ABSTRACT

Beyond Web 2.0 — How RDFa Can Help to Democratise Data on the Web.
Presented by Mark Birbeck.

Publishing to the web has never been easier, with the proliferation of content management systems, online blogging platforms, microblogging, and more. However, publishing data is either the preserve of organizations prepared to manage their own IT, or requires individuals to sign up for one web 2.0 service after another.

RDFa provides a straightforward means by which data can be published as easily as a web-page can, and the implications are enormous.

From large organizations to the individual blogger, anyone can now publish data by simply placing extra markup in their pages, putting individuals back in control of their own data.

Instead of burying their data in an ever growing array of online services, individuals will now simply publish once, and allow third-party services to consume their information — from profile information to items for sale, from film reviews to favorite recipes, your web-pages become your API.

By allowing everyone to have an API, RDFa creates the possibility of a new generation of applications that will operate across our data.

Mark Birbeck works on standards and applications at the juncture of rich user interfaces and the semantic web. To help these two worlds communicate, he invented RDFa. He’s an invited expert at the W3C where he is deeply involved with XForms and XHTML 2. Alongside his standards work, he has instigated a number of open source projects, including the Ubiquity XForms and Ubiquity RDFa Ajax libraries. His commercial work involves consultancy, development work and training, in both XForms and RDFa.

Duration : 0:52:44

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ABSTRACT

While they might share common conservation goals, motivating advocates, scientists and policy makers to share public data is no easy task. Issues of trust, data provenance, statistical accuracy, and usability are all challenges that cause collaborative public GIS platforms to fail. Rhiza Labs CEO Josh Knauer will give an overview of databasin.org, a free online website for the conservation community using Google Maps/Earth, that is winning accolades from both scientists and advocates for its scientific integrity, robust mapping and analytical tools and ease of use. Prior to writing a single line of code, the DataBasin design team conducted in-depth interviews with both data producers and consumers to understand how best to motivate users to share public data. The result is a system that delivers valuable tools that meet the needs of a diverse user-base and offers a unique publication model that rewards everyone for collaborative behavior.

This is part of a larger project to build a peer-to-peer Information Commons of public data: several papers describing our technological and collaborative innovations are available at http://www.maya.com/infocommons/magic.html#papers.

Speaker: Josh Knauer – Chief Executive Officer, Rhiza Labs
Josh has been a social entrepreneur for the past 20 years, creating and leading successful organizations in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. His ability to spot emerging trends in technology and how they can be used for the betterment of society and the environment have caused him to be considered a leading expert in the field. He’s been featured in Time, Fortune, Newsweek and Wired magazines, and was even named a New Media Hero by the Utne Reader.

Prior to heading up MAYA Design’s Information Commons research effort, Josh founded and was the Executive Director of the EnviroLink Network, the Internet’s largest and most complete environmental information resource, in 1991. He went on to become the Founder and CEO of GreenMarketplace.com, an e-commerce site for socially and environmentally responsible products, services, and information. In 2002, Knauer sold GreenMarketplace.com to Gaiam.

Josh lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife, children and dog. When not starting up a new business, he can be found in his garden tending organic and heirloom vegetables or out hiking in the woods.

Duration : 1:7:59

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ABSTRACT

In 18 months full human genome sequences will be available under $100 – and in minutes. The $5,000 full human genome was announced to come in 9 months. Is “Big IT” ready for the avalanche of data, to be obtained and processed e.g. while the patient is still on the operating table, to be diagnosed, and how the genomics glitch, that caused a benign or malign tumor, could be compensated for?

Algorithmic approaches are needed to better understand genome regulation, even for the simple reason to deploy most effective data retrieval, data storage and computational means, via both parallel hardware and software, but more importantly for opening entirely new perspectives.

In the 100+ year old Genomics, for over half a Century had us to resign to the fatalistic gloom that we are stuck with any glitches in our inherited genome. Is it true that genomic glitches doom one to “incurable” hereditary diseases?

No longer. Genomics now considers the DNA-RNA-Protein chain not as a thermodynamically closed system, where entropy increases, but as an open system that can be interfered with. There is theoretically sound hope that you are not stuck with your genomic glitches.

After half a Century of sticking to two mistaken axioms of Genomics, the paradigm of recursive genome function must quickly make up for lost time for those (potentially) inflicted with formerly “incurable” diseases. “The Genome baby is left on the doorsteps of Information Technology”.

Doctors sent those inflicted with fleece for “debugging”. Debugging genome information (by Genome Computers) would be much harder without understanding the algorithms that our natural genome computing operates with.

