An object-based approach to integration of software to support management and reporting of marine ecosystem survey data

Abstract

An object-based software to support distributed databases and data reporting from combined fisheries and environmental surveys is presented. The key abstraction of this system is expressed as a generic station (data) object. The station object consists of a nested data structure, to store a master record and a matrix of data cycles, and a behavior to capture this data structure from a variety of input data formats. The station objects are not a part of the main system, but are implemented as separate runtime plug-ins or user-defined with XML scripts. This makes this system easily adaptable to particular data collection needs of a given survey. Once the data are stored in the database, they are accessible through a set of generic data protocols. Through these protocols, implemented with the COM technology, the data are easily integrated with the user-end software on Windows, including GIS and numerical computing environments. Keywords: Marine Data Management, Object-based technology