Developing a Formal Model for Mind Maps

Mind map is a graphical technique, which is used to represent words, concepts, tasks or other connected items or arranged around central topic or idea. Mind maps are widely used, therefore exist plenty of software programs to create or edit them, while there is none format for the model representation, neither a standard format. This paper presents and effort to propose a formal mind map model aiming to describe the structure, content, semantics and social connections. The structure describes the basic mind map graph consisted of a node set, an edge set, a cloud set and a graphical connections set. The content includes the set of the texts and objects linked to the nodes. The social connections are the mind maps of other users, which form the neighborhood of the mind map owner in a social networking system. Finally, the mind map semantics is any true logic connection between mind map textual parts and a concept. Each of these elements of the model is formally described building the suggested mind map model. Its establishment will support the application of algorithms and methods towards their information extraction

Accounting for inequality in the EU: Income disparities between and within member states and overall income inequality

In fighting inequality and poverty in the EU emphasis has been placed in reducing differences between countries and/or regions regarding certain macroeconomic indicators, such as the GDP per capita. However, from a policy perspective it is important to know the extent to which overall inequality in the EU is attributed to inequality between the individual countries and the extent to which it is attributed to inequality within them. In addition, it is important to know the extent to which income disparities in each individual member state contribute to overall EU inequality. Following certain assumptions, hypotheses and alternative scenarios, this paper investigates the above questions, employing a decomposition analysis of inequality by population subgroup and utilizing data and information provided by the CHER programme. A number of alternative inequality indices were used to capture the different aspects of inequality and test the robustness of the estimates. The suggested typologies of welfare state regimes were also examined to explain the differences in income inequality between countries and their contribution to overall EU inequality. Policy analysts and policy makers could benefit greatly from such information in evaluating, designing and implementing interventions to deal with inequality and poverty in the EU.Income inequality; decomposition analysis; welfare state regimes; EU

Designing interoperable museum information systems

Museum collections are characterized by heterogeneity, since they usually host a plethora of objects of categories, while each of them requires different description policies and metadata standards. Moreover the museum records, which keep the history and evolution of the hosted collections, request proactive curation in order to preserve this rich and diverse information. In this paper, the architecture of an innovative museum information system, as well as its implementation details is presented. In particular the requirements and the system architecture are presented along with the problems that were encountered. The main directions of the system design are (a) to increase interoperability levels and therefore assist proactive curation and (b) to enhance navigation by the usage of handheld devices. The first direction is satisfied by the design of a rich metadata schema based on the CIDOC/CRM standard. The second direction is fulfilled by the implementation of a module, which integrates the museum database with a subsystem appropriate to support user navigation into the museum floors and rooms. The module is expressed as a navigation functionality, which is accessed through handheld devices and peripherals, such as PDAs and RFID tags. The proposed system is functional and operates into the Solomos Museum, situated in Zakynthos island, Greece

Decomposing Inequality in Greece: Results and Policy Implications

This paper investigates the extent to which certain social characteristics and personal attributes could help explain income inequality in Greece. This analysis is quite revealing for understanding and explaining income idfferences among certain population subgroups with apparent policy implications. The degree to which overall inequality is attributable to inequality between these sub groups or to inequality within them is investigated, employing a decomposition analysis by population subgroups. The results show that there are significant differences in the average household income, in its structure and in inequality between the subgroups. However, despite these differences, in all groups used the between-group inequality accounts only for a small sigment of the overall inequality.Inequality, income distribution, decomposition analysis, population subgroups, income sources, Greece.

Causal pathways of intergenerational poverty transmission in selected EU countries

Το άρθρο διερευνά εάν, με ποιο τρόπο και σε ποιο βαθμό η οικογένεια προέλευσης επηρεάζει τον κίνδυνο φτώχειας των απογόνων σε επιλεγμένες χώρες της ΕΕ που αντιπροσωπεύουν διαφορετικά συστήματα κοινωνικής προστασίας. Κάνοντας χρήση logit μοντέλων και αξιοποιώντας μικροδεδομένα από την EUSILC, η ανάλυση αναδεικνύει τη σημασία της κοινωνικής προστασίας για την αναχαίτιση της διαγενεακής μεταβίβασης της φτώχειας. Η Δανία με το σοσιαλδημοκρατικό κράτος πρόνοιας είναι η πιο επιτυχημένη στην άμβλυνση της επίδρασης της οικογένειας προέλευσης στον κίνδυνο φτώχειας των παιδιών, ακολουθούμενη από την Γαλλία που αντιπροσωπεύει το συντηρητικό-κορπορατιστικό καθεστώς ευημερίας. Λιγότερο αποτελεσματικές σε αυτό το ζήτημα εμφανίζονται η Ελλάδα και η Μεγάλη Βρετανία που αντιπροσωπεύουν το νοτιοευρωπαϊκό και το φιλελεύθερο σύστημα κοινωνικής προστασίας αντίστοιχα.The paper investigates whether, in what way and to what extent the family of origin affects offspring’s poverty risk in selected EU countriesrepresenting different social protection systems. Employing logit models and utilizing EU-SILC data, the analysis brings to the forefront the importance of social protection for intercepting the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Denmark with the socialdemocratic welfare state is the most successful in mitigating the effect of the family of origin on offspring’s poverty risk, followed by France representing the conservative-corporatist welfare regime. Less effective οn this matter appear to be Greece and Great Britain representing the south-European and the liberal social protection system respectively