Speaker: Dr. Andras Pellionisz
Ph.D. in Biology
Ph.D. in Computer Engineering
Director of Genome Informatics, Mitrionics, Inc., Los Gatos, California
European Union visiting Professor for Hungary (for “European Inaugural of IPGS”)
Founder of International PostGenetics Society (IPGS,PostModern era of Genetics “beyond Genes”)
Founder of FractoSoft (Software for PostGenetics, Silicon Valley, with Central European outsourcing)
Founder of Helixometry (IP portfolio holding, Silicon Valley)
Inventor and Founder of FractoGene (Fractal approach to DNA)
Chief Software Architect and Chief Intelligence Officer of several Silicon Valley Internet Companies in the dot.com boom
Founder of International Neural Networks Society (INNS)
Founding Editor of Neural Networks (publication organ of INNS)
Section Editor for Neural Networks of The Cerebellum (Springer, New York & Heidelberg)
Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, New York University Medical Center
Visiting Professor of Marburg University, Germany (Humboldt Prize for Senior Distinguished Amercian Scientists)
Visiting Professor of UMR/CNRS, College de France, Paris
Senior Research Council Associate of the National Academy of Science, USA, to NASA
PostDoctoral Fellow, University of Iowa
PostDoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
Tenured Senior Research Fellow of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Duration : 0:58:0

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ABSTRACT

The essence of system-level design is the need to concurrently consider information from multiple engineering domains across multiple subsystems to assess holistic system properties. The systems engineer is responsible for bringing together all facets of a system for evaluation of system-level requirements and to aid in understanding system impacts of local design decisions. System-level security, encompassing issues such as confidentiality of information, integrity and authenticity of information sources, and availability of critical
services, is one of many interacting system-level issues that must be addressed. To evaluate system-level security, we must treat security requirements as system-level properties, addressing their satisfaction
in the same manner as traditional system-level issues such as power consumption or safety. Specifically, we must provide support for representing system-level security requirements; composing and integrating information from heterogeneous models; and establishing dependencies between models to assess the security health of a complete system. This talk overviews work surrounding the the Rosetta system-level design language with emphasis on efforts to specify, synthesize and verify software defined radios.

Speaker: Perry Alexander
Dr. Perry Alexander is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department and Director of the Information and Telecommunication Technology Center’s Computer Systems Design Laboratory at The University of Kansas. His research interests include system-level modeling, security and assurance, design
languages, heterogeneous specification, language semantics, and embedded systems. He received the BSEE and BSCS in 1986, the MSEE in 1988, and the PhD in 1992 all from The University of Kansas. From September 1992 through July 1999 he was a faculty member and director of The Knowledge-Based Software Engineering Laboratory in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science department at The University of Cincinnati. He is the chief architect of the Rosetta system specification language and author of System-Level Design using Rosetta published by Morgan Kaufmann in 2006. Dr. Alexander has published over 90 refereed research papers and has presented numerous invited presentations. He has won 15 teaching awards, was named a Kemper Teaching Fellow and won the ASEE Midwest Region Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2003. He is a Senior Member of ACM, Sigma Xi, and a Senior Member of IEEE where he served as Chair of the
Engineering of Computer-Based Systems Engineering Technical Committee and currently serves as Chair of the DASC P1699 Rosetta Working Group.

Duration : 0:39:14

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ABSTRACT

Internet searching and advertising increasingly plays a role in consumer decisions and purchases, yet pertinent information for making value-judgments is currently awkward to ferret out and certainly not universally accessible or useful. There is rarely a feedback loop aligning vendor or manufacturer’s environmental, social or governance policies with a shopper’s values, so shoppers, over time, rarely cause industries to change their behavior.

There needs to be a way for shoppers to aim their purchasing power at achieving social values of highest regional priority. There needs to be a way to accumulate and redeem "social values rewards". What’s missing is timely and impactful analysis of a candidate purchases’ impact on the Shopper’s family, region and planet (expressed according to their values), so that the purchaser can more easily make informed purchasing decisions.

With some modifications to Google ads and Google product search, Google could solidify the feedback loop and help consumers, by their actions, build a greener and better world.

Speaker: Bruce Cahan
Bruce B. Cahan, President Urban Logic, Inc. (a nonprofit organization)
Email: bcahan@urbanlogic.org

Bruce Cahan is an Ashoka Fellow, a social entrepreneur, a non-residential fellow of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, a lawyer, and a banker.

