From ZigZag to BigBag: Seeing the Wood and the Trees

This paper reports on a one year speculative research project that sought to test the technical feasibility, practical implications and usability of transforming an XML Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aid into an XML ZigZag™ structure and applying a relational browser interface

MeLinDa: an interlinking framework for the web of data

The web of data consists of data published on the web in such a way that they can be interpreted and connected together. It is thus critical to establish links between these data, both for the web of data and for the semantic web that it contributes to feed. We consider here the various techniques developed for that purpose and analyze their commonalities and differences. We propose a general framework and show how the diverse techniques fit in the framework. From this framework we consider the relation between data interlinking and ontology matching. Although, they can be considered similar at a certain level (they both relate formal entities), they serve different purposes, but would find a mutual benefit at collaborating. We thus present a scheme under which it is possible for data linking tools to take advantage of ontology alignments.Comment: N° RR-7691 (2011

Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) in the Semantic Web: A Multi-Dimensional Review

Since the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) specification and its SKOS eXtension for Labels (SKOS-XL) became formal W3C recommendations in 2009 a significant number of conventional knowledge organization systems (KOS) (including thesauri, classification schemes, name authorities, and lists of codes and terms, produced before the arrival of the ontology-wave) have made their journeys to join the Semantic Web mainstream. This paper uses "LOD KOS" as an umbrella term to refer to all of the value vocabularies and lightweight ontologies within the Semantic Web framework. The paper provides an overview of what the LOD KOS movement has brought to various communities and users. These are not limited to the colonies of the value vocabulary constructors and providers, nor the catalogers and indexers who have a long history of applying the vocabularies to their products. The LOD dataset producers and LOD service providers, the information architects and interface designers, and researchers in sciences and humanities, are also direct beneficiaries of LOD KOS. The paper examines a set of the collected cases (experimental or in real applications) and aims to find the usages of LOD KOS in order to share the practices and ideas among communities and users. Through the viewpoints of a number of different user groups, the functions of LOD KOS are examined from multiple dimensions. This paper focuses on the LOD dataset producers, vocabulary producers, and researchers (as end-users of KOS).Comment: 31 pages, 12 figures, accepted paper in International Journal on Digital Librarie

Designing Traceability into Big Data Systems

Providing an appropriate level of accessibility and traceability to data or process elements (so-called Items) in large volumes of data, often Cloud-resident, is an essential requirement in the Big Data era. Enterprise-wide data systems need to be designed from the outset to support usage of such Items across the spectrum of business use rather than from any specific application view. The design philosophy advocated in this paper is to drive the design process using a so-called description-driven approach which enriches models with meta-data and description and focuses the design process on Item re-use, thereby promoting traceability. Details are given of the description-driven design of big data systems at CERN, in health informatics and in business process management. Evidence is presented that the approach leads to design simplicity and consequent ease of management thanks to loose typing and the adoption of a unified approach to Item management and usage.Comment: 10 pages; 6 figures in Proceedings of the 5th Annual International Conference on ICT: Big Data, Cloud and Security (ICT-BDCS 2015), Singapore July 2015. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1402.5764, arXiv:1402.575

Decentralized Control and Adaptation in Distributed Applications via Web and Semantic Web Technologies

The presented work provides an approach and an implementation for enabling decentralized control in distributed applications composed of heterogeneous components by benefiting from the interoperability provided by the Web stack and relying on semantic technologies for enabling data integration. In particular, the concept of Smart Components enables adaptability at runtime through an adaptation layer and is complemented by a reference architecture as well as a prototypical implementation

NextGen Multi-Model Databases in Semantic Big Data Architectures

When semantic big data is managed in commercial settings, with time, the need may arise to integrate and interlink records from various data sources. In this vision paper, we discuss the potential of a new generation of multi-model database systems as data backends in such settings. Discussing a specific example scenario, we show how this family of database systems allows for agile and flexible schema management. We also identify open research challenges in generating sound triple-views from data stored in interlinked models, as a basis for SPARQL querying. We then conclude with a general overview of multi-model data management systems, to provide a wider scope of the problem domain

Interchanging lexical resources on the Semantic Web

Lexica and terminology databases play a vital role in many NLP applications, but currently most such resources are published in application-specific formats, or with custom access interfaces, leading to the problem that much of this data is in ‘‘data silos’’ and hence difficult to access. The Semantic Web and in particular the Linked Data initiative provide effective solutions to this problem, as well as possibilities for data reuse by inter-lexicon linking, and incorporation of data categories by dereferencable URIs. The Semantic Web focuses on the use of ontologies to describe semantics on the Web, but currently there is no standard for providing complex lexical information for such ontologies and for describing the relationship between the lexicon and the ontology. We present our model, lemon, which aims to address these gap

Collaborative Research on Academic History using Linked Open Data: A Proposal for the Heloise Common Research Model

International audienceThe paper presents a proposal for the Heloise Common Research Model (HCRM), to be implemented for the European research network on digital academic history – Heloise. The objective of Heloise is to interlink databases and other digital resources stemming from several research projects in the field of academic history, to provide an integrated database for federated research on the network databases. The HCRM defines three layers: the Repository Layer, the Application Layer and the Research Interface Layer, which are presented in detail. As part of the application and research interface layer, essential concepts are the symogih.org ontology and a Heloise network-specific thesaurus. The concepts have been tested on a sample of Heloise network’s datasets as a part of a prototype of the envisaged platform that the authors have started implementing. The paper concludes with future developments to be accomplished within the Heloise network