Re: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
Am 19.07.2012 um 20:50 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: I completely understand and appreciate your desire (which I share) to see a mature landscape with a range of linked data sources. I can also understand how a database or spreadsheet can potentially offer fine-grained data access - your examples do illustrate the point very well indeed! However, if we want to build a sustainable business, the decision to build these features needs to be demand driven. I disagree. Note, I responded because I assumed this was a new Linked Data service. But it clearly isn't. Thus, I don't want to open up a debate about Linked Data virtues if you incorrectly assume they should be *demand driven*. Remember, this is the Linked Open Data (LOD) forum. We've long past the issue of *demand driven* over here, re. Linked Data. But I agree. A technology that is not able to fire proof its usefulness in a demand driven / problem driven environment is maybe interesting from an academic standpoint but otherwise not really useful. And if you look at the recent troubles with Semantic Web business models you see the consequences. You are not the only one in the community, so please don't say we've passed the issue. I'd say we have not even really started with the issue, we've just pushed some technology out there, not knowing yet whether it is really useful. On the other hand Harish is giving us one example of where at least part of the technology *might* be useful and I appreciate this very much. In general, I also prefer acting over talking. ;-) Considering comments like yours, I really fear for the community to loose its openness and acceptance of differing opinions. I had already given up really following the discussions here for exactly that reason (and I am not the only one), but this message appeared on my phone before the mail client could sort it away and simply made me upset. Greetings, Sebastian -- | Dr. Sebastian Schaffert sebastian.schaff...@salzburgresearch.at | Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft http://www.salzburgresearch.at | Head of Knowledge and Media Technologies Group +43 662 2288 423 | Jakob-Haringer Strasse 5/II | A-5020 Salzburg signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
Re: position in cancer informatics
The discussion seem to point to a deeper question: how to enable crowd
sourcing of the analysis of these kind of data sets? This may involve
running of analysis code or maybe even manual work.
What kind of computational infrastructure would we need to enable this? And
how do we validate and aggregate results?
On Thursday, 19 July 2012, Helena Deus wrote:
An on a related topic and the reason why doing cancer informatics is so
exciting in this area: a happy story where exploring data patterns enabled
curing a cancer which had a 4-5% survival chance -
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/health/in-gene-sequencing-treatment-for-leukemia-glimpses-of-the-future.html?_r=1
On Jul 19, 2012, at 7:41 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
On 17 July 2012 22:27, Nathan nat...@webr3.org javascript:_e({},
'cvml', 'nat...@webr3.org'); wrote:
Can you open this right up for everybody to be involved?
I know I for one would be happy to invest free time to looking at these
datasets to find patterns - are they open and available online, any
pointers to get started, anything at all that would enable me (and
hopefully others skilled here) to work on this?
It sounds like less of a position and more of a global need we who can
should all be pumping time in to.
Maybe related:
15-Year-Old Maker Astronomically Improves Pancreatic Cancer Test
http://blog.makezine.com/2012/07/18/15-year-old-maker-astronomically-improves-pancreatic-cancer-test/
He gleaned information on the topic from his “good friend Google,” and
began his research. Yes, he even got in trouble in his science class for
reading articles on carbon nanotubes instead of doing his classwork. When
Andraka had solidified ideas for his novel paper sensor, he wrote out his
procedure, timeline, and budget, and emailed 200 professors at research
institutes. He got 199 rejections and one acceptance from Johns Hopkins:
“If you send out enough emails, someone’s going to say yes.”
Best,
Nathan
Helena Deus wrote:
Dear all,
We have an exciting research assistant position open at DERI for a
chance to work with Cancer Informatics! We are looking for an enthusiastic
developer who is familiar with bioinformatics concepts. Your role will be
exploring cancer related datasets and looking for pattern (applying, for
example, machine learning techniques) that can be used for personalized
medicine.
Please don't hesitate to Fw. this to whomever you think might be
interested.
To apply or to ask for more information, please reply to me (
helena.d...@deri.org javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'helena.d...@deri.org');) with CV + motivation letter
Kind regards, Helena F. Deus, PhD
Digital Enterprise Research Institute
helena.d...@deri.org javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'helena.d...@deri.org');
--
Professor Stefan Decker
Director, Digital Enterprise Research Institute,
Professor of Digital Enterprise
National University of Ireland, Galway. Ireland.
Tel: +353.91.495011
E-mail: stefan.dec...@deri.org
Web: http://www.deri.ie
Personal: http://www.stefandecker.org
Re: position in cancer informatics
It seems to me that more than a computational infrastructure you would
need an efficient way to coordinate a community (communication, resource
(file, software?, ...) sharing and a common way of describing each used
methodology and set of results in order to facilitate subsequent result
validation and aggregation. But maybe that's what you mean by
computational infrastructure? Or are you aiming for something more
automated?
Best,
Jakub
On 07/20/2012 11:22 AM, Stefan Decker wrote:
The discussion seem to point to a deeper question: how to enable crowd
sourcing of the analysis of these kind of data sets? This may involve
running of analysis code or maybe even manual work.
What kind of computational infrastructure would we need to enable this?
And how do we validate and aggregate results?
On Thursday, 19 July 2012, Helena Deus wrote:
An on a related topic and the reason why doing cancer informatics is
so exciting in this area: a happy story where exploring data
patterns enabled curing a cancer which had a 4-5% survival chance
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/health/in-gene-sequencing-treatment-for-leukemia-glimpses-of-the-future.html?_r=1
On Jul 19, 2012, at 7:41 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
On 17 July 2012 22:27, Nathan nat...@webr3.org javascript:_e({},
'cvml', 'nat...@webr3.org'); wrote:
Can you open this right up for everybody to be involved?
I know I for one would be happy to invest free time to looking
at these datasets to find patterns - are they open and
available online, any pointers to get started, anything at all
that would enable me (and hopefully others skilled here) to
work on this?
It sounds like less of a position and more of a global need
we who can should all be pumping time in to.
Maybe related:
15-Year-Old Maker Astronomically Improves Pancreatic Cancer Test
http://blog.makezine.com/2012/07/18/15-year-old-maker-astronomically-improves-pancreatic-cancer-test/
He gleaned information on the topic from his “good friend Google,”
and began his research. Yes, he even got in trouble in his science
class for reading articles on carbon nanotubes instead of doing
his classwork. When Andraka had solidified ideas for his novel
paper sensor, he wrote out his procedure, timeline, and budget,
and emailed 200 professors at research institutes. He got 199
rejections and one acceptance from Johns Hopkins: “If you send out
enough emails, someone’s going to say yes.”
