agriculture, in plant production or in ground cover monitoring and evaluation based on sensor or visual data.

Proposta de um Dataset para a Agricultura Utilizando Dicionário de Termos Agrovoc como Fonte de Dados

“…Segundo [Simek et al 2018], o aumento constante do volume de dados, criando uma demanda para descrevê-los de forma eficiente, ou seja, fornecer principalmente uma descric ¸ão de conteúdo de qualidade e dispor de ferramentas para sua classificac ¸ão, pesquisa, compartilhamento, administrac ¸ão, ou, conforme o caso, também para a sua automatizac ¸ão de distribuic ¸ão. Atualmente, essa tendência pode ser observada em todas as esferas da atividade humana, incluindo o setor agrário, no qual novos dados adquiridos não apenas por humanos, mas também de forma automatizada, resultando em grandes volumes de dados com necessidades de recursos para compartilhá-los.…”

“…Os dados podem ser armazenados ou trocados entre os diferentes participantes e inclui elementos particulares da cultura com certa restric ¸ão[Martini et al 2013]. Criado e mantido pela Food and Agriculture Organization ou FAO, disponível desde o início dos anos 80, com atualizac ¸ões constantes[Mietzsch et al 2021, Simek et al 2018]. Agrovoc incluiu todas as áreas de interesse para a Food and Agriculture Organization -FAO, como agricultura, pesca, nutric ¸ão, silvicultura e meio ambiente, foi usado pela primeira vez na indexac ¸ão AGRIS (International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology), como um banco de dados de domínio público global disponibilizado pela FAO, atualmente conta com aproximadamente três milhões de registros bibliográficos estruturados.…”

Research in Agricultural and Environmental Information Systems

“…One of the early agricultural ontology is the AGROVOC thesaurus. AGROVOC is a multilingual thesaurus concerning different areas of the agro-environment (Caracciolo, et al, 2012;Caraccioloa, et al, 2013;Cui, Tang, Liu, & Sun, 2010;FAO, 2014;Morshed, Johannsen, Lei Zeng, & Keizer, 2010;Rajbhandari & Keizer, 2012;Sánchez-Alonso & Sicilia, 2009;Šimek, Vaněk, Jarolímek, Stočes, & Vogeltanzová, 2013). This ontology was created by the FAO and the Commission of the European Communities, in 80s.…”

Using agricultural metadata: a novel investigation of trends in sowing date in on-farm research trials using the Online Farm Trials database

“…The creation and use of meaningful metadata are now recognised as crucial elements in providing value-added services ( Simek et al , 2013 ). Metadata are increasingly being used to detect trends and obtain insights into social, economic and political interactions ( Conte et al , 2012 ; Lazer et al , 2009 ; Oh & Park, 2018 ).…”