Open Data Technologies Research Articles

Cloud-computing and precision medicine: Big data offers big opportunities

Abstract Research on large shared medical datasets and data-driven research are gaining fast momentum and provide major opportunities for improving health systems as well as individual care. Such Open Data can shed light on the causes of disease and effects of treatment including adverse reactions side-effects of treatments, while also facilitating analyses tailored to an individual’s characteristics, known as personalized or precision medicine. Precision medicine treatments will take personalization to the next level and be effective for individual patients based on their genomic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. High-throughput sequencing technologies and open databases have made precision medicine possible but up to now only large research centres could handle the large scale technology needed for its processing. Aside from issues such as user trust, data privacy, transparency over the control of data ownership, and the implications of data analytics for personal privacy with potentially intrusive inferences, recent advances by Berkeley using open source Big Data technologies and Cloud Computing Services has allowed precision medicine studies to be conducted by small and agile research labs and researchers around the world.

Application of Linked Open Data to the coding and dissemination of Spanish Civil War photographic archives

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model for coding and dissemination of data associated with historical photographic archives. The model is based on Linked Open Data technology and seeks to exhaustively represent the most relevant characteristics for the tasks of contextualization of the documentary groupings and units, management, document retrieval, dissemination and sharing of data about the historical photographs.Design/methodology/approachAn OWL ontology, called Ontophoto, was constructed following an adaptation of the methodology proposed by Uschold and Gruninger and Gruninger and Fox. The ontology was implemented using Protégé 5.5 software. Next a Graph DB® graph database application (Ontotext) was created to generate a query system based on the SPARQL language. To validate the consistency and effectiveness of the model and ontology, a competency questions methodology has been applied using a sample from the Skogler photographic archive.FindingsThe model facilitates the generation of systems for dissemination and retrieval of iconographic data for historical research, overcoming some of the limitations with respect to the design of methods of content and contextual information representation for heritage photographic archives.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is based on a sample. Future work should consider the implementation of the model on the totality of a photographic collection.Originality/valueThis paper presents a comprehensive ontological model that allows the creation of distributed systems of knowledge representation, which can be queried through SPARQL language.

The bibliographic metadata in Wikidata: Wikicite and the «Bibliothecae.it» case study

In recent years, the attention of the librarian world aimed at the progress of Linked Open Data technology and Wikimedia projects has focused on Wikidata, whose infrastructure has proved to be perfectly compatible with Wikicite, an initiative that aims to build a vast database of bibliographic references in linked open data. As part of this initiative, many projects originate from collaborations between the Wikimedia Foundation and libraries: the Library of the University of Salerno also actively participated in the initiative, including the bibliographic metadata of the journal Bibliothecae.it. It is the first italian example of corpus related to a scientific periodical of bibliographicbiblioteconomical scope entirely loaded in Wikidata. The project allows the use of data in any project or program that uses the LOD technology, in order to facilitate the interchange between cultural resources and satisfy the information needs of the user. In the area of bibliography and librarianship, this action represents a new way of creating and sharing bibliographic data, of doing information retrieval and of conducting bibliometric analysis. The positive effects of the project concern the wiki community, which needs reliable and verified sources to base its contents, and the scientific community: by openly publishing the citations sets, an enormous graph of scientific knowledge is opened, encouraging the dissemination, publication and open evaluation of research results.