Best,
Nathan
Helena Deus wrote:
Dear all,
We have an exciting research assistant position open at
DERI for a chance to work with Cancer Informatics! We are
looking for an enthusiastic developer who is familiar with
bioinformatics concepts. Your role will be exploring
cancer related datasets and looking for pattern (applying,
for example, machine learning techniques) that can be used
for personalized medicine.
Please don't hesitate to Fw. this to whomever you think
might be interested.
To apply or to ask for more information, please reply to
me (helena.d...@deri.org javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'helena.d...@deri.org');) with CV + motivation letter
Kind regards, Helena F. Deus, PhD
Digital Enterprise Research Institute
helena.d...@deri.org javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'helena.d...@deri.org');
--
Professor Stefan Decker
Director, Digital Enterprise Research Institute,
Professor of Digital Enterprise
National University of Ireland, Galway. Ireland.
Tel: +353.91.495011
E-mail: stefan.dec...@deri.org mailto:stefan.dec...@deri.org
Web: http://www.deri.ie
Personal: http://www.stefandecker.org
Re: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
Hello Sebastian, I agree 100% Regards, Michael Brunnbauer On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 10:06:38AM +0200, Sebastian Schaffert wrote: But I agree. A technology that is not able to fire proof its usefulness in a demand driven / problem driven environment is maybe interesting from an academic standpoint but otherwise not really useful. And if you look at the recent troubles with Semantic Web business models you see the consequences. You are not the only one in the community, so please don't say we've passed the issue. I'd say we have not even really started with the issue, we've just pushed some technology out there, not knowing yet whether it is really useful. On the other hand Harish is giving us one example of where at least part of the technology *might* be useful and I appreciate this very much. In general, I also prefer acting over talking. ;-) Considering comments like yours, I really fear for the community to loose its openness and acceptance of differing opinions. I had already given up really following the discussions here for exactly that reason (and I am not the only one), but this message appeared on my phone before the mail client could sort it away and simply made me upset. -- ++ Michael Brunnbauer ++ netEstate GmbH ++ Geisenhausener Straße 11a ++ 81379 München ++ Tel +49 89 32 19 77 80 ++ Fax +49 89 32 19 77 89 ++ E-Mail bru...@netestate.de ++ http://www.netestate.de/ ++ ++ Sitz: München, HRB Nr.142452 (Handelsregister B München) ++ USt-IdNr. DE221033342 ++ Geschäftsführer: Michael Brunnbauer, Franz Brunnbauer ++ Prokurist: Dipl. Kfm. (Univ.) Markus Hendel
RE: position in cancer informatics
WeConsent (http://weconsent.us/about.) is trying to address that through encouraging people to freely share their own health/genomics data instead of expecting health care professionals to do so. Supporting the deposition of this data by the patients may be step #1 towards a computational infrastructure. From: Stefan Decker [mailto:stefan.dec...@deri.org] Sent: 20 July 2012 10:23 To: Deus, Helena Cc: Melvin Carvalho; nat...@webr3.org; Hausenblas, Michael; semantic-...@w3.org; public-lod@w3.org; www-rdf-inter...@w3.org; protege-discuss...@lists.stanford.edu; semantic...@yahoogroups.com; dbwo...@cs.wisc.edu; machine-learn...@egroups.com; taverna-us...@lists.sourceforge.net; b...@bioinformatics.org Subject: Re: position in cancer informatics The discussion seem to point to a deeper question: how to enable crowd sourcing of the analysis of these kind of data sets? This may involve running of analysis code or maybe even manual work. What kind of computational infrastructure would we need to enable this? And how do we validate and aggregate results? On Thursday, 19 July 2012, Helena Deus wrote: An on a related topic and the reason why doing cancer informatics is so exciting in this area: a happy story where exploring data patterns enabled curing a cancer which had a 4-5% survival chance - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/health/in-gene-sequencing-treatment-fo r-leukemia-glimpses-of-the-future.html?_r=1 On Jul 19, 2012, at 7:41 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote: On 17 July 2012 22:27, Nathan nat...@webr3.org javascript:_e(%7b%7d,%20'cvml',%20'nat...@webr3.org'); wrote: Can you open this right up for everybody to be involved? I know I for one would be happy to invest free time to looking at these datasets to find patterns - are they open and available online, any pointers to get started, anything at all that would enable me (and hopefully others skilled here) to work on this? It sounds like less of a position and more of a global need we who can should all be pumping time in to. Maybe related: 15-Year-Old Maker Astronomically Improves Pancreatic Cancer Test http://blog.makezine.com/2012/07/18/15-year-old-maker-astronomically-imp roves-pancreatic-cancer-test/ He gleaned information on the topic from his good friend Google, and began his research. Yes, he even got in trouble in his science class for reading articles on carbon nanotubes instead of doing his classwork. When Andraka had solidified ideas for his novel paper sensor, he wrote out his procedure, timeline, and budget, and emailed 200 professors at research institutes. He got 199 rejections and one acceptance from Johns Hopkins: If you send out enough emails, someone's going to say yes. Best, Nathan Helena Deus wrote: Dear all, We have an exciting research assistant position open at DERI for a chance to work with Cancer Informatics! We are looking for an enthusiastic developer who is familiar with bioinformatics concepts. Your role will be exploring cancer related datasets and looking for pattern (applying, for example, machine learning techniques) that can be used for personalized medicine. Please don't hesitate to Fw. this to whomever you think might be interested. To apply or to ask for more information, please reply to me (helena.d...@deri.org javascript:_e(%7b%7d,%20'cvml',%20'helena.d...@deri.org'); ) with CV + motivation letter Kind regards, Helena F. Deus, PhD Digital Enterprise Research Institute helena.d...@deri.org javascript:_e(%7b%7d,%20'cvml',%20'helena.d...@deri.org'); -- Professor Stefan Decker Director, Digital Enterprise Research Institute, Professor of Digital Enterprise National University of Ireland, Galway. Ireland. Tel: +353.91.495011 E-mail: stefan.dec...@deri.org Web: http://www.deri.ie Personal: http://www.stefandecker.org
Re: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
On 7/19/12 9:13 PM, Mike Bergman wrote: +1 On 7/19/2012 6:37 PM, glenn mcdonald wrote: Remember, this is the Linked Open Data (LOD) forum. We've long past the issue of *demand driven* over here, re. Linked Data. There's a difference between solving an issue and just refusing to address it any more. Pity there isn't a another forum for generating actual demand as reliably as this one supplies scorn. Mike, What problem are we refusing to address, as exemplified by : http://semgel.com/ . If I am missing something here, I would like to know what it is. Of course, I might have completely overlooked something, so I am always open to correction. -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen Founder CEO OpenLink Software Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: position in cancer informatics
