Web Data Extraction, Applications and Techniques: A Survey

Web Data Extraction is an important problem that has been studied by means of different scientific tools and in a broad range of applications. Many approaches to extracting data from the Web have been designed to solve specific problems and operate in ad-hoc domains. Other approaches, instead, heavily reuse techniques and algorithms developed in the field of Information Extraction. This survey aims at providing a structured and comprehensive overview of the literature in the field of Web Data Extraction. We provided a simple classification framework in which existing Web Data Extraction applications are grouped into two main classes, namely applications at the Enterprise level and at the Social Web level. At the Enterprise level, Web Data Extraction techniques emerge as a key tool to perform data analysis in Business and Competitive Intelligence systems as well as for business process re-engineering. At the Social Web level, Web Data Extraction techniques allow to gather a large amount of structured data continuously generated and disseminated by Web 2.0, Social Media and Online Social Network users and this offers unprecedented opportunities to analyze human behavior at a very large scale. We discuss also the potential of cross-fertilization, i.e., on the possibility of re-using Web Data Extraction techniques originally designed to work in a given domain, in other domains.Comment: Knowledge-based System

Design & Deploy Web 2.0 enable services over Next Generation Network Platform

The Next Generation Networks (NGN) aims to integrate for IP-based telecom infrastructures and provide most advance & high speed emerging value added services. NGN capable to provide higher innovative services, these services will able to integrate communication and Web service into a single platform. IP Multimedia Subsystem, a NGN leading technology, enables a variety of NGN-compliant communications services to interoperate while being accessed through different kinds of access networks, preferably broadband. IMS-NGN services essential by both consumer and corporate users are by now used to access services, even communications services through the web and web-based communities and social networks, It is key for success of IMS-based services to be provided with efficient web access, so users can benefit from those new services by using web-based applications and user interfaces, not only NGN-IMS User Equipments and SIP protocol. Many Service are under planning which provided only under convergence of IMS & Web 2.0. Convergence between Web 2.0 and NGN-IMS creates and serves new invented innovative, entertainment and information appealing as well as user centric services and applications. These services merge features from WWW and Communication worlds. On the one hand, interactivity, ubiquity, social orientation, user participation and content generation, etc. are relevant characteristics coming from Web 2.0 services. Parallel IMS enables services including multimedia telephony, media sharing (video-audio), instant messaging with presence and context, online directory, etc. all of them applicable to mobile, fixed or convergent telecom networks. With this paper, this paper brings out the benefits of adopting web 2.0 technologies for telecom services. As the services are today mainly driven by the user's needs, and proposed the concept of unique customizable service interface

Visualizing genome and systems biology: technologies, tools, implementation techniques and trends, past, present and future.

"Α picture is worth a thousand words." This widely used adage sums up in a few words the notion that a successful visual representation of a concept should enable easy and rapid absorption of large amounts of information. Although, in general, the notion of capturing complex ideas using images is very appealing, would 1000 words be enough to describe the unknown in a research field such as the life sciences? Life sciences is one of the biggest generators of enormous datasets, mainly as a result of recent and rapid technological advances; their complexity can make these datasets incomprehensible without effective visualization methods. Here we discuss the past, present and future of genomic and systems biology visualization. We briefly comment on many visualization and analysis tools and the purposes that they serve. We focus on the latest libraries and programming languages that enable more effective, efficient and faster approaches for visualizing biological concepts, and also comment on the future human-computer interaction trends that would enable for enhancing visualization further

Collaborative Content Generation Architectures for the Mobile Augmented Reality Environment

The increasing adoption of smartphones by the society has created a new research area in mobile collaboration. This new domain offers an interesting set of possibilities due to the introduction of augmented reality techniques, which provide an enhanced collaboration experience. As this area is relatively immature, there is a lack of conceptualization, and for this reason, this paper proposes a new taxonomy called Collaborative Content Generation Pyramid that classifies the current and future mobile collaborative AR applications in three different levels: Isolated, Social and Live. This classification is based on the architectures related to each level, taking into account the way the AR content is generated and how the collaboration is carried out. Therefore, the principal objective of this definition is to clarify terminology issues and to provide a framework for classifying new researches across this environment

Will this work for Susan? Challenges for delivering usable and useful generic linked data browsers

While we witness an explosion of exploration tools for simple datasets on Web 2.0 designed for use by ordinary citizens, the goal of a usable interface for supporting navigation and sense-making over arbitrary linked data has remained elusive. The purpose of this paper is to analyse why - what makes exploring linked data so hard? Through a user-centered use case scenario, we work through requirements for sense making with data to extract functional requirements and to compare these against our tools to see what challenges emerge to deliver a useful, usable knowledge building experience with linked data. We present presentation layer and heterogeneous data integration challenges and offer practical considerations for moving forward to effective linked data sensemaking tools

