Exploring user and system requirements of linked data visualization through a visual dashboard approach

One of the open problems in SemanticWeb research is which tools should be provided to users to explore linked data. This is even more urgent now that massive amount of linked data is being released by governments worldwide. The development of single dedicated visualization applications is increasing, but the problem of exploring unknown linked data to gain a good understanding of what is contained is still open. An effective generic solution must take into account the user’s point of view, their tasks and interaction, as well as the system’s capabilities and the technical constraints the technology imposes. This paper is a first step in understanding the implications of both, user and system by evaluating our dashboard-based approach. Though we observe a high user acceptance of the dashboard approach, our paper also highlights technical challenges arising out of complexities involving current infrastructure that need to be addressed while visualising linked data. In light of the findings, guidelines for the development of linked data visualization (and manipulation) are provided

Report of the Stanford Linked Data Workshop

The Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) conducted at week-long workshop on the prospects for a large scale, multi-national, multi-institutional prototype of a Linked Data environment for discovery of and navigation among the rapidly, chaotically expanding array of academic information resources. As preparation for the workshop, CLIR sponsored a survey by Jerry Persons, Chief Information Architect emeritus of SULAIR that was published originally for workshop participants as background to the workshop and is now publicly available. The original intention of the workshop was to devise a plan for such a prototype. However, such was the diversity of knowledge, experience, and views of the potential of Linked Data approaches that the workshop participants turned to two more fundamental goals: building common understanding and enthusiasm on the one hand and identifying opportunities and challenges to be confronted in the preparation of the intended prototype and its operation on the other. In pursuit of those objectives, the workshop participants produced:1. a value statement addressing the question of why a Linked Data approach is worth prototyping;2. a manifesto for Linked Libraries (and Museums and Archives and …);3. an outline of the phases in a life cycle of Linked Data approaches;4. a prioritized list of known issues in generating, harvesting & using Linked Data;5. a workflow with notes for converting library bibliographic records and other academic metadata to URIs;6. examples of potential “killer apps” using Linked Data: and7. a list of next steps and potential projects.This report includes a summary of the workshop agenda, a chart showing the use of Linked Data in cultural heritage venues, and short biographies and statements from each of the participants

How Close to Two Dimensions Does a Lennard-Jones System Need to Be to Produce a Hexatic Phase?

We report on a computer simulation study of a Lennard-Jones liquid confined in a narrow slit pore with tunable attractive walls. In order to investigate how freezing in this system occurs, we perform an analysis using different order parameters. Although some of the parameters indicate that the system goes through a hexatic phase, other parameters do not. This shows that to be certain whether a system has a hexatic phase, one needs to study not only a large system, but also several order parameters to check all necessary properties. We find that the Binder cumulant is the most reliable one to prove the existence of a hexatic phase. We observe an intermediate hexatic phase only in a monolayer of particles confined such that the fluctuations in the positions perpendicular to the walls are less then 0.15 particle diameters, i. e. if the system is practically perfectly 2d

The Evolution of myExperiment

The myExperiment social website for sharing scientific workflows, designed according to Web 2.0 principles, has grown to be the largest public repository of its kind. It is distinctive for its focus on sharing methods, its researcher-centric design and its facility to aggregate content into sharable 'research objects'. This evolution of myExperiment has occurred hand in hand with its users. myExperiment now supports Linked Data as a step toward our vision of the future research environment, which we categorise here as '3rd generation e-Research'

Enhancing Workflow with a Semantic Description of Scientific Intent

Peer reviewedPreprin

Structural anomalies of fluids: Origins in second and higher coordination shells

Compressing or cooling a fluid typically enhances its static interparticle correlations. However, there are notable exceptions. Isothermal compression can reduce the translational order of fluids that exhibit anomalous waterlike trends in their thermodynamic and transport properties, while isochoric cooling (or strengthening of attractive interactions) can have a similar effect on fluids of particles with short-range attractions. Recent simulation studies by Yan [Phys. Rev. E 76, 051201 (2007)] on the former type of system and Krekelberg [J. Chem. Phys. 127, 044502 (2007)] on the latter provide examples where such structural anomalies can be related to specific changes in second and more distant coordination shells of the radial distribution function. Here, we confirm the generality of this microscopic picture through analysis, via molecular simulation and integral equation theory, of coordination shell contributions to the two-body excess entropy for several related model fluids which incorporate different levels of molecular resolution. The results suggest that integral equation theory can be an effective and computationally inexpensive tool for assessing, based on the pair potential alone, whether new model systems are good candidates for exhibiting structural (and hence thermodynamic and transport) anomalies.Chemical Engineerin

SICS MarketSpace: an agent-based market infrastructure

We present a simple and uniform communication framework for an agent-based market infrastructure, the goal of which is to enable automation of markets with self-interested participants distributed over the Internet