Organizing LCA Data in Antelope

Interfaces

The problem of LCA computation can be broken up into several distinct pieces, each of which utilizes different kinds of information and requires different levels of access to sensitive data. The Antelope API is divided up into the following seven distinct interfaces:

Contents:

• Basic Interface
• Index Interface
• Exchange Interface
• Quantity Interface
• Background Interface
• Configure Interface
• Foreground Interface

The

Interface	Description	Values?	Writable?
basic	Retrieve documentary information about a data object
index	Information about the contents of different data sources, including quantities, flows, processes, reference flows, and contexts
exchange	The exchange relation, i.e. flows exchanged by processes	exchange values
quantity	The characterization relation, i.e. different quantities of measure for flows	characterization values	in foreground
background	The construction and inversion of technology matrix, multiplied by environment matrix	LCI results
configure	Information about how flows are characterized and processes are allocated and linked during background computation		for own resources
foreground	Working environment for constructing models through reference to the other interfaces		for own foregrounds

Each interface is handled by a separate Antelope subclass. Click on the links to read about them.

Implementation

The Antelope interfaces are all subclasses of an abstract query class. Each antelope interface can be implemented by creating a subclass and implementing the abstract methods.