GENISYS
General Identification System
Genisys started as Nemisys, Nematode Identification System, back in
1986, as a joint project between a biologist (R. Fortuner, then at
California Department of Food and Agriculture) and two computer
scientists (J. Diederich and J.
Milton, from University of California at Davis).
The object of Nemisys was to design a computer system that would make
it possible for those with ordinary knowledge of nematodes (and not
only
expert taxonomists) to identify these plant parasites to the species
level.
Nemisys became Genisys when we realized that the concepts and tools
could
be used also to identify any biological species.
The basic idea behing Nemisys/Genisys was to create a formated set of
identification characters (a schema), then establish databases with
species
descriptions according to this schema, and finally provide a set of
identification
tools based on these databases.
Genisys was novel in that it introduced the schema concept and it
provided also a set of tools that would allow the user to follow any
approach to identification. The tools would include all existing
dichotomous "keys", probabilistic tools, Delta-based tools, and novel
tools such as tools based on a new concept,
the promorph, that would facilitate identification by "instant
recognition",
an approach previously used only by specialists in the art.
We tried to obtain funding for Nemisys, then for Genisys, but, except
for a small grant from CDFA that made it possible to build and test a
pilot version of "Terminator", we were unable to get any grants from
National Science
Foundation, UNESCO, and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
Then
the project suffered when one of us (RF) quit his job and returned to
France
where he was unable to find a position as a nematologist. We tried to
continue
publishing some papers and work on the project but Genisys finally died
when the other two members retired in 2005.
What remains from the Nemisys/Genisys effort are several novel
concepts, presented in a number of articles (list), plus the Terminator and a
schema for Tylenchida.
The Terminator was a tool for extracting formatted characters out of an
unformatted text. Starting from descriptions published in the
literature, Terminator recognized words from the schema (list of
characters) and tried to transform a plain English sentence into a
piece of formatted data to
be placed in a Genisys database. Most of the Work was done
automatically
by the tool, but a human operator was present for solving unresolved
parts
in the description. A prototype was built (thanks to a grant from CDFA)
and
proved the concept to be valid and usable in practice. No funds were
available
for developing the actual full size tool.
The schema was the list of all of the characters recognized in
published nematode species descriptions. A first schema was built for
the nematode order Tylenchida. It was used successfully by Terminator.
It was planed to use Terminator for automatic updates of the schema,
whereas any piece of data
found by Terminator in a published description and identified as such
by
the operator would be added to the schema. Further occurences of a
similar piece of data would then be recognized automatically by
Terminator without any action from the operator.
The Nemisys/Genisys project is dead, but it is hoped that someone will
be interested by of its concepts and pick up the work where we left it.
The Tylenchida Schema
Terminator
Other concepts:
For any enquiry on Genisys, please contact R. Fortuner at:
La Cure, 86420 Verrue, France,
Email: fortuner@wanadoo.fr
Tel: (33) *5 49 50 41 90