Web Of Knowledge Research Articles

The educational use of social networking sites among medical and health sciences students: a cross campus interventional study

BackgroundIn recent years, social networking sites (SNSs) have evolved beyond connection and networking to become a powerful instructional tool. There is still a dearth of knowledge on the professional use of SNSs for education particularly among students from diverse backgrounds. This study examined the extent and pattern of SNSs usage for education across six institutions and then conducted an interventional workshop to fortify and regulate the educational use of SNSs.MethodsThis multicenter study was done in two phases. In the first phase, an online cross-sectional survey using a validated inventory was administered to determine the prevalence, extent, and preferences of SNSs usage by undergraduate students in medicine, health sciences and dentistry across five centers. Later, the second phase of the study was undertaken in a 75-min guided live workshop about the appropriate use of SNSs in academia. Additionally, pre- and post-test surveys were conducted to assess the impact and outcome of workshop.ResultsOf the 1722 respondents, 1553 (90%) reported using SNSs with the frequency of once a month to three to five times per day for education and to stay in touch with others. Most students agreed with the benefits of SNSs for education mainly in terms of information gathering, networking and collaboration. Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest were noted as the most preferred SNSs for education. Nevertheless, 63% perceived that proper instruction was required for the efficient use of SNSs. Following the guided workshop, there was a significant improvement in web technology understanding, digital professionalism, skills and knowledge on the productive use of SNSs. Students rated the efficient for conceptual learning, connection to community practice, e-portfolio, and collaborative learning as the top four major teaching and learning strategies, respectively, in the post-workshop survey.ConclusionOur study demonstrates that SNSs can be used as learning tools in medical education. However, SNSs usage should be regulated and guided for a more collegial and coherent learning climate in the digital realm. We urge medical educators to integrate SNSs into their courses for a technologically advanced and impactful curriculum.

Enamel remineralisation and efficacy of remineralising agents: A Review

To review current information and technology for tooth remineralisation. Searches in the "Scopus" and "Web ofKnowledge" databases, which date back to 1970s. English was the only language allowed. The study incorporatedboth original research and previously published reviews. Tooth remineralisation agents, products, and treatmentshave progressively increased in recent years due to the growing awareness of the significance of good dentalhealth among patients and general community. Both in vitro and in vivo tooth remineralisation anddemineralization research have been published regularly. Theobromine has been proposed as an effectiveremineralising agent and a viable alternative to fluorides in recent years. According to research, fluoride treatmentscan prevent dental enamel demineralization and remineralisation. An increasing number of products containingcalcium salts or calcium-based compounds have been added to oral care products to boost the delivery andretentiveness of fluoride into teeth. Calcium salts or materials, which provide an additional source of calcium,may aid in accelerating enamel remineralisation or hinder demineralization processes. These effects are possiblebecause calcium is a mineral. A new area of research inspired by bioactive materials for bone repair andregeneration, bioglass, in particular calcium silicates, shows promise for improving enamel health and is one typeof bioglass that contains calcium silicate.

Improving query expansion using pseudo-relevant web knowledge for information retrieval

• Web knowledge-based query expansion technique uses the top N pseudo relevant web pages • Top N pseudo relevant web pages returned by search engines Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo as data sources • Proposed weighting techniques have properly capture the term relationship while weighing the expansion terms • Experimental results show an improvement of 25.89% over the unexpanded queries of FIRE dataset In the field of information retrieval, query expansion (QE) has long been used as a technique to deal with the fundamental issue of word mismatch between a user’s query and the target information. In the context of the relationship between the query and expanded terms, existing weighting techniques often fail to appropriately capture the term-term relationship and term to the whole query relationship, resulting in low retrieval effectiveness. Our proposed QE approach addresses this by proposing three weighting models based on (1) tf-idf, (2) k-nearest neighbor (kNN) based cosine similarity , and (3) correlation score. Further, to extract the initial set of expanded terms, we use pseudo-relevant web knowledge consisting of the top N web pages returned by the three popular search engines namely, Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, in response to the original query. Among the three weighting models, tf-idf scores each of the individual terms obtained from the web content, kNN-based cosine similarity scores the expansion terms to obtain the term-term relationship, and correlation score weighs the selected expansion terms with respect to the whole query. The proposed model, called web knowledge based query expansion (WKQE), achieves an improvement of 25.89% on the Mean Average Precision (MAP) score and 30.83% on the Geometric Mean Average precision (GMAP) score over the unexpanded queries on the FIRE dataset. A comparative analysis of the WKQE techniques with other related approaches clearly shows significant improvement in the retrieval performance. We have also analyzed the effect of varying the number of pseudo-relevant documents and expansion terms on the retrieval effectiveness of the proposed model.