On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 10:22 +0100, Stefan Decker wrote: The discussion seem to point to a deeper question: how to enable crowd sourcing of the analysis of these kind of data sets? This may involve running of analysis code or maybe even manual work. What kind of computational infrastructure would we need to enable this? And how do we validate and aggregate results? Unfortunately, in the USA at least, the biggest barriers are not technical, but social, because: (a) health information privacy laws such as HIPAA http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/ make it difficult or impossible to publish the raw data that would be most useful for research; and (b) researchers do not have the incentive to publish their data that might allow other researchers to make discoveries. There is a tension between privacy and the usefulness of data for research, because full de-identification removes information that can be critical to determining cause and effect, such as dates, times and locations. We need better ways -- both bottom-up, such as http://weconsent.us/, and top-down, such as legal changes -- to both encourage the availability of research data and to facilitate appropriate access to it, such as establishing well-defined tiers of access for different purposes. We need technical solutions that will help us work through and around these social barriers. -- David Booth, Ph.D. http://dbooth.org/ Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
Re: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
Hi Kingsley, On 7/20/2012 5:30 AM, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 7/19/12 9:13 PM, Mike Bergman wrote: +1 On 7/19/2012 6:37 PM, glenn mcdonald wrote: Remember, this is the Linked Open Data (LOD) forum. We've long past the issue of *demand driven* over here, re. Linked Data. There's a difference between solving an issue and just refusing to address it any more. Pity there isn't a another forum for generating actual demand as reliably as this one supplies scorn. Mike, What problem are we refusing to address, as exemplified by : http://semgel.com/ . If I am missing something here, I would like to know what it is. Of course, I might have completely overlooked something, so I am always open to correction. Sebastian Schaffert's response addressed this well. I also comment in various ways on this topic on my blog as frequently as the muse strikes me. The reason I simply commented by +1 is that I did not want to contribute to what are often lengthy polemics as to what the community is or believes or purports. As best as I can tell there is no true community here, but a diverse set of players with diverse interests and perspectives. If you follow my writings closely you know that I see linked data as a useful and often desirable technique, but not a means. In your enthusiasm and cheerleading you as often turn people off as inspire them. You too frequently take it upon yourself to speak for the community. Semgel is a nice contribution being contributed by a new, enthusiastic contributor. I think this is to be applauded, not lectured or scolded. Semgel is certainly as much on topic as most of the posts to this forum. There is a reason I and Structured Dynamics no longer comment or participate on these forums. If I hear from others correctly, our perspective is shared by many. I will not comment further on this thread. Thanks, Mike -- __ Michael K. Bergman CEO Structured Dynamics LLC 319.621.5225 skype:michaelkbergman http://structureddynamics.com http://mkbergman.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/mkbergman __
[Additional Extension] Semantic Web for the Legal Domain
*** Many apologies for cross-posting *** SEMANTIC WEB JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE ON Semantic Web for the legal domain http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/blog/semantic-web-journal-special-issue-semantic-web-legal-domain *** New Extended Submission Deadline: 30-Aug-2012 *** CALL FOR PAPER The legal domain is an ideal field of study for Semantic Web researchers, as it uses and contributes to most of the topics that are relevant to the community. Additionally, given the complex interactions of legal actors, legal sources and legal processes, as well as the relevance and potential impact of successful ideas in the political, juridical and social processes of a country, it provides a challenging context and an important opportunity for groundbreaking research results. Ontologies, knowledge extraction and reasoning techniques have been studied by the AILAW community for years but its results have generated few and sparse connections with the Semantic Web community. Thus, the aim of this Special Issue is to look to the legal domain from a Semantic Web perspective, in order to promote the use of legal knowledge for addressing Semantic Web research questions and, vice versa, to use Semantic Web technologies as tools for reasoning over legal texts. In particular, we are looking for high-level contributions exploring and investigating on (but not limited to) the following topics: - Modelling access policies to Semantic Web datasets - Semantic Web and online dispute resolution and mediation - Law and Regulations patterns of Social Web communities (such as Second Life, Facebook, or Twitter) - Semantic sensor networks in lawsuits, crisis mapping, emergencies and stand-by forces - Semantic Web techniques and e-discovery in large legal document collections - Semantic Web technologies and opinion collection and analysis - Legal content and knowledge in the Linked Data - Knowledge acquisition and concept representation on annotations and legal texts - Legal reasoning and query in the Semantic Web - Text and legal interpretation in legal semantics - Scalability issues in representing law and legal texts - Analysis of provenance information to detect violations of norms/policies - Legal knowledge in trust models - Expressive vs. lightweight representations of legal content - Core and domain ontologies in the legal domain - Theories, design patterns and ontologies in legal argumentation - Time and legal content representation (texts, concepts, norms) - OWL approaches to reasoning and legal knowledge - Linking legal content to external resources - Provenance, trust and metadata for authoritative sources - SPARQL queries on large legal datasets - Legal knowledge extraction using NLP and ontologies - User-friendly applications and interface design to interact with legal semantic information - Publishing/reusing legal-related content in Linked Data - Legal semantic services and mobile applications - Rules and Automated Reasoning in the Semantic Web SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS Prospective authors must take notice of the submission guidelines posted at http://www.semantic-web-journal.net/authors. Submissions should be uploaded using the regular submission mechanism of the SW journal (see the journal website) - mentioning in the cover letter that the submission is for the legal domain special issue. DEADLINES Submission deadline: 30-Aug-2012 Reviews due: 6-Oct-2012 Notifications: 14-Oct-2012 Second submission: 15-Nov-2012 Second review due: 15-Dec-2012 Second notifications: 22-Dec-2012 Camera ready: 30-Jan-2013 GUEST EDITORS Pompeu Casanovas (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona + Victoria University) Monica Palmirani (University of Bologna) Silvio Peroni (University of Bologna) Fabio Vitali (University of Bologna) E-mail: guest-editors-semantic-web-for-the-legal-dom...@googlegroups.com EDITORIAL BOARD Gioele Barabucci (University of Bologna) Nick Bassiliades (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Eva Blomqvist (Jönköping University) Guido Boella (University of Turin) Alexander Boer (University of Amsterdam) Tom Bruce (University of Cornell) Nuria Casellas (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) Paolo Ciccarese (Harvard University) Oscar Corcho (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) John Davies (British Telecomm) Stefan Dietze (Leibniz University) Dieter Fensel (University of Innsbruck) Miriam Fernandez (Open University) Meritxell Fernandez-Barrera (Université Paris 2) Enrico Francesconi (Italian National Research Council) Aldo Gangemi (Italian National Research Council) Tom Gordon (Fraunhofer Society) Guido Governatori (National ICT Australia) Jorge Gracia (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) Marco Grobelnik (Jozef Stefan Institute) Rinke Hoekstra (University of Amsterdam) Simonetta Montemagni (Italian National Research Council) Enrico Motta (Open University) Pablo Noriega (Spanish National Research Council) Adrian Paschke (Freie Universität Berlin) Enric Plaza (Spanish National Research Council)
Re: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
