FOSP: Towards a Federated Object Sharing Protocol that Unifies Operations on Social Content

Years ago, the World Wide Web (WWW) began as a system for publishing interlinked hypertext documents. While the protocols on top of which the WWW is built are almost still the same, the usage, as well as the content has changed significantly. Simple delivery of hypertext documents has been expanded by operations, such as uploading, sharing, and commenting on pieces of content. Online Social Networks (OSNs) and other IT services provide aggregated views on these pieces of content. However, the services are often implemented as vendor specific applications on top of common web technologies, such as HTTP, HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Moreover, users are locked into these applications of dedicated providers, which prevents sharing of content across applications and limits the control users have over their data. Most existing approaches that overcome these issues focus on defining a common HTTP API or prefer solutions based on peer-to-peer networks. In this paper, we start by discussing related work and identifying essential requirements for an appropriate solution. Furthermore, we outline the concept and implementation of a Federated Object Sharing Protocol (FOSP), i.e, a different approach to support todays common operations on social content already on a protocol level. We show that services built on top of this protocol can be federated by default, i.e., users registered with different providers can easily interact with each other. Finally, we provide an evaluation and discussion on the proposed approach

Understanding Federation: An Analytical Framework for the Interoperability of Social Networking Sites

Although social networking has become a remarkable feature in the Web, full interoperability has not arrived. This work explores the main 5 paradigms of interoperability across social networking sites, corresponding to the layers in which we an find interoperability. Building on those, a novel analytical framework for SNS interoperability is introduced. Seven representative interoperability SNS technologies are compared using the proposed framework. The analysis exposes an overwhelming disparity and fragmentation in the solutions for tackling the same problems. Although there are a few solutions where consensus is reached and are widely adopted (e.g. in object IDs), there are multiple central issues that are still far from being widely standarized (e.g. in profile representation). In addition, several areas have been identified where there is clear room for improvement, such as privacy controls or data synchronization

Evaluating the potential of internet GIS technology for managing and sharing diverse spatial information: A case study of the National Trust for Scotland

Emerging Internet GIS technology offers an attractive solution to some data interoperability problems by incorporating existing Internet framework standards, providing familiar web browsers as user interfaces and enabling access to data anywhere at anytime. This study investigates the capability of Internet GIS technology for managing and sharing data using the specific example of the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) as an internationally recognised non-governmental organisation uniquely responsible for the protection and conservation of both the cultural and natural heritage of Scotland. This research first looks at the organisation and evaluates their perceived requirements through semi-structured interviews conducted at selected NTS properties and regional and central offices. The second stage demonstrates how these requirements can be addressed using Internet GIS technology, through the creation of three demonstration systems using two software packages, ArcIMS and ASPMap. Arc IMS was selected as an example of a commercial GIS software product and ASPMap as an example of a bespoke system. NTS staff then evaluated these demonstration systems through questionnaires and during a face-to-face feedback and evaluation session. The specific case study is used to broach common sets of issues such as data access and interoperability, which are shared throughout many research sectors and are becoming more important with the fast developing nature of the Internet. The importance of interoperability and the benefits of adhering to metadata guidelines and open standards are discussed in conjunction with internal and external data sharing. Recent advancements in web service technology and their potential for inter- organisational data exchange are also discussed. If pitched practically to address user's needs, an Internet GIS would be invaluable for a spatially oriented organisation like NTS. Results indicated that users required basic GIS functionality and favoured a bespoke approach, both for financial and practical reasons

Desktop client for open social networks

Sociálne siete zažívajú v poslednej dekáde obrovský romach a ovplyvnili nielen spôsob on-line komunikácie a sociálnej interakcie ale tiež oblasť obchodu, médií či vládnych inštitúcií. Avšak ich hlavný nedostatok, uzvretý a centralizovaný charakter, ostáva nepovšimnutý medzi širokou verejnosťou. Táto práca pojednáva a hodnotí ich otvorené a decentralizované alternatívy a súčasne sa zameriava na jednu konkrétnu - buddycloud. Vďaka využitiu XMPP protokolu, buddycloud a jeho protokol Channel sa javí ako sľubný prístup pre otvorenie ekosystému sociálnych sietí. Umožňuje im komunikovať federatívnym spôsobom ako funguje dnes e-mailová sieť. Ako príspevok do projektu buddycloud táto práca predstavuje aplikáciu SocialDesktopClient, desktopový klient pre širokú škálu sociálnych sietí. Bližšie sa zaoberá modulárnym návrhom klienta a implementáciou protokolu Channel ako prvej sociálnej sieti.For the past decade social network sites emerged rapidly and effect not only online communication and social experience but also businesses, media and governments. However, their greatest deficiency, closed and centralized character, remains unnoticed among the general public. This thesis discusses and evaluates open and decentralized alternatives for them and draws attention to one particular - buddycloud. While leveraging the use of XMPP protocol, buddycloud with its Channel protocol appears to be a promising approach for opening ecosystem of social networks. It enables them to work in federated manner like e-mail network does today. As a contribution to the buddycloud project this thesis presents SocialDesktopClient, a desktop client for multiple social network services. It deals with modular client architecture and a Channel protocol implementation as the client's first social network service.Department of Applied MathematicsKatedra aplikované matematikyFaculty of Mathematics and PhysicsMatematicko-fyzikální fakult

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate

A Quadruple-Based Text Analysis System for History and Philosophy of Science

abstract: Computational tools in the digital humanities often either work on the macro-scale, enabling researchers to analyze huge amounts of data, or on the micro-scale, supporting scholars in the interpretation and analysis of individual documents. The proposed research system that was developed in the context of this dissertation ("Quadriga System") works to bridge these two extremes by offering tools to support close reading and interpretation of texts, while at the same time providing a means for collaboration and data collection that could lead to analyses based on big datasets. In the field of history of science, researchers usually use unstructured data such as texts or images. To computationally analyze such data, it first has to be transformed into a machine-understandable format. The Quadriga System is based on the idea to represent texts as graphs of contextualized triples (or quadruples). Those graphs (or networks) can then be mathematically analyzed and visualized. This dissertation describes two projects that use the Quadriga System for the analysis and exploration of texts and the creation of social networks. Furthermore, a model for digital humanities education is proposed that brings together students from the humanities and computer science in order to develop user-oriented, innovative tools, methods, and infrastructures.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Biology 201

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate