Enabling Semantic Interoperability in e-Government: A System-based Methodological Framework for XML Schema Management at National Level

Articulating semantic interoperability in e-Government remains in question as long as the international standardization efforts do not reach a consensus on how to semantically annotate and exchange data, but merely focus on the syntactic aspects by publishing sets of XML Schemas. As one-stop governmental services at national and cross-county level become an imperative, the need for standardized data definitions, codification of existing unstructured information and a framework for managing governmental data in a unified way emerges. Effectively applied to the Greek e-Government National Interoperability Framework, this paper proposes a methodology for designing semantically enriched XML Schemas with which homogenized governmental information complies, based on the UN/CEFACT Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS). A discussion around a prospective architecture for managing large sets of XML Schemas is also motivated in order to recognize the necessary components and the key issues that need to be tackled when designing a Governmental Schema Registry

Empowering Civic Participation in the Policy Making Process through Social Media

The Web as medium has a high significance in everyday life of the digital society. The circumstance of growing visibility of social media covers a high potential in the range of a more citizen-centric and socially-rooted policy making. These potentials call for novel tools with the capability to analyze society’s input and predict the possible impact of policies. The paper describes a prototype tool set for policy makers that utilizes social media technologies and methods to empower public engagement, enable cross-media platform publishing, feedback tracking / analysis and provide decision support

Bis(Alkylthio)Tetrathiafulvalenes and a Few of Their Salts

Journal URL: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713644168~db=al

Combined near-infrared and x-ray diffraction investigation of the octahedral sheet composition of palygorskite

The octahedral composition of palygorskite in more than 300 samples from the Pefkaki deposit, W. Macedonia, Greece, has been studied by near-infrared (NIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), and evaluated according to the formula yMgSiO (OH)·xMgFe SiO(OH)·(1-x-y) MgAlSiO (OH). Included in the study were PFI-1 and several commercial palygorskites. Our analysis of 2nd derivative NIR spectra shows that the dioctahedral composition is adequately described by three sharp overtone bands representing AlAlOH, AlFeOH and FeFeOH in M2 dioctahedral sites, and that the summed intensity of these bands is proportional to the amount of dioctahedral component present (1-y). The samples show large variations in the degree of dioctahedral Fe-for-Al substitution with Fe occupying up to 70% of the dioctahedral M2 sites. Ternary analysis shows that the distribution of dioctahedral Al and Fe is not random, but displays a tendency towards homoionic pairing. An overtone band at 7214 cm and several combination bands are indicative of a trioctahedral MgOH component (y), and their appearance correlates with a distinct palygorskite signature in thermogravimetric analysis. Nevertheless, these bands cannot be used reliably for the quantification of a trioctahedral palygorskite component due to their close similarity to those of sepiolite. To circumvent this problem, we have evaluated y indirectly by calculating the difference between 1-y and the total concentration of palygorskite determined by the normalized intensity of the d XRD peak of palygorskite at 10.4 Å. Using this methodology, we have found that the samples conform to a trioctahedral limit of y ≈ 0.55, although within this limit they display large variations in octahedral character. Finally, we extend the above methodology to PLS chemometrics and show how NIR can be used to determine palygorskite content routinely in multimineralic geological samples