An analysis of existing production frameworks for statistical and geographic information: Synergies, gaps and integration

The production of official statistical and geospatial data is often in the hands of highly specialized public agencies that have traditionally followed their own paths and established their own production frameworks. In this article, we present the main frameworks of these two areas and focus on the possibility and need to achieve a better integration between them through the interoperability of systems, processes, and data. The statistical area is well led and has well-defined frameworks. The geospatial area does not have clear leadership and the large number of standards establish a framework that is not always obvious. On the other hand, the lack of a general and common legal framework is also highlighted. Additionally, three examples are offered: the first is the application of the spatial data quality model to the case of statistical data, the second of the application of the statistical process model to the geospatial case, and the third is the use of linked geospatial and statistical data. These examples demonstrate the possibility of transferring experiences/advances from one area to another. In this way, we emphasize the conceptual proximity of these two areas, highlighting synergies, gaps, and potential integration. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

A Survey of Volunteered Open Geo-Knowledge Bases in the Semantic Web

Over the past decade, rapid advances in web technologies, coupled with innovative models of spatial data collection and consumption, have generated a robust growth in geo-referenced information, resulting in spatial information overload. Increasing 'geographic intelligence' in traditional text-based information retrieval has become a prominent approach to respond to this issue and to fulfill users' spatial information needs. Numerous efforts in the Semantic Geospatial Web, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), and the Linking Open Data initiative have converged in a constellation of open knowledge bases, freely available online. In this article, we survey these open knowledge bases, focusing on their geospatial dimension. Particular attention is devoted to the crucial issue of the quality of geo-knowledge bases, as well as of crowdsourced data. A new knowledge base, the OpenStreetMap Semantic Network, is outlined as our contribution to this area. Research directions in information integration and Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR) are then reviewed, with a critical discussion of their current limitations and future prospects

CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research

Trentino government linked open geo-data: a case study

Our work is settled in the context of the public administration domain, where data can come from different entities, can be produced, stored and delivered in different formats and can have different levels of quality. Hence, such a heterogeneity has to be addressed, while performing various data integration tasks. We report our experimental work on publishing some government linked open geo-metadata and geo-data of the Italian Trentino region. Specifically, we illustrate how 161 core geographic datasets were released by leveraging on the geo-catalogue application within the existing geo-portal. We discuss the lessons we learned from deploying and using the application as well as from the released datasets

Towards a Linked Geospatial Data Infrastructure

The pressure of opening access to public sector geospatial information traditionally managed within disparate spatial data infrastructures (SDI) is driven by a combination of factors. These factors include the adoption of open data programs and the need to integrate spatial data across sectors and levels of government for specific applications. Informed by the success of the Linked Open Data community, efforts to leverage Linked Data in enabling global access to spatial data currently managed within national and regional SDIs are emerging. However, these early efforts do not provide guidelines for implementing such Linked SDI nor articulate the socio-technical requirements for a successful Linked Geospatial Data strategy. By analyzing existing SDI architectures and emerging Linked SDI requirements, we develop Reference Architecture for building interoperable Linked SDIs.non-peer-reviewe