The Search as Learning Spaceship: Toward a Comprehensive Model of Psychological and Technological Facets of Search as Learning.

Using a Web search engine is one of today’s most frequent activities. Exploratory search activities which are carried out in order to gain knowledge are conceptualized and denoted as Search as Learning (SAL). In this paper, we introduce a novel framework model which incorporates the perspective of both psychology and computer science to describe the search as learning process by reviewing recent literature. The main entities of the model are the learner who is surrounded by a specific learning context, the interface that mediates between the learner and the information environment, the information retrieval (IR) backend which manages the processes between the interface and the set of Web resources, that is, the collective Web knowledge represented in resources of different modalities. At first, we provide an overview of the current state of the art with regard to the five main entities of our model, before we outline areas of future research to improve our understanding of search as learning processes.

Challenges and Strategies for Employee Retention in the Hospitality Industry: A Review

Despite the issues that the hospitality industry encounters in retaining talented employees, little attention has been paid to the development of retention strategies, resulting in poor organizational performance and sustainable growth. The current study, therefore, aims to review and discuss the employee retention strategies in the hospitality industry in order to keep talented employees for a longer period of time. The study is based on past literature and peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2020. The databases Web Knowledge, Emerald, Google Scholar, and Science Direct were used to find the relevant papers using the key words such as “Hospitality Industry”, “employee retention”, “employee turnover”, and “employees”. The findings of this study suggest that employee retention is contingent on employee satisfaction, which is comprised of four factors: sustainable positive work environment; sustainable growth opportunities; sustainable & effective communication; and sustainable & effective recruitment and selection practices. The paper contributes to a comprehensive review of the literature on employee retention strategies in the hospitality context. The study proposes a model for the hospitality industry to revamp its recruitment and selection practices in order to retain its employees. Furthermore, the study provides a focused directions that will aid in the establishment of employee retention strategies and practices. It was concluded that satisfied employees are less likely to leave their current job, while unsatisfied employees are expected to leave their current job for a better career opportunity. Managerial implications were also discussed.

INFORMATION LITERACY OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN ONLINE TEACHING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN CHINA

Synchronous online courses have attracted wide attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers must have excellent technical skills and a foundation of web knowledge in order to deliver a quality online course. A teacher's information literacy is one important skill against which one can evaluate their professional ability with regard to online instruction. Therefore, this study focuses on selecting teachers from two provinces in China and distributing relevant questionnaires to explore the current situation and training needs of primary and secondary school teacher information literacy from the perspective of professional development. The results show that primary and secondary school teachers have a high level of information consciousness and information ethics, but information knowledge and information ability need to be improved. In addition, there is no significant difference in information literacy among teachers of different gender, age, educational background, and professional title. Technology application and centralized training are the main training contents and formats that teachers look for.

Slackline training and postural control in older adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundExercise can reduce the negative effects of aging on postural control. The slackline training could potentially be an activity to improve postural control in older adults. However, the effects of slackline on postural control in older adults are not clear. This systematic review aimed to investigate the effects of slackline on postural control in older adults. MethodsRandomized controlled trials were retrieved from ISI Web Knowledge, PubMed and Scopus using the descriptors "Slackline", "Slacklining", "Aged", "Aging", "Elderly", "Older adults", "Balance”, “Postural Balance” and “Postural Control”. Randomized controlled trials were selected. Postural control was evaluated through center of pressure (CoP), and slackline standing time during single leg stance. ResultsFour studies with 118 participants were included. The studies found that slackline improves slackline standing time in the tandem, and the single-legged postures, without differences in CoP displacement in single-leg position, results that were confirmed by the meta-analyses. ConclusionAlthough slackline training improves task-specific performance, this improvement is not transferable to other tasks. This conclusion should be interpreted with caution considering the small number of studies, inconsistent designs, and general study limitations. Further studies are required before recommending slackline training to optimize the postural control of older adults.