Causal pathways of intergenerational poverty transmission in selected EU countries

Το άρθρο διερευνά εάν, με ποιο τρόπο και σε ποιο βαθμό η οικογένεια προέλευσης επηρεάζει τον κίνδυνο φτώχειας των απογόνων σε επιλεγμένες χώρες της ΕΕ που αντιπροσωπεύουν διαφορετικά συστήματα κοινωνικής προστασίας. Κάνοντας χρήση logit μοντέλων και αξιοποιώντας μικροδεδομένα από την EUSILC, η ανάλυση αναδεικνύει τη σημασία της κοινωνικής προστασίας για την αναχαίτιση της διαγενεακής μεταβίβασης της φτώχειας. Η Δανία με το σοσιαλδημοκρατικό κράτος πρόνοιας είναι η πιο επιτυχημένη στην άμβλυνση της επίδρασης της οικογένειας προέλευσης στον κίνδυνο φτώχειας των παιδιών, ακολουθούμενη από την Γαλλία που αντιπροσωπεύει το συντηρητικό-κορπορατιστικό καθεστώς ευημερίας. Λιγότερο αποτελεσματικές σε αυτό το ζήτημα εμφανίζονται η Ελλάδα και η Μεγάλη Βρετανία που αντιπροσωπεύουν το νοτιοευρωπαϊκό και το φιλελεύθερο σύστημα κοινωνικής προστασίας αντίστοιχα.The paper investigates whether, in what way and to what extent the family of origin affects offspring’s poverty risk in selected EU countriesrepresenting different social protection systems. Employing logit models and utilizing EU-SILC data, the analysis brings to the forefront the importance of social protection for intercepting the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Denmark with the socialdemocratic welfare state is the most successful in mitigating the effect of the family of origin on offspring’s poverty risk, followed by France representing the conservative-corporatist welfare regime. Less effective οn this matter appear to be Greece and Great Britain representing the south-European and the liberal social protection system respectively

Dimensions of income inequality in Greece.

This thesis investigated certain dimensions of inequality in Greece that have not or have only partially been explored so far, utilising the micro-data of a survey carried out in 1988 by the National Centre for Social Research. Reviewed were relevant studies conducted in the past, and evaluated were the available statistical data and information. Certain theoretical and methodological issues that one encounters when analysing and measuring inequality were also discussed. Initially, an analysis by income source was employed, which provided valuable information on the structure and profile of income inequality in Greece. The decomposition analysis by income components showed that entrepreneurial income is the most significant contributor to overall inequality in Greece, despite the fact that it represents a relatively small fraction of household income. Income taxes and social security contribution appeared to have a very weak distributional impact on overall inequality. This impact was explored further by employing regression analysis. It was found that the share of income tax and contributions is mainly related to wages and salaries. The most effective way to maximise their distributional impact is by eliminating tax evasion among the recipients of entrepreneurial income. The average household income was found to be greatly affected by certain population characteristics, and inequality appeared to vary substantially between population subgroups. The decomposition analysis showed that in all the population groups used, inequality between groups accounted for only a very small segment of the overall inequality. Finally, the hypothesis that, in Greece, the family background is a significant factor in determining the offspring's socio-economic status was tested. A loglinear analysis was used in order to uncover all the potentially complex relationship among the variables employed. These results suggested that people face unequal opportunities for education and unequal probabilities of falling below the poverty line due to their family background

Highlights of library data models in the era of Linked Open Data

Semantic Web technologies and Linked data form a new reference framework for libraries. The library community aims to integrate its data with the Semantic Web and as a result new library data models have been developed. In this context, significant research effort focuses on the alignment between the library models with relevant models developed by other communities in the cultural heritage domain. However there exist several issues concerning the interoperability between all these data models. This paper seeks to contribute in the interoperability of four models, namely FRBR, FRBRoo, EDM and BIBFRAME. It highlights the commonalities and the divergences between them by using a case bibliographic record and by exploring how this record is represented by each one of them

Representing and integrating bibliographic information into the Semantic Web : A comparison of four conceptual models

Integration of library data into the Semantic Web environment is a key issue for libraries and is approached on the basis of interoper- ability between conceptual models. Several data models exist for the representation and publication of library data in the Semantic Web and therefore inter-domain and intra-domain interoperability issues emerge as a growing number of web data are generated. Achieving interoperability for different representations of the same or related entities between the library and other cultural heritage institutions shall enhance rich bibliographic data reusability and support the development of new data-driven information services. This paper aims to investigate common ground and convergences between four conceptual models, namely Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), FRBR Object-Oriented (FRBRoo), Bibliographic Framework (BIBFRAME) and Europeana Data Model (EDM), enabling semantically-richer interoperability by studying the representation of monographs, as well as of content relationships (derivative and equivalent bibliographic relationships) and of whole-part relationships between them