Adopting and managing open data

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study a multi-institutional and multi-layer nature of open data-driven communication processes that provide a collaborative platform to meet the interests of various stakeholders in advancing public sector innovations, namely, government agents, citizens, independent developers, non-governmental organizations, mass media and businesses alike and understand an important role of mutually beneficial public–private partnerships in the area.Design/methodology/approachThis is a case study research, which itself is based on a combinative approach, especially in applying, in a successive order, two methods of investigation, namely, stakeholder and policy analysis. In general, the combination of these two research techniques is useful in understanding the most important collaborative trends in the area and locating key institutional drivers and challenges that open data policymakers face today in implementing related digital collaborative and participatory platforms.FindingsThe open data concept could provide a promising collaborative platform to network various e-government stakeholders and accelerate related technology-driven public reforms. The successful implementation of the idea demands a fairly equal contribution from representatives of both public and private sectors of economy. The case has also clearly demonstrated the importance of cooperation with the local non-governmental sector, independent developers and journalists, whose active participation is a key factor for the overall progress of the open data phenomenon, to a greater degree, as a collaborative movement rather than an instrument of public sector innovations.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the fundamental limitations of the investigation is that it is a single case study. It explores the development of open data phenomena in the context of such an advanced post-industrial society as Finland. In this regard, in order to support key arguments of the research, it is necessary to compare its findings with the results of similar case studies in other administrative, political and socioeconomic settings, which would open new promising dimensions for future research in this direction.Practical implicationsPolicy recommendations are proposed by the author in the discussion section, which could help, for example, to boost information campaigns in popularizing open data technologies and its reuse among independent developers. A lot of unique visualizations and illustrations are presented in the paper to help readers grasp better key ideas of the research. In this respect, the paper is intended for a global professional community of open data experts, e-government specialists, political scientists, journalists, lawyers, students of public policy and public administration and all those who are interested in studying the phenomenon from the perspective of its key stakeholders.Social implicationsThe author of the paper tried to develop a universal framework of case study research that could be used in investigating phenomena of open data not only in Finland but also in the context of other post-industrial societies, especially in analyzing roles of various stakeholders in adopting open data-driven collaborative and civic engagement platforms and startups.Originality/valueThis research presents a first case study that investigates a collaborative potential of open data phenomena from a stakeholder perspective in a more holistic manner, especially in analyzing professional networking platforms and related communication activities that meet the interests of stakeholders as diverse as government agents and journalists, independent developers and academia, charities and businesses in an attempt to better understand the fundamental factors of the open data movement as a collaborative socioeconomic trend.

Florentine Renaissance Drawings: A Linked Catalog for the Semantic Web

The Drawings of the Florentine Painters by Bernard Berenson has been an essential source for art historians since it first appeared in 1903 and remains so today. Though many catalogs of drawings exist for individual collections and artists, Berenson’s study is the only resource that includes examples from across the Western world by nearly seventy Florentine painters, from Taddeo Gaddi in the fourteenth century through Bronzino in the sixteenth. The Florentine Renaissance Drawings project makes Berenson’s invaluable catalog information available in a machine­readable format. As with most projects that transform textual art documentation into digital editions, the authors faced challenges in maintaining a balance between making data scalable and preserving the nuances of the original text. This study demonstrates how Linked Open Data (LOD) technology allows one to maintain the complexity of source data while allowing for standardization of terms and concepts.

An improved distributed storage and query for remote sensing data

With the rapid development of information technology, the amount of remote sensing data is increasing at an unprecedented scale. In the presence of massive remote sensing data, the traditional processing methods have the problems of low efficiency and lack of scalability, so this paper uses open source big data technology to improve it. Firstly, the storage model of remote sensing image data is designed by using the distributed storage database HBase. Then, the grid index and the Hibert curve are combined to establish the index for the image data. Finally, the method of MapReduce parallel processing is used to write and query remote sensing images. The experimental results show that the method can effectively improve the data writing and query speed, and has good scalability.

A New Open-source System for Strategic Freight Logistics Planning: the SYNCHRO-NET Optimization Tools

Abstract Globalization and e-commerce facilities have yielded in the recent years an incredibly huge increment of freight movements. Consequently, the underlying supply chains have become more and more complex to manage for the shipping companies, in terms of costs, distances, times, and environmental sustainability. SYNCHRO-NET, a H2020 European research project, aims to de-stress the international supply chains by fostering cost-effective and greener transportation alternatives. Besides other important actions, the SYNCHRO-NET framework provides an optimization and simulation toolset to support decision-making in freight logistics planning at a strategic level. The synchronized use of different transportation modes and the exploitation of smart steaming strategies for ship movements are the two main aspects considered in this innovative optimization system. In this paper, we present the optimization toolset developed, its contribution with respect to the existing platforms, and the experimental set-up implemented to evaluate its performance, usability, and effectiveness. The system is, in fact, currently under evaluation by several world-wide leading companies in freight logistics and transportation. However, the toolset potentialities go beyond the SYNCHRO-NET context, being the system an open-source project that makes use of open data formats and technologies.

Exploring linked data benefits for digital library users

ABSTRACTLinked open data technologies seem likely to offer significant benefits for digital library users. So far, however, these benefits remain largely speculative despite growing momentum toward the application of linked data in libraries. This paper reports on an exploratory user study to evaluate the use of linked data with digital library special collections. This pilot study assessed features designed to contextualize search results and representations of primary sources, and features that leverage linked data to offer analytic insights. Digital library users were most excited by applications of linked data that provide new, analytic information, and which simultaneously serve to open up new avenues for research within and beyond individual collections.