On 7/20/12 4:06 AM, Sebastian Schaffert wrote: Am 19.07.2012 um 20:50 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: I completely understand and appreciate your desire (which I share) to see a mature landscape with a range of linked data sources. I can also understand how a database or spreadsheet can potentially offer fine-grained data access - your examples do illustrate the point very well indeed! However, if we want to build a sustainable business, the decision to build these features needs to be demand driven. I disagree. Note, I responded because I assumed this was a new Linked Data service. But it clearly isn't. Thus, I don't want to open up a debate about Linked Data virtues if you incorrectly assume they should be *demand driven*. Remember, this is the Linked Open Data (LOD) forum. We've long past the issue of *demand driven* over here, re. Linked Data. But I agree. A technology that is not able to fire proof its usefulness in a demand driven / problem driven environment is maybe interesting from an academic standpoint but otherwise not really useful. So are you claiming that Linked Data hasn't fire proofed its usefulness in a demand drive / problem driven environment? And if you look at the recent troubles with Semantic Web business models you see the consequences. Please clarify what you mean as that statement is quite unclear. What recent troubles are you speaking (so definitively) about re., the business model scalability and viability of Linked Data and/or the broader Semantic Web vision? You are not the only one in the community, so please don't say we've passed the issue. Of course I am not the only one in the community. But, I think you are missing a critical point: this forum/list/community is about Linked Data. Thus, I would expect product announcements to be related to Linked Data, at the very least. What's really confusing to me, right now, is the fact that I simply sought an actual Linked Data connection from Hatish (assuming there had to be one somewhere), received push-back about demand and a string of replies that are responding something else inferred from my response . I'd say we have not even really started with the issue, we've just pushed some technology out there, not knowing yet whether it is really useful. I disagree, and here are some very basic examples of proof that the utility (usefulness) and demand (need) for Linked Data are yesterday's topic: 1. Facebook -- every data object in this data space has a Linked Data URI, and by that I mean all 850 million+ profile alongside other data objects that represent other aspects of Faceook profiles 2. Various Govts. worldwide -- lead by US and UK govt efforts enhancing Open Data by adhering the principles espoused in TimBL's Linked Data meme 3. Rest of the LOD cloud which now tops 55+ billion triples and growing every second. On the other hand Harish is giving us one example of where at least part of the technology *might* be useful and I appreciate this very much. In general, I also prefer acting over talking. ;-) Useful, of course. But useful in a manner that has relevance to Linked Data is what I sought from my questions. There is no Linked Data in that solution, and all wanted to do was foster dialog that would encourage production of Linked Data as others have already done -- for years -- re. data from Crunchbase. My response included examples of what's been achieved with Cruncbase data for a very long time, so I hoped he would see the virtues in doing something similar such that in classic Linked Data fashion you end up with a richer Web of Linked Data. Considering comments like yours, I really fear for the community to loose its openness and acceptance of differing opinions. What is the differing opinion? I had already given up really following the discussions here for exactly that reason (and I am not the only one), but this message appeared on my phone before the mail client could sort it away and simply made me upset. Sorry for upsetting you, and I hope you become less upset when you understand my point. A simple route to that destination starts by you responding to my questions. I strongly believe you've misunderstood my response, as measured as it was, initially. Thus, let's reconcile all of this, and I am quite confident that my fundamental point will be resurrected and then clearly understood. Greetings, Sebastian -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen Founder CEO OpenLink Software Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
On 7/20/12 10:17 AM, Mike Bergman wrote: Hi Kingsley, On 7/20/2012 5:30 AM, Kingsley Idehen wrote: On 7/19/12 9:13 PM, Mike Bergman wrote: +1 On 7/19/2012 6:37 PM, glenn mcdonald wrote: Remember, this is the Linked Open Data (LOD) forum. We've long past the issue of *demand driven* over here, re. Linked Data. There's a difference between solving an issue and just refusing to address it any more. Pity there isn't a another forum for generating actual demand as reliably as this one supplies scorn. Mike, What problem are we refusing to address, as exemplified by : http://semgel.com/ . If I am missing something here, I would like to know what it is. Of course, I might have completely overlooked something, so I am always open to correction. Sebastian Schaffert's response addressed this well. I also comment in various ways on this topic on my blog as frequently as the muse strikes me. The reason I simply commented by +1 is that I did not want to contribute to what are often lengthy polemics as to what the community is or believes or purports. As best as I can tell there is no true community here, but a diverse set of players with diverse interests and perspectives. If you follow my writings closely you know that I see linked data as a useful and often desirable technique, but not a means. In your enthusiasm and cheerleading you as often turn people off as inspire them. You too frequently take it upon yourself to speak for the community. Semgel is a nice contribution being contributed by a new, enthusiastic contributor. I think this is to be applauded, not lectured or scolded. Semgel is certainly as much on topic as most of the posts to this forum. There is a reason I and Structured Dynamics no longer comment or participate on these forums. If I hear from others correctly, our perspective is shared by many. I will not comment further on this thread. Thanks, Mike Mike, To cut a long story short, you are disagreeing with my attempt to seek Linked Data relevance from a solution announced on this mailing list? All I sought was the Linked Data dimension that I assumed this solution possessed. That's it. -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen Founder CEO OpenLink Software Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: position in cancer informatics
