ArchiveSpark: Efficient Web Archive Access, Extraction and Derivation

Web archives are a valuable resource for researchers of various disciplines. However, to use them as a scholarly source, researchers require a tool that provides efficient access to Web archive data for extraction and derivation of smaller datasets. Besides efficient access we identify five other objectives based on practical researcher needs such as ease of use, extensibility and reusability. Towards these objectives we propose ArchiveSpark, a framework for efficient, distributed Web archive processing that builds a research corpus by working on existing and standardized data formats commonly held by Web archiving institutions. Performance optimizations in ArchiveSpark, facilitated by the use of a widely available metadata index, result in significant speed-ups of data processing. Our benchmarks show that ArchiveSpark is faster than alternative approaches without depending on any additional data stores while improving usability by seamlessly integrating queries and derivations with external tools.Comment: JCDL 2016, Newark, NJ, US

JISC Preservation of Web Resources (PoWR) Handbook

Handbook of Web Preservation produced by the JISC-PoWR project which ran from April to November 2008. The handbook specifically addresses digital preservation issues that are relevant to the UK HE/FE web management community”. The project was undertaken jointly by UKOLN at the University of Bath and ULCC Digital Archives department

VXA: A Virtual Architecture for Durable Compressed Archives

Data compression algorithms change frequently, and obsolete decoders do not always run on new hardware and operating systems, threatening the long-term usability of content archived using those algorithms. Re-encoding content into new formats is cumbersome, and highly undesirable when lossy compression is involved. Processor architectures, in contrast, have remained comparatively stable over recent decades. VXA, an archival storage system designed around this observation, archives executable decoders along with the encoded content it stores. VXA decoders run in a specialized virtual machine that implements an OS-independent execution environment based on the standard x86 architecture. The VXA virtual machine strictly limits access to host system services, making decoders safe to run even if an archive contains malicious code. VXA's adoption of a "native" processor architecture instead of type-safe language technology allows reuse of existing "hand-optimized" decoders in C and assembly language, and permits decoders access to performance-enhancing architecture features such as vector processing instructions. The performance cost of VXA's virtualization is typically less than 15% compared with the same decoders running natively. The storage cost of archived decoders, typically 30-130KB each, can be amortized across many archived files sharing the same compression method.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

Repository Replication Using NNTP and SMTP

We present the results of a feasibility study using shared, existing, network-accessible infrastructure for repository replication. We investigate how dissemination of repository contents can be ``piggybacked'' on top of existing email and Usenet traffic. Long-term persistence of the replicated repository may be achieved thanks to current policies and procedures which ensure that mail messages and news posts are retrievable for evidentiary and other legal purposes for many years after the creation date. While the preservation issues of migration and emulation are not addressed with this approach, it does provide a simple method of refreshing content with unknown partners.Comment: This revised version has 24 figures and a more detailed discussion of the experiments conducted by u

From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crisis

Socio-economic data mining has a great potential in terms of gaining a better understanding of problems that our economy and society are facing, such as financial instability, shortages of resources, or conflicts. Without large-scale data mining, progress in these areas seems hard or impossible. Therefore, a suitable, distributed data mining infrastructure and research centers should be built in Europe. It also appears appropriate to build a network of Crisis Observatories. They can be imagined as laboratories devoted to the gathering and processing of enormous volumes of data on both natural systems such as the Earth and its ecosystem, as well as on human techno-socio-economic systems, so as to gain early warnings of impending events. Reality mining provides the chance to adapt more quickly and more accurately to changing situations. Further opportunities arise by individually customized services, which however should be provided in a privacy-respecting way. This requires the development of novel ICT (such as a self- organizing Web), but most likely new legal regulations and suitable institutions as well. As long as such regulations are lacking on a world-wide scale, it is in the public interest that scientists explore what can be done with the huge data available. Big data do have the potential to change or even threaten democratic societies. The same applies to sudden and large-scale failures of ICT systems. Therefore, dealing with data must be done with a large degree of responsibility and care. Self-interests of individuals, companies or institutions have limits, where the public interest is affected, and public interest is not a sufficient justification to violate human rights of individuals. Privacy is a high good, as confidentiality is, and damaging it would have serious side effects for society.Comment: 65 pages, 1 figure, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

The Dark Energy Survey Data Management System

The Dark Energy Survey collaboration will study cosmic acceleration with a 5000 deg2 griZY survey in the southern sky over 525 nights from 2011-2016. The DES data management (DESDM) system will be used to process and archive these data and the resulting science ready data products. The DESDM system consists of an integrated archive, a processing framework, an ensemble of astronomy codes and a data access framework. We are developing the DESDM system for operation in the high performance computing (HPC) environments at NCSA and Fermilab. Operating the DESDM system in an HPC environment offers both speed and flexibility. We will employ it for our regular nightly processing needs, and for more compute-intensive tasks such as large scale image coaddition campaigns, extraction of weak lensing shear from the full survey dataset, and massive seasonal reprocessing of the DES data. Data products will be available to the Collaboration and later to the public through a virtual-observatory compatible web portal. Our approach leverages investments in publicly available HPC systems, greatly reducing hardware and maintenance costs to the project, which must deploy and maintain only the storage, database platforms and orchestration and web portal nodes that are specific to DESDM. In Fall 2007, we tested the current DESDM system on both simulated and real survey data. We used Teragrid to process 10 simulated DES nights (3TB of raw data), ingesting and calibrating approximately 250 million objects into the DES Archive database. We also used DESDM to process and calibrate over 50 nights of survey data acquired with the Mosaic2 camera. Comparison to truth tables in the case of the simulated data and internal crosschecks in the case of the real data indicate that astrometric and photometric data quality is excellent.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of the SPIE conference on Astronomical Instrumentation (held in Marseille in June 2008). This preprint is made available with the permission of SPIE. Further information together with preprint containing full quality images is available at http://desweb.cosmology.uiuc.edu/wik

The Wiltshire Wills Feasibility Study

The Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office has nearly ninety thousand wills in its care. These records are neither adequately catalogued nor secured against loss by facsimile microfilm copies. With support from the Heritage Lottery Fund the Record Office has begun to produce suitable finding aids for the material. Beginning with this feasibility study the Record Office is developing a strategy to ensure the that facsimiles to protect the collection against risk of loss or damage and to improve public access are created.<p></p> This feasibility study explores the different methodologies that can be used to assist the preservation and conservation of the collection and improve public access to it. The study aims to produce a strategy that will enable the Record Office to create digital facsimiles of the Wills in its care for access purposes and to also create preservation quality microfilms. The strategy aims to seek the most cost effective and time efficient approach to the problem and identifies ways to optimise the processes by drawing on the experience of other similar projects. This report provides a set of guidelines and recommendations to ensure the best use of the resources available for to provide the most robust preservation strategy and to ensure that future access to the Wills as an information resource can be flexible, both local and remote, and sustainable