Use of food web knowledge in environmental conservation and management of living resources in the Baltic Sea

AbstractFood webs are central entities mediating processes and external pressures in marine ecosystems. They are essential to understand and predict ecosystem dynamics and provision of ecosystem services. Paradoxically, utilization of food web knowledge in marine environmental conservation and resource management is limited. To better understand the use of knowledge and barriers to incorporation in management, we assess its application related to the management of eutrophication, chemical contamination, fish stocks, and non-indigenous species. We focus on the Baltic, a severely impacted, but also intensely studied and actively managed semi-enclosed sea. Our assessment shows food web processes playing a central role in all four areas, but application varies strongly, from formalized integration in management decisions, to support in selecting indicators and setting threshold values, to informal knowledge explaining ecosystem dynamics and management performance. Barriers for integration are complexity of involved ecological processes and that management frameworks are not designed to handle such information. We provide a categorization of the multi-faceted uses of food web knowledge and benefits of future incorporation in management, especially moving towards ecosystem-based approaches as guiding principle in present marine policies and directives. We close with perspectives on research needs to support this move considering global and regional change.

Fixing the inconsistencies in fuzzy spatiotemporal RDF graph

Since an increasing number of applications have urgent requirements for the management of fuzzy spatiotemporal information, it is challenging to model fuzzy spatiotemporal data. On the other hand, because Resource Description Framework (RDF) benefits greatly from web data, linked data, and knowledge graph, it has been widely accepted and has rapidly become a new choice to model and represent data in many application domains. The advent of RDF seems to provide an opportunity for dealing with fuzzy spatiotemporal data. However, RDF data is subject to continuously changing operations so that they may violate the integrity constraints and cause inconsistencies. In order to solve these problems, we propose an extended RDF model that can represent fuzzy spatiotemporal data, and then present the structure of fuzzy spatiotemporal data in RDF graph. After studying the constraint conditions of fuzzy spatiotemporal data in RDF graph, we propose the corresponding fixing rules and algorithms to detect and repair the fuzzy spatiotemporal RDF graph. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach which can significantly solve the inconsistency problem of fuzzy spatiotemporal RDF graphs.

How personal characteristics impact phishing susceptibility: The mediating role of mail processing

In the phishing email literature, recent researchers have given much attention to individual differences in phishing susceptibility from the perspective of the Big Five personality traits. Although the effectiveness and advantages of the phishing susceptibility measures in the signal detection theory (SDT) framework have been verified, the cognitive mechanisms that lead to individual differences in these measures remain unknown. The current study proposed and examined a theoretical path model to explore how the Big Five personality traits, related knowledge and experience and the cognitive processing of emails (i.e., mail elaboration) influence users’ susceptibility to phishing emails. A sample of 414 Chinese participants completed the 44-item Big Five Personality Inventory (BFI-44), Mail Elaboration Scale (MES), Web Experience Questionnaire, Experience with Electronic Mail Scale, Knowledge and Technical Background Test and a demographic questionnaire. The phishing susceptibility measures were calculated after the participants finished an email legitimacy task in a role-playing scenario. The results showed that the general profile of the “victim personality” included low conscientiousness, low openness and high neuroticism, and Internet experience and computer and web knowledge played an important role. All of these factors have significant indirect effects on phishing susceptibility by influencing mail elaboration. Moreover, the probabilities of checking for further information or deleting the email reflect the sensitivity of email judgment. These findings reveal the mediating role of cognitive processing between individual factors and phishing susceptibility. The theoretical implications of this study for the phishing susceptibility literature and its applications to phishing risk interventions or training programs are discussed.

