Distributed Information Retrieval using Keyword Auctions

This report motivates the need for large-scale distributed approaches to information retrieval, and proposes solutions based on keyword auctions

Developing front-end Web 2.0 technologies to access services, content and things in the future Internet

The future Internet is expected to be composed of a mesh of interoperable web services accessible from all over the web. This approach has not yet caught on since global user?service interaction is still an open issue. This paper states one vision with regard to next-generation front-end Web 2.0 technology that will enable integrated access to services, contents and things in the future Internet. In this paper, we illustrate how front-ends that wrap traditional services and resources can be tailored to the needs of end users, converting end users into prosumers (creators and consumers of service-based applications). To do this, we propose an architecture that end users without programming skills can use to create front-ends, consult catalogues of resources tailored to their needs, easily integrate and coordinate front-ends and create composite applications to orchestrate services in their back-end. The paper includes a case study illustrating that current user-centred web development tools are at a very early stage of evolution. We provide statistical data on how the proposed architecture improves these tools. This paper is based on research conducted by the Service Front End (SFE) Open Alliance initiative

An Innovative Workspace for The Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is an initiative to build the next generation, ground-based gamma-ray observatories. We present a prototype workspace developed at INAF that aims at providing innovative solutions for the CTA community. The workspace leverages open source technologies providing web access to a set of tools widely used by the CTA community. Two different user interaction models, connected to an authentication and authorization infrastructure, have been implemented in this workspace. The first one is a workflow management system accessed via a science gateway (based on the Liferay platform) and the second one is an interactive virtual desktop environment. The integrated workflow system allows to run applications used in astronomy and physics researches into distributed computing infrastructures (ranging from clusters to grids and clouds). The interactive desktop environment allows to use many software packages without any installation on local desktops exploiting their native graphical user interfaces. The science gateway and the interactive desktop environment are connected to the authentication and authorization infrastructure composed by a Shibboleth identity provider and a Grouper authorization solution. The Grouper released attributes are consumed by the science gateway to authorize the access to specific web resources and the role management mechanism in Liferay provides the attribute-role mapping

Meeting users where they are: Delivering dynamic content and services through a campus portal

Campus portals are one of the most visible and frequently used online spaces for students, offering one-stop access to key services for learning and academic self-management. This case study reports how instruction librarians at the University of Vermont collaborated with portal developers in the registrar’s office to develop high-impact, point-of-need content for a dedicated “Library” page. This content was then created in LibGuides and published using the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for LibGuides boxes. Initial usage data and analytics show that traffic to the libraries’ portal page has been substantially and consistently higher than expected. The next phase for the project will be the creation of customized library content that is responsive to the student’s user profile