TNRS Agenda
Meeting Venue: Missouri Botanical Garden, Commerce Bank Education Center, Room 126, at the corner of Shaw Blvd. and Kings Highway. Please enter from Kings Highway.
Wed. March 31
Out-of-town participants arrive. Transfer to accommodations at Trelease House
Thursday April 1
7:00 am Continental Breakfast at Commerce Bank Education Center, Room 126
Session 1: Science goals and the need for a TNRS
8:00 am – 12:00 pm
Moderator: Peter Jorgensen
Session overview. General introduction and overview of the goals and structure of the meeting. What is the Taxonomic impediment? What is a Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS), who needs it, and why? Presentations by participants summarizing the challenge of taxonomy with respect to their own research, including what they have done in the past to address the "taxonomic impediment". The goal of this session is to produce a broad justification of the need for a TNRS, as defined by specific science goals. Presentations should be roughly 15 minutes, plus 5 minutes for questions.
8:00 – 8:10 Welcome and introduction (Peter Jorgensen, Missouri Botanical Garden)
8:10 – 8:30 Brian Enquist (BIEN/University of Arizona) - Overview of science goals
8:30 – 8:50 Brad Boyle (BIEN/University of Arizona) – SALVIAS, BIEN, and the challenge of taxonomy
8:50 – 9:10 Peter Jorgensen (MBG/BIEN) - The Madidi Project: Ecological inventories and the challenge of taxonomy
9:10 – 9:30 Amy Zanne (UMSL/APWeb) - Taxonomy and large-scale ecological analyses
9:30 – 9:50 Bill Piel (iPlant/TOL)
9:50 – 10:10 Peter Stevens (MBG/APWeb/WoW) - Angiosperm Phylogeny Web and the Generic Synonymy initiative
10:10 – 10:30 Break (Coffee and light refreshements)
10:30 – 11:10 Bob Magill/Chuck Miller (MBG) - TROPICOS: What it is, what it is not; how Tropicos in the past has solved problems with name matching; what Tropicos can provide now; what is needed with regard to cyberinfrastructure but also population of the database to provide more refined solutions in the future
11:10 – 11:30 Bob Peet (UNC/BIEN) - Extracting taxonomic concepts from existing synonymy
11:30 – 12:00 Wrap-up to Session 1: Goals of the current project & relationship to other TNRS initiatives (ubio, GNA/GNI/GNUB, etc.). - Brad Boyle, moderator.
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch in the Sassafras Cafe
Session 2: Attributes of the TNRS
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Session overview. What is needed? Define (1) functionality and (2) data sources needed to solve the challenges outlined in Session 1. Compile use-cases to be used as basis for formal requirements. This session will consist of a series of discussions structured around key questions and challenges.
1:00 – 1:20 Sheldon McKay (iPlant) [arrives late morning; talk moved from morning session]
1:20 – 3:00 Name matching (Moderator: Bob Peet)
o What is name matching, and how does it differ from synonymy?
o Types of input (examples from ecological data, sequence data, etc.)
o Types of error: misspellings, orthographic variants, contamination with extraneous data
o Extracting/preserving additional information in input (annotations, morphospecies, etc.)
o Incomplete identifications, morphospecies, and higher taxa (e.g., family)
o Fuzzy matching and match scoring
o User interpretation and correction: how much can we automate?
o Policy on orthographic variants and misspellings
o Data: issues combining TROPICOS and IPNI names
3:00 – 3:20 Break (Coffee and light refreshements)
3:20 – 5:30 Synonymy and concepts (Moderator: Brad Boyle)
o Monographic vs. regional synonymy
o Simple vs. complex synonymy
o Name relationships, concepts and set theory
o Conflicting concepts
o Flagging uncertainty
o Prioritizing synonymies
o Forward compatibility with full concept taxonomy
o Expected output
o User interpretation and adjudication of ambiguity
o Data:
o Sources of digitized synonymy (regional and monographic)
o Options for capture of non-digitized monographic synonymy
6:30 pm Dinner and libations, location TBA
Friday April 2
7:00 am Continental Breakfast at Commerce Bank Education Center, Room 126
Session 3 – Summarize requirements
8:00 am – 12 noon
Moderator: Brian Enquist
Session overview. Finish discussing attributes of the TNRS. Prepare final list of specific requirements (to be used to prepare formal requirements document after meeting). Draft potential timeline and assign responsibilities.
8:00 – 9:00 Additional issues:
o Batch processing requirements
o User interface: what's needed, what's not
9:00 – 10:00 Summary of requirements for TNRS (what's doable, what's not)
o Prioritize into short-term (1 year) and long term (>1 year)
10:00 – 10:15 Break (Coffee and light refreshements)
10:20 – 12:00 Action items
o Deliverables & responsibilities.
o Timeline
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch in the Sassafras Cafe
1:00 – 2:30 Summarize conclusions of meeting. Agree on immediate next steps, plus plans for additional meetings.
2:30 pm Meeting over. Out-of-town participants depart St. Louis