Biological Information Browsing Environment

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

DBI 9982849 Heidorn University of Illinois, UC Biological Information Browsing Environment Abstract Specimen identification is one of the main tasks in biodiversity surveys. These surveys are conducted to evaluate the impact of local development as well as to evaluate the impact of global processes such as global environment change. They also aid in research that aims to understand the interdependencies between species. The specimen identification process is most difficult and time consuming for the non-professionals who are being called upon to aid in this work. Standard identification keys are difficult to use because of the rigid structure of the character representation. Interactive keys are an improvement but are difficult to construct and may not be the best approach for all situations. The PI proposes to increase the options by developing a Biological Information Browsing Environment (BIBE). BIBE would allow a user to visualize the contents of natural language descriptions from flora, fauna and other natural language species description collections. This visualization could then be used to facilitate specimen identification.