Sorry Dr. Booth, but I can't accept this conclusion. We need technical solutions that will help us work through and around these social barriers. The root problem with Linked Data is deeply embedded and I would argue inseparable from the current methods of the Mobile Web. The ID provided by a Mobile Device is not the ID best used for Linked Data to prosper. A little thought experiment: Say you had a telescope with a single magnification and aimed it at a forest nearby. At some optimum magnification you could identify individual trees (Linked Data) and at some much higher magnification you would see tree bark (uncoupled microdata) everywhere you looked. Linked Data only works when the observed body (tree) is at rest. Newton's First Law and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle vanish only to return with a vengeance when initial conditions are modified (the body moves OR magnification is increased step-wise). For socio-economic data including Health Data, the implication is that a Mobile Device is suitable to distribute data but cannot be used to infer metadata in a current experiment. Collecting data in real time is problematic too. I believe that if Mobile Device Technology is the constant and Linked Data ID's are flexible we will never get to where we want to go. Technical solutions for research data are not impeded by social barriers but rather by the tools (The Mobile Web) which exaggerate the commercial value of Personally Identifiable Information and over-magnify the data rendering making said data useless for research. Smart Home Appliances are not the answer either, but I've talked too much already. From: David Booth da...@dbooth.org To: Stefan Decker stefan.dec...@deri.org Cc: Helena Deus helena.d...@deri.org; Melvin Carvalho melvincarva...@gmail.com; nat...@webr3.org nat...@webr3.org; Michael Hausenblas michael.hausenb...@deri.org; semantic-...@w3.org semantic-...@w3.org; public-lod@w3.org public-lod@w3.org; www-rdf-inter...@w3.org www-rdf-inter...@w3.org; protege-discuss...@lists.stanford.edu protege-discuss...@lists.stanford.edu; semantic...@yahoogroups.com semantic...@yahoogroups.com; dbwo...@cs.wisc.edu dbwo...@cs.wisc.edu; machine-learn...@egroups.com machine-learn...@egroups.com; taverna-us...@lists.sourceforge.net taverna-us...@lists.sourceforge.net; b...@bioinformatics.org b...@bioinformatics.org Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 9:00 AM Subject: Re: position in cancer informatics On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 10:22 +0100, Stefan Decker wrote: The discussion seem to point to a deeper question: how to enable crowd sourcing of the analysis of these kind of data sets? This may involve running of analysis code or maybe even manual work. What kind of computational infrastructure would we need to enable this? And how do we validate and aggregate results? Unfortunately, in the USA at least, the biggest barriers are not technical, but social, because: (a) health information privacy laws such as HIPAA http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/ make it difficult or impossible to publish the raw data that would be most useful for research; and (b) researchers do not have the incentive to publish their data that might allow other researchers to make discoveries. There is a tension between privacy and the usefulness of data for research, because full de-identification removes information that can be critical to determining cause and effect, such as dates, times and locations. We need better ways -- both bottom-up, such as http://weconsent.us/, and top-down, such as legal changes -- to both encourage the availability of research data and to facilitate appropriate access to it, such as establishing well-defined tiers of access for different purposes. We need technical solutions that will help us work through and around these social barriers. -- David Booth, Ph.D. http://dbooth.org/ Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
Re: position in cancer informatics
We need technical solutions that will help us work through and around these social barriers. Suggested rephrase perhaps: we need the *socio-technical systems* that will help us work through and around ... etc etc PDM ISTCS.org socio-technical systems research -- David Booth, Ph.D. http://dbooth.org/ Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
Re: position in cancer informatics
On the sociotechnical of possible interest: http://hodges-model.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/sociotechnical Re. cancer informatics I'm enrolled on four BOINC projects - not one is cancer specific, but a couple can no doubt be related and the public can join in at least indirectly crunching data. This is an area where citizen science could also make a real difference. Peter Jones, Lancashire, UK Blogging at Welcome to the QUAD http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/ h2cm: help 2C more - help 2 listen - help 2 care http://twitter.com/#!/h2cm From: Paola Di Maio paola.dim...@gmail.com To: David Booth da...@dbooth.org Cc: Stefan Decker stefan.dec...@deri.org; Helena Deus helena.d...@deri.org; Melvin Carvalho melvincarva...@gmail.com; nat...@webr3.org nat...@webr3.org; Michael Hausenblas michael.hausenb...@deri.org; semantic-...@w3.org semantic-...@w3.org; public-lod@w3.org public-lod@w3.org; www-rdf-inter...@w3.org www-rdf-inter...@w3.org; protege-discuss...@lists.stanford.edu protege-discuss...@lists.stanford.edu; semantic...@yahoogroups.com semantic...@yahoogroups.com; dbwo...@cs.wisc.edu dbwo...@cs.wisc.edu; machine-learn...@egroups.com machine-learn...@egroups.com; taverna-us...@lists.sourceforge.net taverna-us...@lists.sourceforge.net; b...@bioinformatics.org b...@bioinformatics.org Sent: Friday, 20 July 2012, 18:29 Subject: Re: position in cancer informatics We need technical solutions that will help us work through and around these social barriers. Suggested rephrase perhaps: we need the *socio-technical systems* that will help us work through and around ... etc etc PDM ISTCS.org socio-technical systems research -- David Booth, Ph.D. http://dbooth.org/ Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
Re: Linked Data Demand Discussion Culture on this List, WAS: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
On 7/20/12 11:48 AM, Sebastian Schaffert wrote: [SNIP] -- so that we can focus on the key non personal points. My claim is founded in the many discussions I have when going to the CTOs of*real* companies (big ones, outside the research business) out there and trying to convince them that they should build on Semantic Web technologies (because I believe they are superior). Believe me, even though I strongly believe in the technology, this is a very tough job without a good reference example that convinces them they will save X millions of Euros or improve the life or their employees or the society in the short- to medium term. Why do you assume that others (like myself) that don't share your views, don't talk to CTOs? BTW - there are a number of companies that actually have paying customers using Linked Data effectively; these companies may not necessarily believe in announcing every customer closure related to Linked Data. Random sample answer from this week (I could bring many): So this Linked Data is a possibility for data integration. Tell me, why should I convince my engineers to throw away their proven integration solutions? Why is Linked Data so superior to existing solutions? Where is it already in enterprise use?. I don't know how you've concluded that Linked Data is a rip and replace approach to technology adoption. Its quite the contrary. Linked Data's most powerful virtue is its ability to enhance what already exists re: 1. data object identity 2. data object representation 3. data object access 4. data object serialization 5 data object access control lists and policies. Please read some of the older threads on this mailing list. Do you think Facebook publishes Linked Data for no good reason? Ditto the U.S. and UK governments amongst many other contributors to the LOD cloud? Likewise any other enterprise that's already effectively using Linked Data as a conceptual model oriented virutalization atop disparate data sources etc? The big datasets always sold as a success story in