Libraries 4.0 and bookless libraries. IATUL-2017 Conference in South Tyrol

The author analyzes and reviews in brief the latest annual conference of the International Association of University Libraries (IATUL) (June 18-22, 2017, Bolzano, Italy), held on the premises of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Main trends in academic and research libraries within the conference subject scope are discussed, e. g. raw data management, including open data technology; digital transformation; impact on university research activities; libraries and learning; active support of digital literacy education, transforming and adapting library technologies to advanced technological requirements; transformation of library physical space to provide convenient and attractive space for students, for teaching and learning and independent work and testing. The author emphasizes that several newest library buildings are designed for bookless technology.

Multidimensional Open Government Data

A large number of open government data concerns official and unofficial statistics. These data can be represented as multidimensional data. In this paper, we commence by presenting data fragmentation, an important challenge when exploiting open data. We thereafter introduce multidimensional data as a possible solution to overcome data fragmentation. More specifically, we outline the data cube model and linked open data technologies. In addition, we present a process for multidimensional linked open data publication and reuse. We also present a number of software tools that have been developed to manage multidimensional linked open data. We finally summarize the benefits and some of the main barriers.

Cultural heritage open data for developing an educational platform

New strategy to promote and disseminate cultural heritage is ongoing. Linked Open Data technology suggests rethinking access to digital cultural heritage resources and their dissemination in different contexts. This paper presents the results of project which have developed a learning repository and an annotation tool to increase the content of cultural heritage according to teacher's needs. The educational platform was developed to disseminate multimedia cultural resources inside the classroom through open data access for sharing museum contents. The tools developed provide museum information to teachers who can reuse and re-contextualise them in their multimedia lessons and create educational environments to improve engagement and student learning. In this way the museum object will become a tool for teaching, new learning environments will be created and relationship between museum staff and education context will be improved.

Acceptance and use predictors of open data technologies: Drawing upon the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology

Policy-makers expect that open data will be accepted and used more and more, resulting in a range of benefits including transparency, participation and innovation. The ability to use open data partly depends on the availability of open data technologies. However, the actual use of open data technologies has shown mixed results, and there is a paucity of research on the predictors affecting the acceptance and use of open data technologies. A better understanding of these predictors can help policy-makers to determine which policy instruments they can use to increase the acceptance and use of open data technologies. A modified model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) is used to empirically determine predictors influencing the acceptance and use of open data technologies. The results show that the predictors performanceexpectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and voluntariness of use together account for 45% of the variability in people's behavioral intention to use open data technologies. Except for facilitating conditions, all these predictors significantly influence behavioral intention. Our analysis of the predictors that influence the acceptance and use of open data technologies can be used to stimulate the use of open data technologies. The findings suggest that policy-makers should increase the acceptance and use of open data technologies by showing the benefits of open data use, by creating awareness of users that they already use open data, by developing social strategies to encourage people to stimulate each other to use open data, by integrating open data use in daily activities, and by decreasing the effort necessary to use open data technologies.

An application profile for research collaboration and information management

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to design an application profile that will enable interoperability among research management systems, support research collaboration, and facilitate the management of research information.Design/methodology/approach– The approach is based on the Singapore Framework for Dublin Core Application Profile, a framework for designing metadata schemas for maximum interoperability. The application profile is built from gathering stakeholders’ requirements in research community and integrates four types of research information, i.e., information on researchers, research projects, research outputs, and research reports, which benefits researchers, research managers, and funding agencies.Findings– The resultant application profile is evaluated against widely used similar metadata schemas and requirements; and is found to be more comprehensive than the existing schemas and meets the collected requirements. Furthermore, the application profile is deployed with a prototype of research management system and is found works appropriately.Practical implications– The designed application profile has implications for further development of research management systems that would lead to the enhancement of research collaboration and the efficiency of research information management.Originality/value– The proposed application profile covers information entire the research development lifecycle. Both schema and information can be represented in Resource Description Framework format for reusing purpose and linking with other information. This enables users to share research information, co-operate with others, funding agencies and the community at large, thereby allowing a research management system to increase collaboration and the efficiency of research management. Furthermore, researchers and research information can be linked by means of Linked Open Data technology.

