OK, I added a basic overview to the main README and added you all as contributors to the reproducibility repo. Please commit with wild abandon.

Regarding a call- I am free after 9am US pacific (I think 5pm CET) Thursday or Friday- not unfortunately Thursday night / Friday morning. Another possibility is to use github issues and comments for discussion. First person to open a new issue gets a cigar.

-Brandon

Hi,

I have tried to create a purl domain for BONSAI under https://archive.org/services/purl/ but I persistently get a "server error". I have asked the help mail address indicated (I did that 4 days ago) but have not receieved any reply. Anybody else have suggestions on what to do?

Best regards

Bo

Dear all

Here is the link to join the group meeting for ontology and rdf schema. Those not in the group but just interested in the topic are welcome to join as well

 

Topic: BONSAI ontology and rdf group
Time: Mar 14, 2019 10:00 AM Copenhagen

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/655516320

Regards

Agneta

Michele is supposed to get this organized, but I can provide some inputs from my side:

This working group should have multiple outputs which build upon each other.

a. Define a standard for correspondence tables, and convert everything we can find to that format.

I am 100% convinced that this format should be https://frictionlessdata.io/specs/data-package/. Each correspondence table would consist of a CSV with the raw data, and a JSON file with the metadata. Our task would be to define the metadata format (building on what the OKFN has already done, we just need to fill some things in). The idea is that the metadata can be consistent and therefore machine-readable.

For the CSV, we should discuss. 1-1 correspondence is easy. I think that 1-N and N-1 is also easy; one could have a two column format:

    foo, bar1
    foo, bar2

and

    foo1, bar
    foo2, bar

We could also have a third column that would give weights when more than one mapping is possible.

But we want to do this right, so should look at the various proposal defined for "crosswalk" tables, how these mappings are stored in open source LCA software, etc.

This should be a new repo, with one directory for the final product, one directory for the jupyter notebooks/whatever used to convert the raw data, and a third directory for the input data in its "native" form (if applicable). See https://open-power-system-data.org/ for inspiration.

I see that Brandon has just responded to this question with a totally different answer, so I look forward to a good discussion! I believe that data packages are language and community agnostic and are therefore much more of a community resource than something RDF specific would be. As always, the more value we provide to our information, the higher the chance that it is used by others, and then maintained by others :)

On the other hand, Brandon's approach allows us to express relationships much more concretely, and we would need this level of detail at some point in any case.

b. Set up a simple web app at correspondence.bonsai.uno that would return these correspondence in multiple formats.

Technically quite easy, and would be a good exercise to set up a BONSAI python web app skeleton.

c. Write a Python library that would allow the easy application of these correspondence tables.

During and maybe after the hackathon (or not - surprise me :)

I think the correspondence tables should just be converted to RDF for entry into the database. In my understanding, there is nothing a correspondence table does that an RDF database does not also do.

The necessary tasks would be to identify the appropriate predicates to describe the relationships. This crosses into the #ontology discussion, and is outside my expertise anyway, but the #skos ontology seems to have some of the right terms in its mappingRelations superclass For instance: skos:exactMatch and skos:closeMatch seem like good candidates.

Again I am outside my direct experience, but in the example table here: https://github.com/BONSAMURAIS/bonsai/blob/da0f7d82161b8a296a0b571d3c2fa2f1a137b8ca/FAO_vs_EXIOBASE_prod_classification_correspondence.xlsx
I would do something like the following, to encode the first row of the table:
Note the difference between the "rdf" vocabulary and the "rdfs" vocabulary.

rdf = https://www.w3.org/2001/sw/RDFCore/Schema/200203/
rdfs = https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/#ch_introduction
(default) = https://uri.for.bonsai.namespace

 - Within the BONSAI namespace, create new signifiers for the collections between which the correspondence is made, like

FAO_products rdf:type skos:Collection
EXIOBASE_products rdf:type skos:Collection

 - Then for each row in the example, create a signifier and assign its label

FAO_Agave_fibres_nes skos:member FAO_products
FAO_Agave_fibres_nes rdfs:label "Agave fibres nes"

 - Similarly for each column:

EXIOBASE_plant_based_fibres skos:member EXIOBASE_products
EXIOBASE_plant_based_fibres rdfs:label "Plant-based fibres"

 - Then add the relationship

FAO_Agave_fibres_nes skos:closeMatch EXIOBASE_plant_based_fibres

Somebody correct me if I'm off base, but I think this is how we move from XLS to RDF.

Den 2019-03-13 kl. 17.07 skrev Massimo Pizzol:

Thanks.

 

Am I right that your comment is similar what you have replied already here on GDP?
My impression is that like in the GDP discussion you are proposing a breakdown of each modelling step by creating an activity object for each model variable (e.g. along an impact chain). Since, however, there might be a databases/ file somewhere on the web where a list of characterisation factors (like there are GDP data per country online), this dataset on the web could be linked to our flows directly and used for e.g. for validation the results obtained from the query mentioned above, or even for calculations without using the model breakdown.

