Unified Lightweight Semantic Descriptions of Web APIs and Web Services

Recently, Linked Data and Web APIs have emerged as the preferred means of exposing data and Web application functionality. In this paper we argue that service systems should be adapted in the light of both trends. In particular we believe that i) common means for discovering and interacting with Web services and Web APIs are necessary, and that ii) we should bridge the gap between services and linked data both by supporting the publication of services as linked data and by enabling the processing of linked data by services. We show a set of technologies we have devised towards this goal

Adding Value to Statistics in the Data Revolution Age

As many statistical offices in accordance with the European Statistical System commitment to Vision 2020, since the second half of 2014 Istat has implemented its internal standardisation and industrialisation process within the framework of a common Business Architecture. Istat modernisation programme aims at building services and infrastructures within a plug-and-play framework to foster innovation, promote reuse and move towards full integration and interoperability of statistical process, consistent with a service-oriented architecture. This is expected to lead to higher effectiveness and productivity by improving the quality of statistical information and reducing the response burden. This paper addresses the strategy adopted by Istat which is focused on exploiting administrative data and new data sources in order to achieve its key goals enhancing value to users. The strategy is based on some priorities that consider services centred on users and stakeholders as well as Linked Open Data, to allow Machine-to-Machine data and metadata integration through definition of common statistical ontologies and semantics

Drag it together with Groupie: making RDF data authoring easy and fun for anyone

One of the foremost challenges towards realizing a “Read-write Web of Data” [3] is making it possible for everyday computer users to easily find, manipulate, create, and publish data back to the Web so that it can be made available for others to use. However, many aspects of Linked Data make authoring and manipulation difficult for “normal” (ie non-coder) end-users. First, data can be high-dimensional, having arbitrary many properties per “instance”, and interlinked to arbitrary many other instances in a many different ways. Second, collections of Linked Data tend to be vastly more heterogeneous than in typical structured databases, where instances are kept in uniform collections (e.g., database tables). Third, while highly flexible, the problem of having all structures reduced as a graph is verbosity: even simple structures can appear complex. Finally, many of the concepts involved in linked data authoring - for example, terms used to define ontologies are highly abstract and foreign to regular citizen-users.To counter this complexity we have devised a drag-and-drop direct manipulation interface that makes authoring Linked Data easy, fun, and accessible to a wide audience. Groupie allows users to author data simply by dragging blobs representing entities into other entities to compose relationships, establishing one relational link at a time. Since the underlying representation is RDF, Groupie facilitates the inclusion of references to entities and properties defined elsewhere on the Web through integration with popular Linked Data indexing services. Finally, to make it easy for new users to build upon others’ work, Groupie provides a communal space where all data sets created by users can be shared, cloned and modified, allowing individual users to help each other model complex domains thereby leveraging collective intelligence

Ontology for Representing Human Needs

Need satisfaction plays a fundamental role in human well-being. Hence understanding citizens' needs is crucial for developing a successful social and economic policy. This notwithstanding, the concept of need has not yet found its place in information systems and online tools. Furthermore, assessing needs itself remains a labor-intensive, mostly offline activity, where only a limited support by computational tools is available. In this paper, we make the first step towards employing need management in the design of information systems supporting participation and participatory innovation by proposing OpeNeeD, a family of ontologies for representing human needs data. As a proof of concept, OpeNeeD has been used to represent, enrich and query the results of a needs assessment study in a local citizen community in one of the Vienna districts. The proposed ontology will facilitate such studies and enable the representation of citizens' needs as Linked Data, fostering its co-creation and incentivizing the use of Open Data and services based on it

Emerging Implications of Open and Linked Data for Knowledge Sharing in Development

Movements towards open data involve the publication of datasets (from metadata on publications, to research, to operational project statistics) online in standard formats and without restrictions on reuse. A number of open datasets are published as linked data, creating a web of connected datasets. Governments, companies and non?governmental organisations (NGOs) across the world are increasingly exploring how the publication and use of open and linked data can have impacts on governance, economic growth and the delivery of services. This article outlines the historical, social and technical trajectories that have led to current interest in, and practices around, open data. Drawing on three example cases of working with open and linked data it takes a critical look at issues that development sector knowledge intermediaries may need to engage with to ensure the socio?technical innovations of open and linked data work in the interests of greater diversity and better development practice

Cancer through black eyes - The views of UK based black men towards cancer: A constructivist grounded theory study