In 1989, a steam pipe exploded outside his apartment building, spraying the neighborhood with 220 pounds of asbestos wrapping in an 18-story geyser of steam for several hours. After that, Bruce foresaw New York City’s need for geospatial preparedness, and founded Urban Logic, a New York nonprofit, to make America’s cities safer and sustainable. Bruce convinced New York to fund and build a multi-agency GIS basemap.
As a bond lawyer, he found $20+ million in the City’s capital budget to pay for its GIS utility.
NYC’s basemap was completed just 6 months before the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, and aided in coordinated response and recovery. In the months after September 11th, Bruce joined others at the City’s Command Center to organize and staff its Emergency Mapping and Data Center. His team supplied the Mayor’s Office, Fire, Police, EMS, military, public health, environment, news and other groups with up-to-date maps of rapidly changing conditions at Ground Zero and throughout Manhattan. Bruce was the catalyst for deploying OpenGIS’
SensorWeb project to monitor environmental conditions citywide, and other innovations.

Taking 9/11’s lessons, Bruce designed the federal OMB’s I-Team Initiative to strategically plan and implement spatial readiness across 49 states. Bruce’s knowledge of finance, law and organizational barriers to spatial awareness and urban innovation comes from researching and writing major studies for the federal government, including . Financing the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (FGDC 2000) . Aligning Investments in Environmental Monitoring and Management Information Systems (EPA 2002) . The Value Proposition for GeoSpatial One Stop (OMB 2004) . A Regional Portfolio Investor’s Toolkit (USGS 2006)

In 2005, Bruce moved to Silicon Valley to organize two market-driven mechanisms that support urban sustainability. The first he calls the Means MeterTM, a tool for socially-purposeful consumers to buy products that reflect their values. The second is a bank that amplifies the sustainable impacts of Means MeterTM consumers and their vendors. The bank will reward choices that grow Sustainable ResiliencyTM. Bruce’s bank would serve consumers, businesses, NGOs and governments. The bank would offer credit, insurance, investment and merchant banking services, and scale pricing and interest rates based on each customer’s impact on Sustainable ResiliencyTM.

Bruce graduated from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Temple Law School. Bruce practiced law for 10 years with Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York, where he specialized in structuring and negotiating complex corporate, bond, creditor’s rights and real estate finance and ot…

Duration : 0:50:6

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ABSTRACT

Presented by Robert Edmonds, Eric Ziegast, and Paul Vixie.

ISC SIE (Security Information Exchange) is a trusted, private framework for information sharing in the Internet Security field. Participants can operate real time sensors that upload and/or inject live data to SIE, and other participants can subscribe to this data either in real time, or by query access, or by limited and anonymized download. While SIE began in 2007 with a method for collecting and sharing raw packet captures for Passive DNS in near real time, correlation with other data types and data sources was required. SIE needed a way to efficiently pass structured data between participating nodes in the loosely-coupled broadcast ethernet message bus. We would like to present why SIE selected Google Protocol Buffers, how we utilize the technology within SIE, and how security researchers can use the libraries (libnmsg), APIs and tools for real-time analysis of disparate data sources.

Duration : 0:49:57

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ABSTRACT

Whats eating Scientific Data? 21st Century Approaches to Discovering (Chemical) Data

Presented by Jim Downing and Nico Adams.

The web of documents and unstructured information is slowly but inexorably evolving towards a web of data. The increasing data-centricity of the web is driven by the next generation of web-applications and the future evolution of search – the searching of structured data is the value proposition behind a recent spate of start-ups in the search space. Furthermore, the internet in general and the semantic web in particular are revolutionising the way in which science communicates, manages and exchanges data, impacting all areas of scientific endeavour from scholarly communication through to laboratory management and data analysis and mining.

Chemistry is the central physical science and at the heart of modern research into new drugs, new materials and new personal care products. All of these products require the confluence of structured data from a number of different domains and often advances in science can be viewed as a data integration problem and therefore the availability as well as the discoverability of high-quality scientific/chemical data on the internet is of the utmost importance.

In this talk we will discuss recent developments in the semantic toolstack for chemistry, starting with markup languages for chemical data, RDF vocabularies as well as ontologies (ChemAxiom) for chemicals and materials (data). It will illustrate how ontologies can be used for indexing, faceted search and retrieval of chemical information and for the “axiomatisation” of chemical entities and materials beyond simple notions of chemical structure. We will discuss the use of linked data to generate new chemical insights and will provide a brief discussion of the use of our entity extraction and natural language processing system OSCAR for the “semantification” of chemical information. We will demonstrate the use of authoring tools (Chem4Word) for the generation of structured “datuments” (data + documents) on the web as well as the Lensfield data processing and publication system. There will also be a brief discussion on how some of the principles developed for chemistry can be applied to other domains, such as biomedical research. Finally, we will review some of the challenges that are facing both chemical data and the adoption of semantic web technologies today.