A survey of visualization tools for biological network analysis

The analysis and interpretation of relationships between biological molecules, networks and concepts is becoming a major bottleneck in systems biology. Very often the pure amount of data and their heterogeneity provides a challenge for the visualization of the data. There are a wide variety of graph representations available, which most often map the data on 2D graphs to visualize biological interactions. These methods are applicable to a wide range of problems, nevertheless many of them reach a limit in terms of user friendliness when thousands of nodes and connections have to be analyzed and visualized. In this study we are reviewing visualization tools that are currently available for visualization of biological networks mainly invented in the latest past years. We comment on the functionality, the limitations and the specific strengths of these tools, and how these tools could be further developed in the direction of data integration and information sharing

Developing Data Extraction and Dynamic Data Visualization (Styling) Modules for Web GIS Risk Assessment System (WGRAS)

Interactive web-GIS tools play an important role in determining disaster risk assessment which ultimately result in reduction of unexpected damages, cost and saves millions of lives. Disaster management practitioners largely benefited information at their disposal about location where possible incidents are eminent, anticipate the impact and project possible outcomes to help mitigate and organize proper response. It is also important to note that, accurate and timely information is critical for coherent coordination in response to disasters. All the above can be achieved through proper data collection combined with computer assisted modelling, analysis, production and timely dissemination of spatial information. This Master’s thesis aims to extend features of Web GIS for Risk Assessment (WGRAS) project conducted at the Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science at Lund University. The work includes development of tools for geospatial data acquisition and extraction from freely available external open non-commercial sources and dynamic, user-oriented map Visualization allowing user-defined symbolization and coloring resulting flexible visual portrayal of geospatial data in the web environment. In this regard, solutions are driven based upon open source, open data and implementation strictly complies with open web standard protocols and web services. As a result, WGRAS is furnished with easy and user driven raw geo-spatial data extracts for an area of interest from OpenStreetMap (OSM). Thus, data is automatically stored for later use for different spatial modelling and analysis. The second most important contribution of this thesis is the feature developed to solve visualization of geographic information through a map server where maps are generated with a pre-defined style that limits user’s visual needs. Visualization module enables dynamic definition of style (symbolization and coloring) data which assist non-GIS expert to produce instant and meaningful presentation of maps to the end user. Overall, the work in this practical thesis adds value to disaster management and analysis in terms of easy provision of data and enabling clear dissection of disaster prone areas using effective visualization mechanism.Interactive web-GIS tools play an important role in determining disaster risk assessment which ultimately result in reduction of unexpected damages, cost and saves millions of lives. Disaster management practitioners largely benefited information at their disposal about location where possible incidents are eminent, anticipate the impact and project possible outcomes to help mitigate and organized response. It is also important to note that, accurate and timely information is critical for coherent coordination in response to disasters. This can be achieved through proper data collection combined with computer assisted modelling, analysis, production and timely dissemination of spatial information. This Master’s thesis aims to extend features of Web GIS for Risk Assessment (WGRAS) project conducted at the Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science at Lund University. Modules are developed to enable easy integration of geospatial data extraction from freely available sources which are open to use and non-commercial. Implementation is facilitated with intuitive user interface which allows extracts for an area by location name(s) or area defined by two latitude and two longitude values. The other major contribution of the study focuses on visualization of geographic information in the web environment. Currently, map servers use pre-defined styling mechanism which virtually doesn’t satisfy user’s visual needs. This module enable dynamic and user-oriented map visualization allowing non-GIS experts to define (symbolization and colouring) and produce instant and meaningful presentation of maps to the end user. As recommendation, visualization of geographic data in the web environment should further be examined, especially the map servers in use should integrate powerful and meaningful dynamic styling on top existing pre-defined style. In conclusion, this thesis adds value for disaster management and analysis in terms of easy provision of geographic data and enabling clear dissection of disaster prone areas using effective visualization mechanism

Enterprise 2.0 – Is The Market Ready?

Enterprise 2.0 family technologies have growing popularity, the cloud computing market is growing rapidly and, as a consequence, companies of all sizes start to evaluate the potential fit. The use of “Software as a Service”, “Platform as a Service” and “Infrastructure as a Service” has been evolving during the past years and has become increasingly popular. As its computing viability and benefits are legitimized, the adoption rate is rapidly increasing. The most popular business model in the abovementioned family is by far “Software as a Service” (also called SaaS), which is a software distribution model assuming the software applications are hosted and maintained by the vendor or the distributor, and user access is granted exclusively by means of the Internet. Based on both literature review and action research, the paper at hand is a synthesis for the results of an empirical study performed during the last two years among Romanian and foreign companies, in order to outline and provide an objective and unbiased answer to the question: “Is the market ready for these technologies or did they come too soon?”. The paper is a part of a larger research performed by the author in the field of Enterprise 2.0 technologies.Enterprise 2.0, Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Empirical study