The Knowledge Life Cycle for e-learning

In this paper, we examine the semantic aspects of e-learning from both pedagogical and technological points of view. We suggest that if semantics are to fulfil their potential in the learning domain then a paradigm shift in perspective is necessary, from information-based content delivery to knowledge-based collaborative learning services. We propose a semantics driven Knowledge Life Cycle that characterises the key phases in managing semantics and knowledge, show how this can be applied to the learning domain and demonstrate the value of semantics via an example of knowledge reuse in learning assessment management

Terminology server for improved resource discovery: analysis of model and functions

This paper considers the potential to improve distributed information retrieval via a terminologies server. The restriction upon effective resource discovery caused by the use of disparate terminologies across services and collections is outlined, before considering a DDC spine based approach involving inter-scheme mapping as a possible solution. The developing HILT model is discussed alongside other existing models and alternative approaches to solving the terminologies problem. Results from the current HILT pilot are presented to illustrate functionality and suggestions are made for further research and development

Do you see what I mean?

Visualizers, like logicians, have long been concerned with meaning. Generalizing from MacEachren's overview of cartography, visualizers have to think about how people extract meaning from pictures (psychophysics), what people understand from a picture (cognition), how pictures are imbued with meaning (semiotics), and how in some cases that meaning arises within a social and/or cultural context. If we think of the communication acts carried out in the visualization process further levels of meaning are suggested. Visualization begins when someone has data that they wish to explore and interpret; the data are encoded as input to a visualization system, which may in its turn interact with other systems to produce a representation. This is communicated back to the user(s), who have to assess this against their goals and knowledge, possibly leading to further cycles of activity. Each phase of this process involves communication between two parties. For this to succeed, those parties must share a common language with an agreed meaning. We offer the following three steps, in increasing order of formality: terminology (jargon), taxonomy (vocabulary), and ontology. Our argument in this article is that it's time to begin synthesizing the fragments and views into a level 3 model, an ontology of visualization. We also address why this should happen, what is already in place, how such an ontology might be constructed, and why now

A Semantic Framework for Declarative and Procedural Knowledge

In any scientic domain, the full set of data and programs has reached an-ome status, i.e. it has grown massively. The original article on the Semantic Web describes the evolution of a Web of actionable information, i.e.\ud information derived from data through a semantic theory for interpreting the symbols. In a Semantic Web, methodologies are studied for describing, managing and analyzing both resources (domain knowledge) and applications (operational knowledge) - without any restriction on what and where they\ud are respectively suitable and available in the Web - as well as for realizing automatic and semantic-driven work\ud ows of Web applications elaborating Web resources.\ud This thesis attempts to provide a synthesis among Semantic Web technologies, Ontology Research, Knowledge and Work\ud ow Management. Such a synthesis is represented by Resourceome, a Web-based framework consisting of two components which strictly interact with each other: an ontology-based and domain-independent knowledge manager system (Resourceome KMS) - relying on a knowledge model where resource and operational knowledge are contextualized in any domain - and a semantic-driven work ow editor, manager and agent-based execution system (Resourceome WMS).\ud The Resourceome KMS and the Resourceome WMS are exploited in order to realize semantic-driven formulations of work\ud ows, where activities are semantically linked to any involved resource. In the whole, combining the use of domain ontologies and work ow techniques, Resourceome provides a exible domain and operational knowledge organization, a powerful engine for semantic-driven work\ud ow composition, and a distributed, automatic and\ud transparent environment for work ow execution

Linked data authority records for Irish place names

Linked Data technologies are increasingly being implemented to enhance cataloguing workflows in libraries, archives and museums. We review current best practice in library cataloguing, how Linked Data is used to link collections and provide consistency in indexing, and briefly describe the relationship between Linked Data, library data models and descriptive standards. As an example we look at the Logainm.ie dataset, an online database holding the authoritative hierarchical list of Irish and English language place names in Ireland. This paper describes the process of creating the new Linked Logainm dataset, including the transformation of the data from XML to RDF and the generation of links to external geographic datasets like DBpedia and the Faceted Application of Subject Terminology. This dataset was then used to enhance the National Library of Ireland's metadata MARCXML metadata records for its Longfield maps collection. We also describe the potential benefits of Linked Data for libraries, focusing on the use of the Linked Logainm dataset and its future potential for Irish heritage institutions

