An ontology of the physical geography of Portugal

Tese de mestrado, Engenharia Geográfica e Geoinformática (Sistemas de Informação Geográfica), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2009Com o advento da Web Semântica é cada vez mais premente desenvolver novas formas de partilha de conhecimento que melhorem a interoperabilidade entre sistemas de informação geográfica (SIG). A modelação e representação do conhecimento geográfico sob a forma ontológica é uma das novas possibilidades. Esta dissertação estende uma representação ontológica, de acesso livre da geográfica de Portugal, a Geo-Net-PT01, acrescentando-lhe, aos já caracterizados domínios da geografia humana e da web portuguesa, o domínio da geográfica física. Para tal, foi incorporado no meta-modelo de informação pré-existente suporte para exprimir informação geográfica geo-referenciada numericamente. Desenvolveu-se uma metodologia para produção de modelos ontológicos incorporando o conhecimento do domínio da geografia física recorrendo ás fontes de produção de informação geográfica existentes. Esta metodologia foi utilizada na produção de uma nova versão da ontologia geográfica de Portugal, a Geo-Net-PT02, que agora incorpora dados sobre mais cerca de 24.000 entidades geo-referenciadas do território português.The advent of the Semantic Web raised the need for development of new methodologies for information sharing that improve interoperability among geographic information systems (GIS). The modeling and representation of geographic knowledge in the ontologic form is one of the new possibilities. This dissertation extends an open source representation of the geography of Portugal, Geo-Net-PT01, adding to the previously characterised domains of the human geography and the Portuguese Web, the domain of physical geography. To that purpose, the existing information meta-model was extended with support for expressing geo-referenced information in numeric form. A method for production of ontologic models incorporating the knowledge from physical geography from existing geographic information producers. This methodology was used in the production of a new version of the geographic ontology of Portugal, Geo-Net-PT02, which now incorporates data on over 24,000 geo-referenced entities in the Portuguese territory

Indexing Languages for Information Management, a Promising Future or an Obsolete Resource?

Indexing languages have traditionally been an essential tool for organizing and retrieving documental information. The inclusion of indexing languages into the digital environment leads to new frontiers, but also new opportunities. This study shows the historical evolution of the indexing languages and its application in document management field. We analyze diverse trends for their digital use from two perspectives: their integration with other digital and linguistic resources, and the adjustment of them into the Web environment. Finally, there is an analysis of how these languages are used in the Web 2.0 and the incorporation of ontologies in the Semantic Web.This work was carried out within the framework of a research Project financed by the Spanish government (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Secretaría de Estado de Universidades e Investigación, TIN 2007-67153)

Structural (In)visibility: Possible Effects of Constructing a Controlled Vocabulary in a Niche Domain

The paper explores the challenges and implications that arose during the construction of a controlled vocabulary in an emerging, non-structured domain. It discusses the difficulty of defining a domain with evolving and intersectional boundaries, and how Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language may aid designers in properly representing a domain’s hierarchy when multiple language games are present. It also discusses adaptation of standard construction procedures to maintain domain representation. The analysis focuses on the potential effects that constructing such a controlled vocabulary could cause in the future evolution of that domain

Transparent ICD and DRG Coding Using Information Technology: Linking and Associating Information Sources with the eXtensible Markup Language

With the introduction of ICD-10 as the standard for diagnostics, it becomes necessary to develop an electronic representation of its complete content, inherent semantics, and coding rules. The authors' design relates to the current efforts by the CEN/TC 251 to establish a European standard for hierarchical classification systems in health care. The authors have developed an electronic representation of ICD-10 with the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) that facilitates integration into current information systems and coding software, taking different languages and versions into account. In this context, XML provides a complete processing framework of related technologies and standard tools that helps develop interoperable applications. XML provides semantic markup. It allows domain-specific definition of tags and hierarchical document structure. The idea of linking and thus combining information from different sources is a valuable feature of XML. In addition, XML topic maps are used to describe relationships between different sources, or "semantically associated” parts of these sources. The issue of achieving a standardized medical vocabulary becomes more and more important with the stepwise implementation of diagnostically related groups, for example. The aim of the authors' work is to provide a transparent and open infrastructure that can be used to support clinical coding and to develop further software applications. The authors are assuming that a comprehensive representation of the content, structure, inherent semantics, and layout of medical classification systems can be achieved through a document-oriented approac

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationOver 40 years ago, the first computer simulation of a protein was reported: the atomic motions of a 58 amino acid protein were simulated for few picoseconds. With today's supercomputers, simulations of large biomolecular systems with hundreds of thousands of atoms can reach biologically significant timescales. Through dynamics information biomolecular simulations can provide new insights into molecular structure and function to support the development of new drugs or therapies. While the recent advances in high-performance computing hardware and computational methods have enabled scientists to run longer simulations, they also created new challenges for data management. Investigators need to use local and national resources to run these simulations and store their output, which can reach terabytes of data on disk. Because of the wide variety of computational methods and software packages available to the community, no standard data representation has been established to describe the computational protocol and the output of these simulations, preventing data sharing and collaboration. Data exchange is also limited due to the lack of repositories and tools to summarize, index, and search biomolecular simulation datasets. In this dissertation a common data model for biomolecular simulations is proposed to guide the design of future databases and APIs. The data model was then extended to a controlled vocabulary that can be used in the context of the semantic web. Two different approaches to data management are also proposed. The iBIOMES repository offers a distributed environment where input and output files are indexed via common data elements. The repository includes a dynamic web interface to summarize, visualize, search, and download published data. A simpler tool, iBIOMES Lite, was developed to generate summaries of datasets hosted at remote sites where user privileges and/or IT resources might be limited. These two informatics-based approaches to data management offer new means for the community to keep track of distributed and heterogeneous biomolecular simulation data and create collaborative networks

Topic Maps and library and information science : an exploratory study of Topic Maps principles from a Knowledge and Information Organization perspective

Purpose: This master thesis attempts to present a ‘state of the art’ of the placement of Topic Maps (ISO13250) in Library and Information Science, through an extensive literature review and a synthesis based on their principles. It was sited from a Knowledge and Information Organization perspective, represented by the work by Elain Svenonius The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization and some of the concepts of Knowledge Organization. This thesis also intends to present a conceptual and theoretical framework for future research. Design/methodology/approach: The study under review presents a qualitative approach based on Grounded Theory principles to analyse the literature and build the conceptual framework for its analysis. The literature reviewed consisted of more than sixty documents, which included, among others, journal articles, conference presentations and papers, student reports and thesis, as well as a book chapter. Moreover, this was complemented with information obtained from mailing lists, blog postings and websites, and some unstructured interviews. Findings: Topic Maps appears to be a development aligned within the tradition of Knowledge and Information Organization but is completely adapted to the context of the Web and the digital environments. In a LIS perspective, it is bibliographic meta-language able to represent, extend and mostly integrate all the existing Knowledge Organization Systems in a standards-based generic model applicable to digital content and online presentation. Conceptually, Topic Maps is in the borders of the LIS discipline with Knowledge Representation and Computer Science, where LIS conceptual models play the role of intermediaries by providing the ontologies to the ‘bibliographic universe’. Topic Maps questions traditional LIS views and principles. Even though some of them still remain the same, as the meaning-based identification of entities, the notions of ‘document’ and ‘subject’ require further studies. Some important applications give account of the capabilities and potentials for further developments and research on Topic Maps in LIS. The main field of application is the Digital Humanities and TEIcodified texts presentation.Joint Master Degree in Digital Library Learning (DILL