IVOA Recommendation: IVOA Support Interfaces

This document describes the minimum interface that a (SOAP- or REST-based) web service requires to participate in the IVOA. Note that this is not required of standard VO services developed prior to this specification, although uptake is strongly encouraged on any subsequent revision. All new standard VO services, however, must feature a VOSI-compliant interface. This document has been produced by the Grid and Web Services Working Group. It has been reviewed by IVOA Members and other interested parties, and has been endorsed by the IVOA Executive Committee as an IVOA Recommendation. It is a stable document and may be used as reference material or cited as a normative reference from another document. IVOA's role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability inside the Astronomical Community

From Bare Metal to Virtual: Lessons Learned when a Supercomputing Institute Deploys its First Cloud

As primary provider for research computing services at the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) has long been responsible for serving the needs of a user-base numbering in the thousands. In recent years, MSI---like many other HPC centers---has observed a growing need for self-service, on-demand, data-intensive research, as well as the emergence of many new controlled-access datasets for research purposes. In light of this, MSI constructed a new on-premise cloud service, named Stratus, which is architected from the ground up to easily satisfy data-use agreements and fill four gaps left by traditional HPC. The resulting OpenStack cloud, constructed from HPC-specific compute nodes and backed by Ceph storage, is designed to fully comply with controls set forth by the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy. Herein, we present twelve lessons learned during the ambitious sprint to take Stratus from inception and into production in less than 18 months. Important, and often overlooked, components of this timeline included the development of new leadership roles, staff and user training, and user support documentation. Along the way, the lessons learned extended well beyond the technical challenges often associated with acquiring, configuring, and maintaining large-scale systems.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, PEARC '18: Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing, July 22--26, 2018, Pittsburgh, PA, US

The RDF data cube vocabulary

El vocabulario de cubo de datos proporciona un medio para poder publicar datos multidimensionales en la web, como por ejemplo las estadísticas, de tal manera que pueden estar vinculados a conjuntos y conceptos de datos relacionados. Este vocabulario utiliza el estándar W3C RDF (Resource Description Framework). La base del modelo del vocabulario de cubo de datos es compatible con el modelo cubo que subyace en SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange), un estándar ISO para intercambiar y compartir datos y metadatos estadísticos entre las organizaciones. El vocabulario de cubo de datos es una base fundamental que apoya vocabularios de extensión para permitir la publicación de otros aspectos de los flujos de datos estadísticos u otros conjuntos de datos multidimensionales.W3

RDF 1.1 Turtle : terse RDF triple language

RDF es un lenguaje de objetivo general para la representación de la información en la Web. Este documento define una sintaxis textual para RDF llamada Turtle que permite a un grafo RDF ser completamente escrito en un formulario de texto compacto y natural, con las abreviaturas para los patrones y tipos de datos de uso común. Turtle ofrece niveles de compatibilidad con el formato N-Triples, así como la sintaxis de patrón triple de la Recomendación SPARQL del W3C.W3

Constraints of the PROV data model

Este documento define un subconjunto de instancias PROV llamados instancias PROV válidas, por analogía con las nociones de validez para otros estándares Web. La intención de la validación es asegurarse de que una instancia de PROV representa un historial consistente de objetos y de sus interacciones que es seguro de utilizar para el propósito de razonamiento lógico y otros tipos de análisis. Las instancias PROV válidas satisfacen ciertas definiciones, inferencias y restricciones. Estas definiciones, inferencias y restricciones proporcionan una medida de coherencia para comprobar la procedencia y el razonamiento sobre la procedencia. También se pueden utilizar para normalizar instancias PROV a formularios que se pueden comparar fácilmente con el fin de determinar si dos instancias PROV son equivalentes. Validez y equivalencia también se definen para paquetes PROV y documentos.W3

Use cases and lessons for the data cube vocabulary

Muchos gobiernos nacionales, regionales y locales, así como otras organizaciones de dentro y fuera del sector público, recogen datos numéricos y los agregan en estadísticas. Hay una necesidad de publicar estas estadísticas de forma estandarizada y legible por máquina en la Web, para que puedan integrarse libremente y vuelvan a utilizarse en aplicaciones de consumo. En este documento, el grupo de trabajo de W3C de datos enlazados gubernamentales presenta casos de uso y lecciones que apoyan una recomendación del vocabulario de cubo de datos RDF. Se describen los estudios de caso de las implementaciones existentes de una versión anterior del vocabulario del cubo de datos, así como otros posibles casos de uso que se beneficiarían con el uso del vocabulario. En particular, se identifican los beneficios y retos al utilizar un vocabulario para la representación de estadísticas. Asimismo, se derivan lecciones que pueden utilizarse para un trabajo futuro con el vocabulario, así como para herramientas útiles que complementan el vocabulario.W3

Lebanon’s Fiscal Crisis and Economic Reconstruction after War: the case of a bridge too far?

