Using Links to prototype a Database Wiki

Both relational databases and wikis have strengths that make them attractive for use in collaborative applications. In the last decade, database-backed Web applications have been used extensively to develop valuable shared biological references called curated databases. Databases offer many advantages such as scalability, query optimization and concurrency control, but are not easy to use and lack other features needed for collaboration. Wikis have become very popular for early-stage biocuration projects because they are easy to use, encourage sharing and collaboration, and provide built-in support for archiving, history-tracking and annotation. However, curation projects often outgrow the limited capabilities of wikis for structuring and efficiently querying data at scale, necessitating a painful phase transition to a database-backed Web application. We perceive a need for a new class of general-purpose system, which we call a Database Wiki, that combines flexible wiki-like support for collaboration with robust database-like capabilities for structuring and querying data. This paper presents DBWiki, a design prototype for such a system written in the Web programming language Links. We present the architecture, typical use, and wiki markup language design for DBWiki and discuss features of Links that provided unique advantages for rapid Web/database application prototyping

PALP - a User Manual

This article provides a complete user's guide to version 2.1 of the toric geometry package PALP by Maximilian Kreuzer and others. In particular, previously undocumented applications such as the program nef.x are discussed in detail. New features of PALP 2.1 include an extension of the program mori.x which can now compute Mori cones and intersection rings of arbitrary dimension and can also take specific triangulations of reflexive polytopes as input. Furthermore, the program nef.x is enhanced by an option that allows the user to enter reflexive Gorenstein cones as input. The present documentation is complemented by a Wiki which is available online.Comment: 71 pages, to appear in "Strings, Gauge Fields, and the Geometry Behind - The Legacy of Maximilian Kreuzer". PALP Wiki available at http://palp.itp.tuwien.ac.at/wiki/index.php/Main_Pag

VPOET: Using a Distributed Collaborative Platform for Semantic Web Applications

This paper describes a distributed collaborative wiki-based platform that has been designed to facilitate the development of Semantic Web applications. The applications designed using this platform are able to build semantic data through the cooperation of different developers and to exploit that semantic data. The paper shows a practical case study on the application VPOET, and how an application based on Google Gadgets has been designed to test VPOET and let human users exploit the semantic data created. This practical example can be used to show how different Semantic Web technologies can be integrated into a particular Web application, and how the knowledge can be cooperatively improved.Comment: accepted for the 2nd International Symposium on Intelligent Distributed Computing - IDC'2008. September 18-20, 2008, Catania, Ital

Prototype for Extended XDB Using Wiki

This paper describes a prototype of extended XDB. XDB is an open-source and extensible database architecture developed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide integration of heterogeneous and distributed information resources for scientific and engineering applications. XDB enables an unlimited number of desktops and distributed information sources to be linked seamlessly and efficiently into an information grid using Data Access and Retrieval Composition (DARC) protocol which provides a contextual search and retrieval capability useful for lightweight web applications. This paper shows the usage of XDB on common data management in the enterprise without burdening users and application developers with unnecessary complexity and formal schemas. Supported by NASA Ames Research Center through NASA Exploration System Mission Directorate (ESMD) Higher Education grant, a project team at Fairfield University extended this concept and developed an extended XDB protocol and a prototype providing text-searches for Wiki. The technical specification of the protocol was posted to Source Forge (sourceforge.net) and a prototype providing text-searches for Wiki was developed. The prototype was created for 16 tags of the MediaWiki dialect. As part of future works, the prototype will be further extended to the complete Wiki markups and other dialects of Wiki.Comment: 8 page

Application of web 2.0 in cartographic education. Is it time for cartography 2.0?

The term web 2.0 was first used in 2004 at a conference where the organizers focused on the new generation web services. Although web is not software and it has no versions everybody understood this term and also understood the real meaning behind it. In the last 30 years, cartography considerable changed and we may think of using a similar term for our science: cartography 2.0. Although web 2.0 is not a clear and easily definable term, we can list new features of the web which has formed this new term. Wiki, blog, RSS, mashup applications, social networking are the key features (and other less notorious ones are still under development) which are not concrete applications, but rather philosophies. Wiki is a type of website that allows the users to easily edit/change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. Can we effectively use this new technique in cartography? Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject, as personal online diaries; they can be part of a wider network of social media. There are some cartographic blogs available (operated mostly by younger cartographers) which can give new chances for collaborative work, so they may help the cartographic education. One of the most prominent mashup applications is the websites which are connected to GoogleEarth to use their basemaps/satellite images to add their own geographically located contents. These applications are also used by non-cartographers to help them to “make maps”. Are these new features enough to introduce the new term: cartography 2.0

Global Agro-ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21st Century

In recent years the ability to collect spatial information from volunteers has greatly expanded through the combination of Google Earth, geo-tagged photos and the Internet. A Geo-Wiki has been created to aid in both the validation of existing spatial information and the collection of new information through the powerful resource of crowdsourcing. A case study of a land cover validation Geo-Wiki is described, in which the tool is used to validate existing global land cover products. The potential of such a tool for other applications is also recognized

A Contribution-based Framework for the Creation of Semantically-enabled Web Applications

We present Fortunata, a wiki-based framework designed to simplify the creation of semantically-enabled web applications. This framework facilitates the management and publicationof semantic data in web-based applications, to the extent that application developers do not need to be skilled in client-side technologies, and promotes application reuse by fostering collaboration among developers by means of wiki plugins.Weillustrate the use of this framework with two Fortunata-based applications named OMEMO and VPOET, and we evaluate it with two experiments performed with usability evaluators and application developers respectively. These experiments show a good balance between the usability of the applications created with this framework and the effort and skills required by developers