Enriching the e-GIF Ontology for an Improved Application of Linking Data Technologies to Greek Open Government Data

We present the current state of an ongoing project which involves the application of linked data technologies on a portion of data found in the ERMIS Greek portal for Public Administration. A starting point for linked open data technologies is data organization i.e. vocabulary definition that covers all classes and properties via an RDF schema or an ontology. More specifically, the focus of this paper is the enrichment of the e-GIF ontology, modeling the concepts and relations that are used to organize the information appearing in the ERMIS Greek portal for Public Administration with equivalent information required for the purposes of license provision according to the Directive 123/2006/EC. The enrichment process also involves the examination of the information appearing in the sites of other European countries. As it is already known, ontology alignment is a prerequisite step for finding schema-level links between Linked Open Data (LOD) datasets. The aim here is to identify those sites that contain the most valuable information and to include their concepts and relations in our ontology. This type addition will be further used for the interconnection of information between different sites via linked data.

From Bibliographic Records to Data

The change that has taken place in the library environment with the application of linked open data technologies is analyzed. Thus, the main objective of this paper is twofold. First, the authors intend to describe this new environment from the perspective of the institutions called GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museum); and, second and more precisely, they analyze the change from traditional library records to the particular case of linked open bibliographic data. To attain the first part of this goal, they systematized the information found in the official sources that define the different concepts under study. To address the second part of that objective the authors examined the publication of two key documents: Library Linked Data Incubator Group: Use Cases, in particular the section referring to the bibliographic data cluster, and Linked Open Data-Enabled Bibliographical Data (LODE-BD). It is concluded that the main result of the conversion of bibliographic data to open linked data is that the data will be more visible and integrated with other services and therefore more likely to be reused by them.

Digital archives and metadata as critical infrastructure to keep community memory safe for the future – lessons from Japanese activities

This paper discusses some key issues for digital archives and metadata in a networked information environment to keep our community memory for the future. The paper is based primarily on the experiences and lessons learnt by the author from his research activities on metadata and digital archives. The author participated in a study group on digital archives hosted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of the Japanese Government from February 2011 to March 2012. The group discussed the promotion of digital archives in Japan, particularly at memory institutions. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 11 March 2011 caused serious damage in the north-eastern part of Japan, especially the Pacific coastal regions. This disaster significantly affected the discussions of the group. The basic lesson that the author learned is that digital archives built on a robust information environment are essential for keeping our community memory safe for the future. Not only do the primary digital resources need to be properly maintained and preserved for the future but also secondary resources, metadata and meta-metadata. We need to use Linked Open Data technologies to enhance the usability of such digital resources in the archives.

Cloud based metalearning system for predictive modeling of biomedical data.

Rapid growth and storage of biomedical data enabled many opportunities for predictive modeling and improvement of healthcare processes. On the other side analysis of such large amounts of data is a difficult and computationally intensive task for most existing data mining algorithms. This problem is addressed by proposing a cloud based system that integrates metalearning framework for ranking and selection of best predictive algorithms for data at hand and open source big data technologies for analysis of biomedical data.

How Technology Helps to Create New Learning Environments by Use Digital Museum Resource

Multimedia Technologies, communication and WEB allow the opportunity to develop tools to apply new teaching methodologies and learning way in the School. On the other side Museum resources are available online to support teaching activities. The research team (Digilab of Sapienza University and “Via Val Maggia” School) has launched a project to develop a new way to teaching based on objects specially museum digital resources, therefore new learning environments have been created. A particularly Information System and a tool to build e-book have been designed to teachers to improve student learning by use digital museum objects information. The Polo Museale Sapienza has given a important contribution with its digital cultural heritage. Linked and Open Data technologies have been applied to share cultural heritage with education materials. We will discuss the results of the project and we will show examples of the creative means that teachers have built to use museum objects in the classroom through tools developed by Project. The project results could be important to develop a distance learning system to help student at home or to long life learning

Disaster mitigation and preparedness using linked open data

In disaster management, disaster mitigation and preparedness phases play vital roles to diminish the damages caused by a particular disaster. The development of information systems which simulate disaster preparedness and mitigation activities requires integration of large amount of data from different diversified data sources. The goal of our work is to provide an effective way, by means of the Linked Open Data (LOD) technology, to bring such different, distributed data sources into a standardized and exchangeable common data format and hence to enable their interoperability and integration. We describe how to publish different sets of data sources in Resource Description Framework (RDF), the basic data structure of LOD, and how to interconnect them with other sources in the LOD cloud. The Sahana disaster management system has been enhanced with these interconnected RDF data leading to a system called Sahana Asia. Sahana Asia can simulate disaster mitigation and preparedness activities, benefiting vulnerable people, emergency management teams as well as other organizations involved in disaster management. It has been evaluated by participants with some backgrounds in disaster management and found to be effective in terms of system quality, information quality and overall system performance. A few future extensions of the system have also been presented. These extensions can be readily implemented as they all uniformly represent their data and information in RDF.