FY 2002 Innovative proposal 34010

Section 1. General administrative information
Section 2. Past accomplishments
Section 3. Relationships to other projects
Section 4. Budgets for planning/design phase
Section 5. Budgets for construction/implementation phase
Section 6. Budgets for operations/maintenance phase
Section 7. Budgets for monitoring/evaluation phase
Section 8. Budget summary

Reviews and Recommendations

Additional documents

Title	Type
34010 Narrative	Narrative

Section 1. Administrative

Proposal title	Visualization Tools for Information Discovery and Decision Support
Proposal ID	34010
Organization	Pacific Northwest National Laboratory/Battelle (PNNL)
Proposal contact person or principal investigator
Name	Patricia A. Medvick
Mailing address	P.O. Box 999 Richland, WA 99352
Phone / email	5093752147 / [email protected]
Manager authorizing this project	John Calhoun
Review cycle	FY 2002 Innovative
Province / Subbasin	Systemwide / Systemwide
Short description	Facilitate decision making by providing a suite of software tools for information access and visual analysis that help to quickly find and extract specific information from a vast array of text documents (reports, journals, messages, e-mail, etc.).
Target species	This software would facilitate finding information relevant to a particular population

Project location

Latitude	Longitude	Description
		PNNL offices in Richland, WA

Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPAs)

Sponsor-reported:

RPA

Relevant RPAs based on NMFS/BPA review:

Reviewing agency	Action #	BiOp Agency	Description

Section 2. Past accomplishments

Year	Accomplishment

Section 3. Relationships to other projects

Project ID	Title	Description

Section 4. Budget for Planning and Design phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Task	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost	Subcontractor

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost

Outyear budgets for Planning and Design phase

Section 5. Budget for Construction and Implementation phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Task	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost
1. Define ingest paths for documents	a. Document labor-intensive ingest methods	0.5	$0
1.	b. Explore commercial products	0.3	$0
1.	c. Establish paths for document ingestion	0.5	$0
Total Cost for Task 1			$19,770
2. Define format for documents in repository	a. Evaluate text chunking styles	0.3	$0
2.	b. Automate chunking style	1.0	$0
Total Cost for Task 2			$30,285
3. Identy segments containing noise	a. Find and document meaningless segments	0.2	$0
3.	b. Automate noise removal	0.5	$0
Total Cost for Task 3			$12,942
4. Optimize interface	a. Establish sets of example queries	0.3	$0
4.	b. Define common query patterns	0.4	$0
4.	c. Explore script creation	0.5	$0
4.	d. Implement query specializations	1.0	$0
Total Cost for Task 4			$23,727
5. Integrate system for Fish and Wildlife	a. Ongoing integration of implementation	1.5	$0
Total Cosr fir Task 5			$22,945
6. Test system to insure quality	a. Iteratively test throughout development	1.0	$0
6.	b. Conduct workshops for feedback	1.0	$0
6.	c. Final version testing	1.0	$0
Total Cost for Task 6			$58,329
7. Deploy	a. Establish software at Federal agencies	0.5	$0
7.	b. Create repositories	0.5	$0
7.	c. Provide introductory training & support	1.0	$0
Total Cost for Task 7			$13,346
Subcontractor Costs (Anadromous Fish Ecology, Columbia River Research Lab, U.S. Geological Survey, Cook, WA)	(To be paid directly by BPA)		$18,523

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost

Outyear budgets for Construction and Implementation phase

Section 6. Budget for Operations and Maintenance phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Task	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost	Subcontractor

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost

Outyear budgets for Operations and Maintenance phase

Section 7. Budget for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Task-based budget

Objective	Task	Duration in FYs	Estimated 2002 cost	Subcontractor

Outyear objectives-based budget

Objective	Starting FY	Ending FY	Estimated cost

Outyear budgets for Monitoring and Evaluation phase

Section 8. Estimated budget summary

Itemized budget

Item	Note	FY 2002 cost
Personnel	FTE: 0.7	$59,428
Fringe		$15,511
Supplies		$5,200
Travel	3 2-day trips to Portland for 4 PNNL personnel	$9,732
Indirect		$67,745
Capital	0	$0
PIT tags	# of tags: 0	$0
NEPA	0	$0
Subcontractor	Anadromous Fish Ecology, Columbia River Resources Division, U.S. Geological Survey, Cook, WA	$18,523
Other	Fee	$23,728
		$199,867

Total estimated budget

Total FY 2002 cost	$199,867
Total FY 2002 budget request	$199,867

Cost sharing

Organization	Item or service provided	Amount	Cash or in-kind

Reviews and recommendations

This information was not provided on the original proposals, but was generated during the review process.