the Linked Data Cloud are largely irrelevant to businesses: - they are mostly dealing with internal data (projects, people, CRM, ERP, documents, CMS, …) where you won't find information in the LD cloud anyways There is a difference between the Linked Open Data (LOD) Cloud and Linked Data. There's also a subtle difference between Linked Open Data and the LOD Cloud. Linked Open Data is about standards based structured data representation and access, based on a specific use of de-referencable URIs to augment said data representation and access. LOD Cloud is about publicly accessible application of the above, with contributions from a plethora of sources, across a variety of subject matter domains. - they do not trust just some data from the Internet to build multi-million business decisions on top See my comment above. That isn't what I am talking about. - they find the data in the cloud too messy (as an example: try finding country codes on DBPedia …) and too unreliable (most servers do not respond in sufficient time) Ditto, not my point. The LOD cloud is a distributed lookup table and that's about it. Mike has actually assembled some very nice blog posts on related topics: -http://www.mkbergman.com/917/practical-p-p-p-problems-with-linked-data/ -http://www.mkbergman.com/859/seven-pillars-of-the-open-semantic-enterprise/ I am no stranger to Mike. Sometimes it helps if you do a few lookups to provide context for your responses. And if you look at the recent troubles with Semantic Web business models you see the consequences. Please clarify what you mean as that statement is quite unclear. What recent troubles are you speaking (so definitively) about re., the business model scalability and viability of Linked Data and/or the broader Semantic Web vision? I was referring to the recent bankruptcy of Ontoprise and the fact that Talis is reducing its Linked Data involvement, essentially shutting down their we help you publish Linked Data service. I thought you might have guessed. Why should I guess. You over simplify those items and I am not in the business of speaking about other companies. Talking about markets, technologies, and business models are fine for me, but It stops right there. You are not the only one in the community, so please don't say we've passed the issue. Of course I am not the only one in the community. But, I think you are missing a critical point: this forum/list/community is about Linked Data. Thus, I would expect product announcements to be related to Linked Data, at the very least. What's really confusing to me, right now, is the fact that I simply sought an actual Linked Data connection from Hatish (assuming there had to be one somewhere), received push-back about demand and a string of replies that are responding something else inferred from my response . The problem is that in most of your
System for Crowdsourcing Data Analysis [Was: position in cancer informatics]
Hi All, Stefan Decker wrote: The discussion seem to point to a deeper question: how to enable crowd sourcing of the analysis of these kind of data sets? This may involve running of analysis code or maybe even manual work. What kind of computational infrastructure would we need to enable this? And how do we validate and aggregate results? There is a system online [1] for crowdsourcing data analysis knowledge in Executable English , with examples, such as [2]. The knowledge is used to answer questions over web databases, with English explanations of the results for validation. In some cases, the explanations can be used as plans. [3] is a short overview paper, and besides the live system [1], there are several presentations, movies etc on the site. Apologies if you have seen this before, and thanks for comments. -- Adrian [1] Internet Business Logic A Wiki and SOA Endpoint for Executable Open Vocabulary English Q/A over SQL and RDF Online at www.reengineeringllc.com Shared use is free, and there are no advertisements [2] www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/MedMine2.agent [3] www.reengineeringllc.com/A_Wiki_for_Business_Rules_in_Open_Vocabulary_Executable_English.pdf On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 10:00 AM, David Booth david@dbo da...@dbooth.org oth.org da...@dbooth.org wrote: On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 10:22 +0100, Stefan Decker wrote: The discussion seem to point to a deeper question: how to enable crowd sourcing of the analysis of these kind of data sets? This may involve running of analysis code or maybe even manual work. What kind of computational infrastructure would we need to enable this? And how do we validate and aggregate results? Unfortunately, in the USA at least, the biggest barriers are not technical, but social, because: (a) health information privacy laws such as HIPAA http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/ make it difficult or impossible to publish the raw data that would be most useful for research; and (b) researchers do not have the incentive to publish their data that might allow other researchers to make discoveries. There is a tension between privacy and the usefulness of data for research, because full de-identification removes information that can be critical to determining cause and effect, such as dates, times and locations. We need better ways -- both bottom-up, such as http://weconsent.us/, and top-down, such as legal changes -- to both encourage the availability of research data and to facilitate appropriate access to it, such as establishing well-defined tiers of access for different purposes. We need technical solutions that will help us work through and around these social barriers. -- David Booth, Ph.D. http://dbooth.org/ Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
Re: Linked Data Demand Discussion Culture on this List, WAS: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
Kingsley, Am 20.07.2012 um 20:20 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: Again, how have you arrived at the Linked Data vs CSV scenario? Secondly, if you'd done some background lookup, you would have stumbled across comments I've made about CSV and Linked Data. This is exactly the kind of comment by which you prove my point (regarding the discussion culture). I refrain from any further discussion on the topic until you stop assuming everyone else is stupid when he does not agree on your points, like I already announced in private discussion. Have a nice weekend. Sebastian -- | Dr. Sebastian Schaffert sebastian.schaff...@salzburgresearch.at | Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft http://www.salzburgresearch.at | Head of Knowledge and Media Technologies Group +43 662 2288 423 | Jakob-Haringer Strasse 5/II | A-5020 Salzburg signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
Re: Linked Data Demand Discussion Culture on this List, WAS: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
On 7/20/12 4:05 PM, Sebastian Schaffert wrote: Kingsley, Am 20.07.2012 um 20:20 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: Again, how have you arrived at the Linked Data vs CSV scenario? Secondly, if you'd done some background lookup, you would have stumbled across comments I've made about CSV and Linked Data. This is exactly the kind of comment by which you prove my point (regarding the discussion culture). I refrain from any further discussion on the topic until you stop assuming everyone else is stupid when he does not agree on your points, like I already announced in private discussion. Have a nice weekend. Sebastian You are not going to get away with misrepresenting me in public. It won't happen. Here is what you posted en route to my response: Where is the convincing business application? Since most of the data is statistics anyways, where is Linked Data superior to say CSV? To clarify my response: What in my thread or past commentary would lead you to asking me, or anyone else for that matter such a question? Links (via simple Google search) : 1. http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2010-10/msg00263.html -- ontolog forum post that leads to discussion about CSV and Linked Data 2. http://bit.ly/QhGBXY -- explaining how CSV output from SPARQL endpoints delivers powerful hooks into Google Spreadsheet 3. http://bit.ly/NP8uWv -- ditto for Microsoft Excel. -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen Founder CEO OpenLink Software Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: Linked Data Demand Discussion Culture on this List, WAS: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