Since the onset of the Civil War in 1975 Lebanon has experienced burgeoning fiscal deficits and an unsustainable public debt overhang. Much of this arose from the loss of revenues during the period of the Civil War 1975-90 and attempts to maintain basic public expenditure, while from 1990-2006 it reflected post Taif rebuilding and reconstruction of key infrastructure with limited revenue capacity. Considerable progress from the 1990s has been achieved in rebuilding the shattered economy from both public and private international and domestic sources, but its legacy is a huge public debt and a servicing requirement that currently absorbs alone almost 30 per cent of total government revenue and is the highest in the world on a per capita basis. While the need to reduce this debt to a sustainable level would be daunting enough in itself, Lebanon’s fiscal predicament was further compounded by the outbreak of war with Israel during July-August 2006. The consequence of this 34 day conflagration was the devastation of residential property, vital infrastructure, agricultural production, industrial production, exports, environmental damage, the collapse of tourism and a further erosion of the influence and power of the central government. Estimates of the direct and indirect costs for Lebanon of this relatively brief but devastating war conservatively vary from US$10-15 billion. The implications of such reconstruction and rebuilding costs for the budget and public debt are potentially calamitous for Lebanon. A key question is whether Lebanon can tackle this enormous task in insolation. This paper explores the background to the fiscal crisis, identifies from available literature the extent, nature and cost of the war damage, analyses the options available to the authorities in rebuilding the economy and highlights key policy issues and measures that will be required if a sustainable economic recovery is to be achieved. Despite its demonstrated and remarkable resilience to past trauma the paper concludes that the fiscal crisis makes it impossible for Lebanon to tackle the reconstruction and rebuilding task on its own and particularly in the wake of the events of summer 2006. The country will require substantial and ongoing financial support from international lenders and donors. The success of these efforts in the case of Lebanon is of particular interest as it could well be a microcosm of possible future outcomes for the region more generally.

Statistically Significant Changes in the Poverty-Rate, 1997-98 to 2002-03

Sampling variation should be taken into account when sample data are used to estimate changes in the poverty rate over time. This paper reports poverty rates and their standard errors, calculated using data from the 1997-98 and 2002-03 Surveys of Income and Housing, and tests whether the poverty rate in Australia has changed significantly over this time period. The results depend on where the equivalised poverty line is set and whether its real value is held constant. With a constant real poverty line, a decrease in the poverty rate is observed and, except at low poverty thresholds, the reduction is statistically significant. However, with a relative poverty line set equal to half the median, or half the mean, current income, a significant increase in the poverty rate is observed, which is due to an increase in the average real income of the Australian population between the two survey dates.

Data Catalog vocabulary (DCAT)

DCAT es un vocabulario RDF diseñado para facilitar la interoperabilidad entre los catálogos de datos publicados en la Web. En este documento se define el esquema y se proporcionan ejemplos para su uso. Mediante el uso de DCAT para describir conjuntos de datos en catálogos de datos, los editores aumentan la posibilidad de descubrir y permiten a las aplicaciones que consuman con facilidad los metadatos de múltiples catálogos. Además, permite la edición descentralizada de catálogos y facilita la búsqueda federada de datos entre los sitios web. Los metadatos DCAT agregados pueden servir como un archivo de manifiesto para facilitar la preservación digital.W3

The organization ontology

Este documento describe una ontología fundamental para las estructuras de organización, destinada a apoyar la publicación de datos vinculados de información de la organización a través de un número de dominios. Está diseñado para permitir a las extensiones de dominios específicos agregar clasificaciones de organizaciones y funciones, así como extensiones para mantener información relacionada como por ejemplo actividades de la organización.W3