Well, you can aggregate any number of activities (and thus also steps in an impact pathway) and thus obtain the desired characterisation factors (for non-LCA people: A characterisation factor is an output flow from a characterisation activity given in relation to the input of the determining flow to be characterised). And as such you can also store such aggregated activity data obtained as "raw" data, e.g. for comparison to the aggregated result of a specific more detailed modelling.

However, I don’t understand why in the first example you want to “follow the methane through some activities” and in the second one you want to use directly “weighting factors”. Seems inconsistent to me.

It stems from the fact that you asked about two different things: 1) carbon dioxide equivalents, which is a generic concept, 2) Global Warming Potentials, which are specific weighting factors for GreenHouseGases under a specific normative paradigm.

Best regards

Bo   

From: <hackathon2019@bonsai.groups.io> on behalf of "Bo Weidema via Groups.Io" <bo.weidema@...>
Reply-To: "hackathon2019@bonsai.groups.io" <hackathon2019@bonsai.groups.io>
Date: Wednesday, 13 March 2019 at 16.51
To: "hackathon2019@bonsai.groups.io" <hackathon2019@bonsai.groups.io>
Subject: Re: [hackathon2019] Competency Questions #ontology #rdf

 

Den 2019-03-13 kl. 16.28 skrev Massimo Pizzol:

Everything looks fine to me, I just miss some questions about impacts (and I realize that I am not sure if characterisation factors are included in our schema as properties or how …?). Examples:

 

(MP_Q1) What is the direct output flow of flow-object F from activity A measured by flow-property P in location L in the time period T under macro-economic scenario S?  

(example: What is the direct output of carbon dioxide from steel production measured in carbon dioxide equivalents in Germany in year 2020 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?) à Is this just another instance of type BW_Q1?

What flows out of the steel production is carbon dioxide. 1 kg of carbon dioxide = 1 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents, so I assume what you are thinking of is rather if the output was of, say, methane, which can also be expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents under a specific macro-economic scenario, and depending on where in the impact pathway you define the equivalence. So the most consistent way of dealing with this is to follow the methane through the following ecosystem activities "atmospheric energy balance" and "temperature increase" as a result of the additional input of methane. These processes will have outputs expressed in radiative forcing and temperature change, which can of course be compared to the radiative forcing and temperature change from a kg of carbon dioxide, so that you obtain the impacts of methane in carbon dioxide equivalents at the point in the impact pathway that you are interested in.

(MP_Q2) What is the additional output flow of flow-object F from activity A measured by flow-property P in location M in the time period T resulting from a demand of flow-object G in location M in the time period U, all under macro-economic scenario S?

(example: What is the additional global warming potential from steel production measured in carbon dioxide equivalents in year 2020 resulting from a demand of 100 square meter of office building in Spain in year 2019 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?) à Is this just another instance of type BW_Q6?

The global warming potential (given a specified time horizon) is a weighting factor applied to each greenhouse gas. This is most easily included in a separate weighting step. This could be done by adding the weighting as an activity, but I would suggest to use the E matrix suggested in http://lca-net.com/p/2865 for this purpose.

Best regards

Bo

 

Dear all

I think the correspondence tables have not been discussed. What would need to be done to meet the objectives of the hackathon?

best,

Miguel (F. Astudillo)

Den 2019-03-13 kl. 16.28 skrev Massimo Pizzol:

Everything looks fine to me, I just miss some questions about impacts (and I realize that I am not sure if characterisation factors are included in our schema as properties or how …?). Examples:

 

(MP_Q1) What is the direct output flow of flow-object F from activity A measured by flow-property P in location L in the time period T under macro-economic scenario S?  

(example: What is the direct output of carbon dioxide from steel production measured in carbon dioxide equivalents in Germany in year 2020 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?) à Is this just another instance of type BW_Q1?

What flows out of the steel production is carbon dioxide. 1 kg of carbon dioxide = 1 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents, so I assume what you are thinking of is rather if the output was of, say, methane, which can also be expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents under a specific macro-economic scenario, and depending on where in the impact pathway you define the equivalence. So the most consistent way of dealing with this is to follow the methane through the following ecosystem activities "atmospheric energy balance" and "temperature increase" as a result of the additional input of methane. These processes will have outputs expressed in radiative forcing and temperature change, which can of course be compared to the radiative forcing and temperature change from a kg of carbon dioxide, so that you obtain the impacts of methane in carbon dioxide equivalents at the point in the impact pathway that you are interested in.

(MP_Q2) What is the additional output flow of flow-object F from activity A measured by flow-property P in location M in the time period T resulting from a demand of flow-object G in location M in the time period U, all under macro-economic scenario S?

(example: What is the additional global warming potential from steel production measured in carbon dioxide equivalents in year 2020 resulting from a demand of 100 square meter of office building in Spain in year 2019 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?) à Is this just another instance of type BW_Q6?

The global warming potential (given a specified time horizon) is a weighting factor applied to each greenhouse gas. This is most easily included in a separate weighting step. This could be done by adding the weighting as an activity, but I would suggest to use the E matrix suggested in http://lca-net.com/p/2865 for this purpose.

