System and method for indexing, organizing, storing and retrieving environmental information

• US 20060047692A1
• Filed: 02/14/2005
• Published: 03/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/05/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Envirospectives Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Envirospectives Incorporated
• Inventors: Rosenblum, Eric, Harris, Richard W., Byers, Lawrence F.
• Granted Patent: US 7,685,105 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide indexing, organizing, storing and/or retrieving of environmental information regarding a proposed environment-modifying project, including information about an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“project”); a natural, constructed or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“setting”); a change to the setting brought about by the project (“impact”); or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“mitigation”). The environmental information is indexed with metadata that may be hierarchically organized and made available to a reviewer in a controlled vocabulary or a user-defined vocabulary.

Claims

1. A method for accessing environmental information, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving environmental information regarding a proposed environment-modifying project, including information about an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“

project”

);

a natural, constructed or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“

setting”

);

a change to the setting brought about by the project (“

impact”

);

or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“

mitigation”

);

(b) associating at least some of the environmental information with metadata;

(c) receiving a request from a computer for requested environmental information, the requested information being the environmental information itself or any information associated with metadata or other information derived at least in part from the environmental information; and

(d) relating search terms, specific values or other user-specified indicators to the metadata and environmental information to facilitate retrieval of requested environmental information; and

(e) retrieving the requested environmental information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata is selected from a controlled vocabulary to characterize the environmental information.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata specifies an attribute of project, setting, impact or mitigation.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata specifies a geographic location.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata specifies a scientific name.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein a controlled vocabulary contains terms of metadata and the terms of metadata are related to each other either hierarchically or incidentally, including such relationships as “

broad”

, “

narrow”

, “

related to” and

“

used for”

.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein a controlled vocabulary contains terms of metadata and an electronic thesaurus relates one metadata term to the search terms, specific values or other user-specified indicators.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the request for environmental information further comprises a keyword, specific value or other user-specified indicator which was related by the electronic thesaurus to a metadata.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the electronic thesaurus contains place names related to latitude and longitude, or other geographic identifier.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein the electronic thesaurus contains common names of species related to the scientific names.

11. A system for accessing environmental information from a user computer, comprising:

an environmental database, the environmental database containing addresses to environmental information related to;

an environment-modifying event, the environment-modifying event including an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“

project”

);

a natural, constructed or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“

setting”

);

a change to the setting brought about by the project (“

impact”

);

or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“

mitigation”

);

a metadata database, the metadata database containing metadata associated with the addresses; and

a user interface, the user interface adapted to receive a search term from the user computer and applying the search term to the metadata database.

12. The system for accessing environmental information from the user computer of claim 11 wherein the user interface directly applies the search term to the metadata database.

13. The system for accessing environmental information from the user computer of claim 11 wherein the user interface indirectly applies the search term to the metadata database.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein the metadata is selected from a controlled vocabulary to characterize the environmental information.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein the metadata specifies an attribute of project, setting, impact or mitigation.

16. The method of claim 11 wherein the metadata specifies a scientific name.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein the metadata specifies a geographic location.

18. The method of claim 11 wherein a controlled vocabulary contains terms of metadata and the terms of metadata are related to each other either hierarchically or incidentally, including such relationships as “

broad”

, “

narrow”

, “

related to” and

“

used for”

.

19. The method of claim 11 wherein a controlled vocabulary contains terms of metadata and an electronic thesaurus relates one metadata term to search terms, specific values or other user-specified indicators.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the request for environmental information further comprises a keyword, specific value or other user-specified indicator which was related by the electronic thesaurus to a metadata.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein the electronic thesaurus contains place names related to latitude and longitude, or other geographic identifier.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein the electronic thesaurus contains common names of species related to the scientific names.

23. A system for accessing environmental information from a user computer, comprising:

an environmental database, the environmental database containing addresses to environmental information;

a metadata database, the metadata database containing metadata associated with the addresses, the metadata database containing a thesaurus, the thesaurus containing metadata terms arranged hierarchically; and

a user interface, the user interface adapted to receive a search term from the user computer and applying the search term to the metadata database.

24. The system of claim 23 wherein the thesaurus is a controlled vocabulary.

25. The system of claim 23 wherein the thesaurus is adapted to allow a search of related metadata terms.

26. A system for accessing environmental information from a user computer, comprising:

an environmental database, the environmental database containing addresses to environmental information;

a metadata database, the metadata database containing metadata associated with the addresses, the metadata database containing a thesaurus, the thesaurus containing metadata terms arranged hierarchically; and

a user interface, the user interface adapted to receive a search term from the user computer and applying the search term to the metadata database, wherein the user interface transmits to the user computer a list of data records.