Hi Sebastian, I completely agree with what you say about: o Harish's original post being relevant to linked data and this list o that the culture of this forum can be counter productive o that the evidence for linked data delivering business value needs to be a lot stronger However, just to balance the picture slightly ... There are *some* clear, well documented examples of semweb/RDF/LD delivering business value through data integration. The most famous of these being probably: Garlik (now Experian), Amdocs and arguably the BBC. In my experience for every publicised example there are several non-public or at least less visible examples of companies quietly using the technology internally while not shouting about it. I've come across examples in banking, publishing, travel and health care - at different levels of maturity. Not saying the business value story is perfectly articulated or the evidence is watertight, but it's not totally absent :) While it's not your main point, I would also say we have reasonable arguments for the value of linked data over just CSVs for publishing government statistics and measurement data. The benefits include safer use of data because it's self-describing (e.g. units!), ability to slice and dice through API calls making it easier to build apps, ability to address the data and thus annotate it and reference it. The more advanced government departments approach this as publish once, use many. One pipeline that lets people access the data as dumps, through REST APIs, as Linked Data or via apps - all powered by a shared Linked Data infra-structure. It's not CSV or Linked Data it's CSV *and* Linked Data. Dave On 20/07/12 16:48, Sebastian Schaffert wrote: Kingsley, I am trying to respond to your factual arguments inline. But let me first point out that the central problem for me is exactly what Mike pointed out: In your enthusiasm and cheerleading you as often turn people off as inspire them. You too frequently take it upon yourself to speak for the community. Semgel is a nice contribution being contributed by a new, enthusiastic contributor. I think this is to be applauded, not lectured or scolded. Semgel is certainly as much on topic as most of the posts to this forum. The message you should hear is that many people are frustrated by the way the discussions in this forum are carried out and have already stopped contributing or even reading. And this is a very bad development for a community. The topic we are discussing right now is only a symptom. Please think about it. Am 20.07.2012 um 16:43 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: On 7/20/12 4:06 AM, Sebastian Schaffert wrote: Am 19.07.2012 um 20:50 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: I completely understand and appreciate your desire (which I share) to see a mature landscape with a range of linked data sources. I can also understand how a database or spreadsheet can potentially offer fine-grained data access - your examples do illustrate the point very well indeed! However, if we want to build a sustainable business, the decision to build these features needs to be demand driven. I disagree. Note, I responded because I assumed this was a new Linked Data service. But it clearly isn't. Thus, I don't want to open up a debate about Linked Data virtues if you incorrectly assume they should be *demand driven*. Remember, this is the Linked Open Data (LOD) forum. We've long past the issue of *demand driven* over here, re. Linked Data. But I agree. A technology that is not able to fire proof its usefulness in a demand driven / problem driven environment is maybe interesting from an academic standpoint but otherwise not really useful. So are you claiming that Linked Data hasn't fire proofed its usefulness in a demand drive / problem driven environment? Indeed. This is my right as much as yours is to claim the opposite. My claim is founded in the many discussions I have when going to the CTOs of *real* companies (big ones, outside the research business) out there and trying to convince them that they should build on Semantic Web technologies (because I believe they are superior). Believe me, even though I strongly believe in the technology, this is a very tough job without a good reference example that convinces them they will save X millions of Euros or improve the life or their employees or the society in the short- to medium term. Random sample answer from this week (I could bring many): So this Linked Data is a possibility for data integration. Tell me, why should I convince my engineers to throw away their proven integration solutions? Why is Linked Data so superior to existing solutions? Where is it already in enterprise use?. The big datasets always sold as a success story in the Linked Data Cloud are largely irrelevant to businesses: - they are mostly dealing with internal data (projects, people, CRM, ERP, documents, CMS, …) where you won't find information in the
Re: Linked Data Demand Discussion Culture on this List, WAS: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
Sebastian, all, I'm on your side here. But regarding Linked Data, consider the following points that slow down its adoption: - data-heavy players such as Facebook and Google might not be interested in adopting a new open, even if superior, data approach, since it is in their interest to keep as much control over the data as possible - in the corporate world, big vendors like Microsoft and Oracle have created a lock-in, and big companies and organizations are hesitating to invest in new long-term solutions - the long term is where Linked Data really shines, because while the global data interconnectedness increases, it provides linear integration costs instead of exponential as in the Web 2.0 API-to-API approach - RDF and Linked Data are quietly doing their job at research institutes and innovative organizations like BBC and are not receiving the marketing dollars thrown at NoSQL solutions such as MongoDB. However when it comes to production use, NoSQL is no less problematic than triplestores (I have some experience in the startup world), while RDF is the only standardized NoSQL/graph data model, which even has a query language and quite a few tools. - RDF and Linked Data are taught at very few schools. Even in computer science studies, web application development is often stuck at PHP+MySQL level, or Web 2.0 and RESTful APIs at best. So I would say Linked Data is like electrical vehicles -- most who understand the technology would find it superior, but there are a lot of different agendas and interests that not necessarily result in what is better for the public. And then there is ignorance as well. When it comes to Linked Data applications, I'm about to release to open-source code which I hope will make it easier. Martynas graphity.org On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Sebastian Schaffert sebastian.schaff...