Best regards

Bo

Hi everyone

We have had a lot of interesting discussions on ontology and rdf this week. It would be great to sum up all the suggestions

We have a meeting scheduled at 10:00 AM tomorrow Thursday 14th March.

Connection details will be provided shortly.

 

Regards

Agneta

I would like to attack this a bit more systematically:

 

Querying the core database alone (noting that the core observations/datapoints are “flows”):

 (BW_Q1) What is the direct input flow of flow-object F to activity A measured by flow-property P in location L in the time period T under macro-economic scenario S?

(example: What is the direct input of coal to steel production measured by dry mass in Germany in year 2020 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?)

(BW_Q2) What is the direct output flow of flow-object F from activity A measured by flow-property P in location L in the time period T under macro-economic scenario S?

(example: What is the direct output of steel from steel production measured by EUR2011 nominal value in Germany in year 2020 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?)

(BW_Q3) What is the determining flow of activity A in location L in the time period T under macro-economic scenario S?

(example: What is the determining flow of soybean mills in Brazil in year 2020 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?)

(BW_Q4) What is the difference between input flows and output flows of flow-property P for activity A in location L in the time period T under macro-economic scenario S?

            (example: What is the difference between input flows and output flows of dry mass for all activities globally in year 2020 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?)

 

Querying the core database together with a system model algorithm (for creating product footprints):

(BW_Q5) What is the additional input flow of flow-object F to activity A measured by flow-property P in location M in the time period T resulting from a demand of flow-object G in location M in the time period U, all under macro-economic scenario S?

(example: What is the additional input of surface water to steel production measured by wet mass in Germany in year 2020 resulting from a demand of 100 square meter of office building in Spain in year 2019 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?)

(BW_Q6) What is the additional output flow of flow-object F from activity A measured by flow-property P in location M in the time period T resulting from a demand of flow-object G in location M in the time period U, all under macro-economic scenario S?

(example: What is the additional radiative forcing from the atmospheric energy transfer measured by power per area globally in year 2020 resulting from a demand of 100 square meter of office building in Spain in year 2019 under the Business-as-Usual scenario?)

 

I will break the rule of not commenting, by pointing out that:

(ML_Q1) is an instance of (BW_Q3)
(ML_Q2) is an instance of (BW_Q5)
(ML_Q3) is an instance of (BW_Q2)
(ML_Q4) and (ML_Q5) are queries for the location of specific agents or activities, and thus possible and relevant queries, but not related to the flows that is the core observations in the database

(AG_Q1) can be obtained as an instance of either of (BW_Q1), (BW_Q2), (BW_Q5) and (BW_Q6) (AG_Q2) is similar to (BW_Q4)
(AG_Q3) is an instance of (BW_Q6)

Hi Matteo

Good questions!

I would like to add:

(AG_Q1) How are the flow objects quantified/ Which units of measure are used?
                (e.g. in monetary units, weight, etc)
(AG_Q2) Does the input and output of flow objects follow mass balance?
                (e.g. iron ore and coal input used to produce steel, blast furnace gas, carbon dioxide)
(AG_Q3) Is output flow required for activity of type 'stock'?
               (e.g. output of a landfill)

comment- power plant would be an agent, electricity generation is activity, electricity is the flow object. 

Hi all,
an important initial step to align our intentions and clarify the scope of the ontology and the goals of the database is to identify a set of "Competency Questions".
Those are questions that should be addressable by the database.

Below you will find a small set taken from the literature I've found. I would ask you to think of questions that have very high importance to you.
Please accompany them with an example.
In this phase I would ask you NOT to comment on other people questions.
Yet, feel free to propose a new question and mark it as alternative to a previously proposed question.
I'm using a very naive encoding here to identify questions.


Thanks,
Matteo

(ML_Q1) Is the flow $x$ a determining product for the activity $y$ ?
          (e.g., electricity from a power plant)

(ML_Q2) Is input flow $x$ required for activity $y$?
          (e.g., coal for electricity from a power plant)

(ML_Q3) What is the amount of flow $x$ emitted as output during the time period $y$ ?
         (e.g., the emission of landfill gas)

(ML_Q4) What is the location of the agent performing the activity $y$?
         (e.g.,where is the coal power plant located)

(ML_Q5)  What other agents performing the same type of activity of agent $z$ are present in the same location $w$ ?
        (e.g, power plants in Germany)

Hey-

The agenda was set up before any of the working groups was formed, and
will be substantially revised, based mostly on the the information
supplied by the working group coordinators :) So it would be good to
have a sense of what to expect and how long it would reasonably take
before the hackathon start.

Maybe setting up a call with everyone would help?

-C

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############################
Chris Mutel
Technology Assessment Group, LEA
Paul Scherrer Institut
OHSA D22
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland
http://chris.mutel.org
Telefon: +41 56 310 5787
############################

The discussion on BEP0001 will continue here, I was not aware that a #BEP0001 already existed under the "MAIN" (where it should be) rather than under the "Hackathon" directory.

Int he future, don't do like me and make sure the #BEPxxxx are in the correct (Main) directory :)