RichTags: A Social Semantic Tagging System

Social tagging systems allow users associating arbitrary keywords (or tags, or labels) to resources they want to save for future recall. Such saved items are called posts or bookmarks and usually constitute shared information in social tagging systems (although access control mechanisms might be applied as well). This means that users of a social tagging system can save and share their bookmarks with each other. The term social stresses the fact that much of the usefulness of the system relies on the data the users submit and share with each other. As a member of this category of tools, RichTags aims to overcome some weaknesses of the conventional social tagging systems (folksonomies) by utilizing Semantic Web technologies. The defining characteristic of the system is that the tags constitute an ontology of meaningful concepts, which is collectively managed by the users of the system. Hence, the approach is called social semantic tagging. It overcomes the polysemy, the synonymy, and the basic level variation problems encountered in the conventional systems. As well, it offers higher precision and recall. Current realisation of semantic tagging basically concerns an effort to automatically derive semantics out of folksonomies without affecting the mechanism of tagging applied in them. In contrast, RichTags’s approach for semantic tagging is a social process relied on the collective intelligence of the users instead of automation methods. The later means that the users collectively expand the tag vocabulary throughout the tagging task, while consistency mechanisms are applied to keep the vocabulary consistent during this expansion. The basic factor that differentiates RichTags from existing proposals for the enhancement of tags with meaning is that the primary mechanism relies on human collective intelligence and not on automation methods. However, this does not mean that the proposed automation techniques could not be combined with RichTags; contrariwise they could be very useful to speed up the production of the initial set of semantic tags in the vocabulary. Finally, RichTags is not limited to enriching the tags with meaning as current efforts primarily aim to; instead it utilizes this semantic information to improve the tagging and the exploration tasks of tagging systems

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

Interoperability and FAIRness through a novel combination of Web technologies

Data in the life sciences are extremely diverse and are stored in a broad spectrum of repositories ranging from those designed for particular data types (such as KEGG for pathway data or UniProt for protein data) to those that are general-purpose (such as FigShare, Zenodo, Dataverse or EUDAT). These data have widely different levels of sensitivity and security considerations. For example, clinical observations about genetic mutations in patients are highly sensitive, while observations of species diversity are generally not. The lack of uniformity in data models from one repository to another, and in the richness and availability of metadata descriptions, makes integration and analysis of these data a manual, time-consuming task with no scalability. Here we explore a set of resource-oriented Web design patterns for data discovery, accessibility, transformation, and integration that can be implemented by any general- or special-purpose repository as a means to assist users in finding and reusing their data holdings. We show that by using off-the-shelf technologies, interoperability can be achieved atthe level of an individual spreadsheet cell. We note that the behaviours of this architecture compare favourably to the desiderata defined by the FAIR Data Principles, and can therefore represent an exemplar implementation of those principles. The proposed interoperability design patterns may be used to improve discovery and integration of both new and legacy data, maximizing the utility of all scholarly outputs

Knowledge-Based Named Entity Recognition of Archaeological Concepts in Dutch

The advancement of Natural Language Processing (NLP) allows the process of deriving information from large volumes of text to be automated, making text-based resources more discoverable and useful. The attention is turned to one of the most important, but traditionally difficult to access resources in archaeology; the largely unpublished reports generated by commercial or “rescue” archaeology, commonly known as “grey literature”. The paper presents the development and evaluation of a Named Entity Recognition system of Dutch archaeological grey literature targeted at extracting mentions of artefacts, archaeological features, materials, places and time entities. The role of domain vocabulary is discussed for the development of a KOS-driven NLP pipeline which is evaluated against a Gold Standard, human-annotated corpus