@salzburgresearch.at wrote: Kingsley, I am trying to respond to your factual arguments inline. But let me first point out that the central problem for me is exactly what Mike pointed out: In your enthusiasm and cheerleading you as often turn people off as inspire them. You too frequently take it upon yourself to speak for the community. Semgel is a nice contribution being contributed by a new, enthusiastic contributor. I think this is to be applauded, not lectured or scolded. Semgel is certainly as much on topic as most of the posts to this forum. The message you should hear is that many people are frustrated by the way the discussions in this forum are carried out and have already stopped contributing or even reading. And this is a very bad development for a community. The topic we are discussing right now is only a symptom. Please think about it. Am 20.07.2012 um 16:43 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: On 7/20/12 4:06 AM, Sebastian Schaffert wrote: Am 19.07.2012 um 20:50 schrieb Kingsley Idehen: I completely understand and appreciate your desire (which I share) to see a mature landscape with a range of linked data sources. I can also understand how a database or spreadsheet can potentially offer fine-grained data access - your examples do illustrate the point very well indeed! However, if we want to build a sustainable business, the decision to build these features needs to be demand driven. I disagree. Note, I responded because I assumed this was a new Linked Data service. But it clearly isn't. Thus, I don't want to open up a debate about Linked Data virtues if you incorrectly assume they should be *demand driven*. Remember, this is the Linked Open Data (LOD) forum. We've long past the issue of *demand driven* over here, re. Linked Data. But I agree. A technology that is not able to fire proof its usefulness in a demand driven / problem driven environment is maybe interesting from an academic standpoint but otherwise not really useful. So are you claiming that Linked Data hasn't fire proofed its usefulness in a demand drive / problem driven environment? Indeed. This is my right as much as yours is to claim the opposite. My claim is founded in the many discussions I have when going to the CTOs of *real* companies (big ones, outside the research business) out there and trying to convince them that they should build on Semantic Web technologies (because I believe they are superior). Believe me, even though I strongly believe in the technology, this is a very tough job without a good reference example that convinces them they will save X millions of Euros or improve the life or their employees or the society in the short- to medium term. Random sample answer from this week (I could bring many): So this Linked Data is a possibility for data integration. Tell me, why should I convince my engineers to throw away their proven integration solutions? Why is Linked Data so superior to existing solutions? Where is it already in enterprise use?. The big datasets always sold as a success story in the Linked Data Cloud are
Re: Linked Data Demand Discussion Culture on this List, WAS: Introducing Semgel, a semantic database app for gathering analyzing data from websites
Dear Martynas, Thanks for your constructive answer. I completely agree with all your points, and I am looking forward to your software (already checked the README ;-) ). We will surely try it out (maybe as a client for our Linked Media Framework). The problem I am facing is that part of my (and my group's) current job is to try bringing the technologies we are developing in research into ordinary industry. Not the Microsofts, Facebooks or Oracles (who are all highly innovative in Web and database technologies), but small and big companies from the (traditional) media sector and manufacturing industry who have big IT departments and infrastructures and could benefit greatly from Linked Data and related technologies. They often still live in the world of CORBA, ERP and file systems, and not necessarily in the Web. With the partners we have we silently follow the Linked Data approach by trying to solve their immediate problems and using Linked Data in the background. While in the media sector this is quite successful (see e.g. http://search.salzburg.com, 1.1 million news articles all as Linked Data but the interface is facetted search), it is significantly more difficult explaining the advantages to e.g. manufacturing industries. Some typical problems I already mentioned in my previous post (lack of trust, lack of relevant data, lack of quality). Some others - indirectly related to Linked Data: - they have proven and working infrastructures, and they have experienced IT engineers knowing their stuff; why should they adopt a new technology? They don't have a Linked Data problem per se - IT in such companies is typically a central department and not a business division; they have only limited resources for technology innovation, why invest in Linked Data and not in some other technology where they can say it will save us X million Euros? Maybe we are targetting the wrong or too difficult sector, true. But I am convinced that the technology is useful especially in such settings, so I want to prove it by building applications that would not be possible otherwise. Unfortunately, I am lacking convincing business cases that shows THEM that the technology is superior. Noone needs to convince ME about the virtues of Linked Data, or otherwise I would not develop software of publish scientific articles related to it. ;-) If we could collect even a small set of convincing business cases and describe what problems they are solving and how, and also what problems they encountered, I think it would help many of us. Greetings, Sebastian Am 21.07.2012 um 00:16 schrieb Martynas Jusevičius: Sebastian, all, I'm on your side here. But regarding Linked Data, consider the following points that slow down its adoption: - data-heavy players such as Facebook and Google might not be interested in adopting a new open, even if superior, data approach, since it is in their interest to keep as much control over the data as possible - in the corporate world, big vendors like Microsoft and Oracle have created a lock-in, and big companies and organizations are hesitating to invest in new long-term solutions - the long term is where Linked Data really shines, because while the global data interconnectedness increases, it provides linear integration costs instead of exponential as in the Web 2.0 API-to-API approach - RDF and Linked Data are quietly doing their job at research institutes and innovative organizations like BBC and are not receiving the marketing dollars thrown at NoSQL solutions such as MongoDB. However when it comes to production use, NoSQL is no less problematic than triplestores (I have some experience in the startup world), while RDF is the only standardized NoSQL/graph data model, which even has a query language and quite a few tools. - RDF and Linked Data are taught at very few schools. Even in computer science studies, web application development is often stuck at PHP+MySQL level, or Web 2.0 and RESTful APIs at best. So I would say Linked Data is like electrical vehicles -- most who understand the technology would find it superior, but there are a lot of different agendas and interests that not necessarily result in what is better for the public. And then there is ignorance as well. When it comes to Linked Data applications, I'm about to release to open-source code which I hope will make it easier. Martynas graphity.org On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Sebastian Schaffert sebastian.schaff...@salzburgresearch.at wrote: Kingsley, I am trying to respond to your factual arguments inline. But let me first point out that the central problem for me is exactly what Mike pointed out: In your enthusiasm and cheerleading you as often turn people off as inspire them. You too frequently take it upon yourself to speak for the community. Semgel is a nice contribution being contributed by a new, enthusiastic contributor. I think this is to be