Purpose: Little is known about black African (BA) and black African-Caribbean (BAC) men's views towards cancer; yet culture and acculturation can contribute to the way in which people understand, explain and develop their attitudes towards cancer. Hence, cancer prevention and early detection strategies may not be sensitive to United Kingdom (UK)-based black men's views, affecting their awareness of risk factors and early detection services. This study explored the views of UK-based BA and BAC men towards cancer. Method: In collaboration with black community organisations based in four major cities in the UK, 25 participants were recruited using convenience and theoretical sampling methods. Data were collected using 33 semi-structured interviews, and analysed using grounded theory analytic procedures. Results: One core category (cancer through black eyes) and seven sub-categories emerged; ‘cultural views’, ‘religious beliefs’, ‘avoiding Babylon’, ‘alienation’, ‘suspicious mind’, ‘advertisements and information influence very little’, and ‘gap in service provision (bridging the gap)’. Participants' views towards cancer were linked to socially constructed perspectives, linked with cultural and religious beliefs, and shaped by what being a black male means in society. Risk factors such as smoking and obesity had different meanings and symbolisation through black eyes. There were macro- and micro-level similarities and differences between BA and BAC men. Conclusions: Cancer services and related public-health campaigns aimed at black men need to understand cancer through black eyes. Public health campaigns based solely on the clinical meaning of cancer are incongruent with black men's understandings of cancer, and therefore ineffective at reducing health inequality

Get! Mimetypes! Right! (Crazy new idea)

This paper identifies three technical requirements - availability of data, sustainable hosting and resolvable URIs for hosted data - as minimal pre-conditions for Linguistic Linked Open Data technology to develop towards a mature technological ecosystem that third party applications can build upon. While a critical amount of data is available (and it continues to grow), there does not seem to exist a hosting solution that combines the prospects of long-term availability with an unrestricted capability to support resolvable URIs. In particular, data hosting services do currently not allow data to be declared as RDF content by means of their media type (mime type), so that the capability of clients to recognize formats and to resolve URIs on that basis is severely limited

Marketing of Public Library Services in Balochistan: Planning and Prospects.

Abstract The purpose of this paper was to examine the marketing of library services in public libraries of Balochistan, and to identify the factors related to the use of different library marketing strategies in public libraries. Being quantitative in nature the study adopted survey method using close ended questionnaires for data collection from librarian and other related staffs in public libraries of Balohistan. The findings of the study depict that the librarians in public libraries have a positive perception towards the applying marketing strategies. It also identified factors relating to the marketing services and resources that are linked to the creation of awareness among librarian, lack of fund, poor internet quality, and not using library website and new trends of library marketing for libraray services. This study highlights the key factors related to the adaptation of libraray marketing services in libraries and provides outreach services to the readers. Library administrators by using these results can develop the library marketing plans to effectively promote their library services and resources

Trends in the use of home care services among Norwegians 70+ and projections towards 2050: The HUNT study 1995–2017

Background - Life expectancy (LE) is increasing worldwide, while there is lack of information on how this affects older individuals' use of formal home care services. Aim - We aimed to decompose LE into years with and without home care services and estimate projected number of users towards 2050 in Norway for people 70 years or older. Methods - This study is based on a sample of 25,536 participants aged 70 years and older in the Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) survey 2 (1995–1997), 3 (2006–2008), or 4 (2017–2019) linked with national data on mortality. Prevalence of home care services was standardised to the Norwegian population by age and sex. The Sullivan method was used to estimate expected years with and without home help services and nursing services for the years 1995, 2006 and 2016. Data from HUNT4 and Statistics Norway were used to estimate projected use of these services between 2020 and 2050. Results - During 1995–2017, the use of home help services decreased from 22.6% to 6.2% (p  Conclusion - While overall life expectancy increased, the expected years receiving home help have decreased and home nursing slightly increased among the Norwegian population aged 70 years and older during 1995–2017. However, the substantial increase in the projected number of older adults using home care services in the future is an alert for the current health care planners

A Time Series Analysis of Investigating the Influence of Sectoral Output on Employment in Pakistan

The present study aims at investigating the influence of Sectoral Output (agriculture, industrial and services sector output) on the employment in the Pakistan using annual data ranging from 1972 to 2014. Results are estimated using log-log forms of the equations. The study applies unit root test and has found order of integration as 1. The long run coefficients are estimated using Johansen co-integration test which suggests agriculture; Industrial & Services sectors output and exports as positively linked with employment. Consumer Price Index, Exchange rate and Population may have a positive as well as negative link with employment. Short run results show converges towards the long run equilibrium. Keywords: Sectoral Output, Employment, Exchange rate, Population, Johansen Co-integration test, Consumer Price Index, Exports JEL Classification: C13, C32, E24, E31, F18, O47, Q10, L60, P2