Biosketch Nico Adams:
Nico Adams read chemistry the University of York and subsequently worked as a research chemist at DSM Research (The Netherlands) and Cambridge Combinatorial (now Millenium Pharmaceuticals, UK), on the combinatorial synthesis and screening of early transition metal olefin polymerisation catalysts. He subsequently became a member of the group of Prof P. Mountford at the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford to read towards his doctoral degree in organometallic chemistry. In 2003 he joined the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven as a post-doctoral research associate (group of Prof U. S. Schubert) and the Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI) as a project leader in polymer informatics. In 2006 he joined the University of Cambridge as a research associate, where he manages a research group in polymer informatics. His main research interests lie in the area of combinatorial and solid phase organometallic chemistry, materials and polymer informatics, the use of polymers for biomedical applications as well as ontological engineering and the semantic web.

Biosketch Jim Downing:
After completing a Masters in computational fluids and mechanics, Jim spent 4 years with a small software start-up in Cambridge working on information and knowledge systems in science and engineering research, and later in public sector information. He moved to the University of Cambridge in 2004 to work on the Open Source DSpace institutional repository software. Working with early adopters of the DSpace system at Cambridge (particularly Prof. Peter Murray-Rust) led to an interest in chemical information, and to Jim joining Prof. Murray-Rust’s group to develop software architectures for chemical information, including a move towards semantic web technologies and RESTful web APIs. Jim is currently interested in the application of Linked Data in chemistry and the opportunities and challenges presented by functional programming languages in cheminformatics.

Duration : 0:59:1

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ABSTRACT

TITLE: Google’s Spatial Tools in the Marine Environment – Decision Support
Presented by: Kurt Schwehr

ABSTRACT: Google Maps and Google Earth have put much of the functionality of Geographic Information Systems in the hands of the end users. Maritime users are just beginning to understand the power of map
mashups that bring together diverse datasets to help mariners and those who manage the waterways to better understand the uses, risks, and impacts of vessel traffic on our nation’s waterways. I will present a number of data types ranging from raster images of ocean flow modeling, to vessel traffic over time captured by the marine Automatic Identification System, to real time right whale notices for
vessels approaching Boston Harbor.

Duration : 0:23:15

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ABSTRACT

Google’s own Dylan Casey will be speaking about his experience riding the TdF with the Lance Armstrong and the US Postal Team.

Check out http://www.dylancasey.com/ for more info about Dylan.

Speaker: Dylan Casey
Dylan Casey maybe best known for his prowess on the road these days, but he’s also quite accomplished on the track. In 1998, Casey became just the third U.S. cyclist in history to win national championships in both disciplines, winning the time trial event in the National Road Championships and the pursuit event at the National Track Championships.

In 2000, Casey became an Olympian when he competed in the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. The year before he won a gold medal in individual pursuit at the 1999 Pan Am Games.

Casey has stage wins from the 1997 Tour of Ohio and 89er Stage Race and the 1998 Tour of Tucson, which he also won overall. In 1999, Casey came in third overall at the Tour of Holland, sixth at the First Union Invitational and competed at the Tour of Spain. Stage wins in 2000 included one each at the Redlands Classic, the Tour of Luxembourg, and the Four Days of Dunkerque.

Born in raised in California, Casey graduated from Las Lamas High School in Walnut Creek, CA in 1989. He then went on graduate from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.S. in communications information systems in 1994.

Duration : 1:2:4

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ABSTRACT

For more info, see http://literacybridge.org/

Knowledge is power; but most knowledge is tied up in text. So how do the 774 million illiterate adults in the world access knowledge crucial to preventing disease, creating economic opportunity, and defending their political and human rights?

Cliff spent six weeks in a remote region of Ghana to understand rural poverty and sustainable development. He saw many impressive local organizations sharing valuable information for development; but he also experienced the inefficiency of delivering all this information in person.

In response to this problem, Literacy Bridge was founded to empower children and adults with tools for scalable knowledge sharing and literacy learning. The Talking Book Project is Literacy Bridge’s major program, developing new and affordable digital audio technology to provide vital, locally generated information and literacy training to people with limited access to either. Imagine a $5 iPod used to play locally generated podcasts, plus a decentralized, digital content distribution system that reaches villages without electricity but also enables global content sharing. Aside from the innovative use of technology, partnerships with local businesses, civic organizations, and government agencies play a pivotal role in the Talking Book Project.

During this talk, Cliff will share his observations from Ghana and discuss Literacy Bridge’s Talking Book Project.

Speaker: Cliff Schmidt
Executive Director of Literacy Bridge

Duration : 1:3:15

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