Past, present and future of information and knowledge sharing in the construction industry: Towards semantic service-based e-construction

The paper reviews product data technology initiatives in the construction sector and provides a synthesis of related ICT industry needs. A comparison between (a) the data centric characteristics of Product Data Technology (PDT) and (b) ontology with a focus on semantics, is given, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. The paper advocates the migration from data-centric application integration to ontology-based business process support, and proposes inter-enterprise collaboration architectures and frameworks based on semantic services, underpinned by ontology-based knowledge structures. The paper discusses the main reasons behind the low industry take up of product data technology, and proposes a preliminary roadmap for the wide industry diffusion of the proposed approach. In this respect, the paper stresses the value of adopting alliance-based modes of operation

Report of the Stanford Linked Data Workshop

The Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) with the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) conducted at week-long workshop on the prospects for a large scale, multi-national, multi-institutional prototype of a Linked Data environment for discovery of and navigation among the rapidly, chaotically expanding array of academic information resources. As preparation for the workshop, CLIR sponsored a survey by Jerry Persons, Chief Information Architect emeritus of SULAIR that was published originally for workshop participants as background to the workshop and is now publicly available. The original intention of the workshop was to devise a plan for such a prototype. However, such was the diversity of knowledge, experience, and views of the potential of Linked Data approaches that the workshop participants turned to two more fundamental goals: building common understanding and enthusiasm on the one hand and identifying opportunities and challenges to be confronted in the preparation of the intended prototype and its operation on the other. In pursuit of those objectives, the workshop participants produced:1. a value statement addressing the question of why a Linked Data approach is worth prototyping;2. a manifesto for Linked Libraries (and Museums and Archives and …);3. an outline of the phases in a life cycle of Linked Data approaches;4. a prioritized list of known issues in generating, harvesting & using Linked Data;5. a workflow with notes for converting library bibliographic records and other academic metadata to URIs;6. examples of potential “killer apps” using Linked Data: and7. a list of next steps and potential projects.This report includes a summary of the workshop agenda, a chart showing the use of Linked Data in cultural heritage venues, and short biographies and statements from each of the participants

Revolutionising the quality of life: the role of real-time sensing in smart cities

To further evolve urban quality of life, this paper explores the potential of crowdsensing and crowdsourcing in the context of smart cities. To aid urban planners and residents in understanding the nuances of day-to-day urban dynamics, we actively pursue the improvement of data visualisation tools that can adapt to changing conditions. An architecture was created and implemented that ensures secure and easy connectivity between various sources, such as a network of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to merge with crowdsensing data and use them efficiently. In addition, we expanded the scope of our study to include the development of mobile and online applications, emphasizing the integration of autonomous and geo-surveillance. The main findings highlight the importance of sensor data in urban knowledge. Their incorporation via Tepresentational State Transfer (REST) Application Programming Interface (APIs) improves data access and informed decision-making, and dynamic data visualisation provides better insights. The geofencing of the application encourages community participation in urban planning and resource allocation, supporting sustainable urban innovation.This work was supported by FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020 and the project “Integrated and Innovative Solutions for the well-being of people in complex urban centers” within the Project Scope NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000086. Rui Miranda was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2021/137; Carlos Alves was supported by grant nos. 2022.12629.BD and UMINHO/BID/2021/134; Regina Sousa was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2021/136; António Chaves was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2021/135; Larissa Montenegro was supported by grant no. UMINHO/BID/2022/53

Quantum Limits, Computational Complexity and Philosophy – A Review: Shamaila Shafiq

Quantum computing physics uses quantum qubits (or bits), for computer’s memory or processor. They can perform certain calculations much faster than a normal computer. The quantum computers have some limitations due to which the problems belonging to NP- Complete are not solved efficiently. This paper covers effective quantum algorithm for solving NP-Complete problems through some features of complexity theory, that we can simplify some of the philosophical interest problems

HILT : High-Level Thesaurus Project. Phase IV and Embedding Project Extension : Final Report

Ensuring that Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) users of the JISC IE can find appropriate learning, research and information resources by subject search and browse in an environment where most national and institutional service providers - usually for very good local reasons - use different subject schemes to describe their resources is a major challenge facing the JISC domain (and, indeed, other domains beyond JISC). Encouraging the use of standard terminologies in some services (institutional repositories, for example) is a related challenge. Under the auspices of the HILT project, JISC has been investigating mechanisms to assist the community with this problem through a JISC Shared Infrastructure Service that would help optimise the value obtained from expenditure on content and services by facilitating subject-search-based resource sharing to benefit users in the learning and research communities. The project has been through a number of phases, with work from earlier phases reported, both in published work elsewhere, and in project reports (see the project website: http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/). HILT Phase IV had two elements - the core project, whose focus was 'to research, investigate and develop pilot solutions for problems pertaining to cross-searching multi-subject scheme information environments, as well as providing a variety of other terminological searching aids', and a short extension to encompass the pilot embedding of routines to interact with HILT M2M services in the user interfaces of various information services serving the JISC community. Both elements contributed to the developments summarised in this report