Working with VanderBot to Add Multilingual Content (in English and Arabic) to Wikidata

In this presentation Steve and Joy (Anchalee) discussed the example workflow to add both English and Arabic character sets to Wikidata using VanderBot with the input of Arabic characters by Iman. Joy also discussed data modeling in Wikidata for works of translations to support visualization in Wikidata and to provide insight into scholarly communication related to Medieval Islamic technology

Semantics in Support of Biodiversity Knowledge Discovery: An Introduction to the Biological Collections Ontology and Related Ontologies

The study of biodiversity spans many disciplines and includes data pertaining to species distributions and abundances, genetic sequences, trait measurements, and ecological niches, complemented by information on collection and measurement protocols. A review of the current landscape of metadata standards and ontologies in biodiversity science suggests that existing standards such as the Darwin Core terminology are inadequate for describing biodiversity data in a semantically meaningful and computationally useful way. Existing ontologies, such as the Gene Ontology and others in the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry library, provide a semantic structure but lack many of the necessary terms to describe biodiversity data in all its dimensions. In this paper, we describe the motivation for and ongoing development of a new Biological Collections Ontology, the Environment Ontology, and the Population and Community Ontology. These ontologies share the aim of improving data aggregation and integration across the biodiversity domain and can be used to describe physical samples and sampling processes (for example, collection, extraction, and preservation techniques), as well as biodiversity observations that involve no physical sampling. Together they encompass studies of: 1) individual organisms, including voucher specimens from ecological studies and museum specimens, 2) bulk or environmental samples (e.g., gut contents, soil, water) that include DNA, other molecules, and potentially many organisms, especially microbes, and 3) survey-based ecological observations. We discuss how these ontologies can be applied to biodiversity use cases that span genetic, organismal, and ecosystem levels of organization. We argue that if adopted as a standard and rigorously applied and enriched by the biodiversity community, these ontologies would significantly reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity resources and researchers

Introduction to Constellate - part 2

Presentation from the second workshop introducing the Constellate Text and Data Mining platform to the Vanderbilt community.</p

Introduction to Constellate - part 1

Presentation from the first workshop introducing the Constellate Text and Data Mining platform to the Vanderbilt community.</p

Aerial photo of the main Vanderbilt campus from the west, c. 1930

<p>This aerial photograph of the main Vanderbilt University campus was taken sometime between 1928 and 1932. Buttrick, Calhoun, and Garland Halls are present (constructed 1928) while Wesley Hall (burned in 1932) is still intact. The photographer is unknown. Photo scan courtesy of Facilities Information Services of Campus Planning and Construction, Vanderbilt University; scanned from a photographic print in 2014. This photo is believed to be in the public domain due to its age and lack of copyright declaration.</p

Aerial photo of original Vanderbilt Campus c. 1948

<p>This aerial photograph of the original portion of the Vanderbilt University campus was taken sometime between 1945 and 1952.  Navy prefab barracks north of Kirkland (added 1945) are visible at the top of the photo and Bernard/Vanderbilt Halls (constructed in 1952) are missing (see Conkin 1985, Gone With the Ivy, p. 436).  The photographer is unknown.  Photo scan courtesy of Facilities Information Services of Campus Planning and Construction, Vanderbilt University; scanned from a photographic print in 2014.  This photo is believed to be in the public domain due to its age and lack of copyright declaration.</p

Social Religious Building/Wyatt Center of Peabody College in 2010, 1960, and 1925

<p>Georectified images of the Social Religious Building (now Wyatt Center) of Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University) over time from soon after its construction to the present.  Although other buildings and trees have changed over time, note the stability of the sidewalks along the sides of the Esplanade.  What was originally a drive in front of the building eventually morphed into a lateral sidewalk.  1925 photo from University School of Nashville Archives, photo by Williams & Nicks of Nashville; 1960 photo from Vanderbilt Facilities Information Services, source unknown; 2010 image photo public domain. </p

Vocabulary Maintenance Task Group Report

This was a presentation at the TDWG Annual Meeting in Costa Rica, 2016-12-08 in a Task Group report session.  Abstract: The Vocabulary Maintenance Task Group has completed drafts of a Standards Documentation Specification and a Vocabulary Management Specification (https://github.com/tdwg/vocab). This session will outline the important aspects of the specifications and answer questions about their content and implementation

Learning SPARQL Chapter 2: RDF background (part 1)

<p>This is presentation for the Vanderbilt Heard Library group discussing the book Learning SPARQL by Bob DuCharme.  It is the first part of the presentation which covers chapter 2.  Topics include RDF as a data model and serializations.</p