27. The system of claim 26 wherein the list of data records is prioritized according to a number of instances of correspondence to search terms each data record contains.

28. The system of claim 26 wherein the list of data records is prioritized according to a number of instances of modifiers associated with the metadata each data record contains.

29. The system of claim 26 wherein the user interface provides abstracts of the data records along with the list of data records.

30. The system of claim 26 wherein the user interface provides hyperlinks to some of the data records identified in the list of data records.

31. A system for accessing environmental information from a digital device, comprising:

an environmental database, the environmental database containing addresses to environmental information related to;

an environment-modifying event, the environment-modifying event including an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“

project”

);

a natural, constructed or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“

setting”

);

a change to the setting brought about by the project (“

impact”

);

or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“

mitigation”

);

a metadata database, the metadata database containing metadata associated with the addresses; and

a digital device interface, the digital device interface adapted to receive a search term from the digital device and applying the search term to the metadata database.

32. The system for accessing environmental information from the digital device of claim 31 wherein the digital device interface directly applies the search term to the metadata database.

33. The system for accessing environmental information from the digital device of claim 31 wherein the digital device interface indirectly applies the search term to the metadata database.

34. The method of claim 31 wherein the metadata is selected from a controlled vocabulary to characterize the environmental information.

35. The method of claim 31 wherein the metadata specifies an attribute of project, setting, impact or mitigation.

36. The method of claim 31 wherein the metadata specifies a scientific name.

37. The method of claim 31 wherein the metadata specifies a geographic location.

38. The method of claim 31 wherein a controlled vocabulary contains terms of metadata and the terms of metadata are related to each other either hierarchically or incidentally, including such relationships as “

broad”

, “

narrow”

, “

related to” and

“

used for”

.

39. The method of claim 31 wherein a controlled vocabulary contains terms of metadata and an electronic thesaurus relates one metadata term to search terms, specific values or other digital device-specified indicators.

40. The method of claim 39 wherein the request for environmental information further comprises a keyword, specific value or other digital device-specified indicator which was related by the electronic thesaurus to a metadata.

41. The method of claim 39 wherein the electronic thesaurus contains place names related to latitude and longitude, or other geographic identifier.

42. The method of claim 39 wherein the electronic thesaurus contains common names of species related to the scientific names.

43. A method for accessing environmental information, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving environmental information regarding a proposed environment-modifying project, including information about an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“

project”

);

a natural, constructed or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“

setting”

);

a change to the setting brought about by the project (“

impact”

);

or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“

mitigation”

); and

(b) assigning metadata to the environmental information.

44. The method of claim 43 wherein the metadata is selected from a controlled vocabulary to characterize the environmental information.

45. The method of claim 44 wherein the metadata is selected from a user-specified vocabulary to characterize the environmental information.

46. The method of claim 43 wherein the metadata is selected from a controlled vocabulary of hierarchically-ordered metadata to characterize the environmental information.

47. The method of claim 43 wherein the metadata is selected from a pull-down menu.

48. The method of claim 43, wherein the metadata is provided by a thesaurus.

49. A method for searching environmental information, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a search term for searching environmental information regarding a proposed environment-modifying project, including information about an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“

project”

);

a natural, constructed or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“

setting”

);

a change to the setting brought about by the project (“

impact”

);

or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“

mitigation”

);

(b) relating the search term to a metadata term for searching the environmental information;

(c) retrieving the requested environmental information with the metadata term.

50. The method of claim 49, further comprising:

(d) prioritizing the requested environmental information.

51. The method of claim 49, further comprising:

(e) transmitting the requested environmental information.

52. The method of claim 51, further comprising:

(e) transmitting the requested environmental information to a digital device via the Internet.

53. The method of claim 49, further comprising:

(d) retaining a history of the method for searching environmental information.

54. A method for accessing environmental information, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving environmental information regarding a proposed environment-modifying project, including information about an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“

project”

);

a natural, constructed or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“

setting”

);

a change to the setting brought about by the project (“

impact”

);

or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“

mitigation”

); and

(b) assigning metadata to the environmental information wherein the metadata is assigned to user-selected locations in the environmental information.

55. The method of claim 54 wherein the environmental information is in a digital form.