REVIEW:
ISRP Review (ISRP 2002-8)

Recommendation:
Fund - Rank 11

Date:
May 24, 2002

Comment:

This 11th ranked proposal is innovative and fundable. It is a good proposal to address a potentially monumental problem facing the scientific community in the region. The PI's from PNNL propose to specialize PNNL software called, IN-SPIRE, to help one quickly extract and use information from electronic documents. IN-SPIRE has been developed to accept large volumes of unformatted text, determine dominant topics and relationships within the text, and present the results in a visual format that can be interpreted intuitively. This approach has the potential to uncover hidden information in large document collections and facilitates finding pertinent information without requiring investigators to read through every document in a collection.

However, the ISRP was not totally convinced that the software is really better than use of an existing search engine plus one's own well-tuned judgment. On the one hand, information glut is a real problem, but much of the problem comes from the glut of low quality information that must be sifted and weighed with judgment. This proposed software does not address information quality.

A drawback is that apparently the software is classified and could only be used by federal natural resource management agencies. The PNNL IN-SPIRE software suite was originally developed for the U.S. intelligence community. Use of IN-SPIRE will allow federal agencies involved in Columbia River resource management to analyze textual information from a variety of sources more quickly and more comprehensively.

The staff at PNNL have the technical training and experience necessary to have a high probability of producing a useful product. A primary question that should be addressed during the contracting period is access to the software by the public given that the project will be funded through the Council's Fish and Wildlife Program. In particular, access to the products of the project by state and tribal agencies would seem to be necessary. Even if the software cannot be made available to non-federal agencies, the cost of this project seems like a bargain for providing information to a substantial proportion of the scientific community in the Northwest U.S.

REVIEW:
CBFWA Funding Recommendation

Recommendation:
Recommended Action

Date:
Jun 28, 2002

Comment:

REVIEW:
NMFS Review

Recommendation:

Date:
Jul 12, 2002

Comment:

Statement of Potential Biological Benefit
No benefit to listed species.

Comments
There is absolutely no merit to this proposed work. There is no need for a computer based information discovery tool to support decision making on natural resource management issues in the Columbia River Basin. The premise of this proposal is flawed: there is so much information appearing in reports and publications that decision makers cannot be properly informed to make optimal decisions. While it is true that the volume of reports generated by natural resource management agencies is daunting, the information content is so negligible that it is a trivial exercise to maintain a detailed understanding of the current state of affairs. Staying current on a technical topic is the responsibility of technical staff, their activities or lack thereof, and cannot be replaced by a glorified search engine. Finally, an expert search tool will not replace quality work and content in report, publication, and proposal presentation.

Already ESA Required?
No

Biop?
No

REVIEW:
NMFS Review

Recommendation:

Date:
Jul 12, 2002

Comment:

Statement of Potential Biological Benefit to ESU
No benefit to listed species.

Comments
There is absolutely no merit to this proposed work. There is no need for a computer based information discovery tool to support decision making on natural resource management issues in the Columbia River basin. The premise of this proposal is flawed: there is so much information appearing in reports and publications that decision makers cannot be properly informed to make optimal decisions. While it is true that the volume of reports generated by natural resource management agencies is daunting, the information content is so negligible that it is a trivial exercise to maintain a detailed understanding of the current state of affairs. Staying current on a technical topic is the responsibility of technical staff, their activities or lack thereof, and cannot be replaced by a glorified search engine. Finally, an expert search tool will not replace quality work and content in report, publication, and proposal presentation.

Already ESA Req? No

Biop? No