Sodium Glucose Cotransporter 2 Inhibitors Reduce the Risk of Heart Failure Hospitalization in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

AimTo evaluate the impact of sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i) on risk of heart failure hospitalization in patients with type 2 diabetes.MethodsWe searched the PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wanfang, CBM, and other web knowledge databases for data from randomized controlled trials. We performed statistical analyses by using review Manager (RevMan) 5.3 and STATA 12.0 for meta-analysis.ResultsEight randomized controlled trials that compared SGLT-2i versus placebo met our inclusion criteria and were included in the study. The final meta-analysis included a total of 55,763 type 2 diabetes patients. Compared with placebo, SGLT-2i reduced the risk of heart failure hospitalization (RR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.74; P < 0.00001), MACE (defined as cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or ischemic stroke) (RR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.86 to 0.98; P < 0.007), cardiovascular death (RR, 0.78; 95%CI, 0.62 to 0.99; P = 0.04) in type 2 diabetes patients. SGLT-2i could reduce the risk of death from any cause (RR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.59 to 1.01; P = 0.06) without statistical significance in type 2 diabetes patients.ConclusionCompared with placebo, SGLT-2i may reduce the risk of heart failure hospitalization, MACE, and cardiovascular death. Therefore, SGLT-2i may be an ideal choice for type 2 diabetes mellitus patient with heart failure. These results will help inform practitioners, patients, and authorities making appropriate choices in hypoglycemic therapy clinical practice.

MiRNA Expression Profiles in Luminal A Breast Cancer-Implications in Biology, Prognosis, and Prediction of Response to Hormonal Treatment.

Breast cancer, which is the most common malignancy in women, does not form a uniform nosological unit but represents a group of malignant diseases with specific clinical, histopathological, and molecular characteristics. The increasing knowledge of the complex pathophysiological web of processes connected with breast cancercarcinogenesis allows the development of predictive and prognostic gene expressionand molecular classification systems with improved risk assessment, which could be used for individualized treatment. In our review article, we present the up-to-date knowledge about the role of miRNAs and their prognostic and predictive value in luminal A breast cancer. Indeed, an altered expression profile of miRNAs can distinguish not only between cancer and healthy samples, but they can classify specific molecular subtypes of breast cancer including HER2, Luminal A, Luminal B, and TNBC. Early identification and classification of breast cancer subtypes using miRNA expression profilescharacterize a promising approach in the field of personalized medicine. A detection of sensitive and specific biomarkers to distinguish between healthy and early breast cancer patients can be achieved by an evaluation of the different expression of several miRNAs. Consequently, miRNAs represent a potential as good diagnostic, prognostic, predictive, and therapeutic biomarkers for patients with luminal A in the early stage of BC.

Drivers of managers’ affect (emotions) and corporate website usage: a comparative analysis between a developed and developing country

PurposeExisting literature reveals a general lack of research on business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce showcasing how managers’ affect plays a role in enhancing their attitude toward the businesses they work with. The purpose of this study is to fill that void by ascertaining whether managers’ corporate website knowledge, corporate website expertise and affect toward a corporate site influence their attitude toward the corporate website. It also investigates whether managers’ attitude guides corporate website usage intention in the context of two culturally diverse countries.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from managers from the USA and Kuwait using an online survey method. Structural equation modeling using EQS 6.2 software was used for analysis.FindingsThe results indicate that corporate Web knowledge influences Web expertise and affect in the US sample; in the Kuwaiti sample, Web knowledge influences Web expertise but does not influence affect. The findings in both studies reveal that managers’ knowledge about the Web has a positive effect on their attitude toward a business website. For Kuwaiti managers, Web expertise has a positive influence on affect. However, Web expertise does not influence managers’ affect in the US sample. The results further suggest that affect influences a manager’s attitude toward corporate websites in the US and Kuwaiti samples.Originality/valueSelf-efficacy and affect infusion theories serve as the foundation for this study. This research adds to these two theories in three ways. First, it examines the combined influence of affect and attitude on B2B managers’ intent to use a corporate website. Second, it proposes a single model that examines the combined relationships among managers’ knowledge and managers’ Web expertise that elicit managerial affect toward corporate websites. Third, the proposed model was tested using samples from two diverse countries (developed, the USA, and developing, Kuwait).

Knowledge Management Systems Analysis and Planning for Employees Recruitment and Training

The development of science in the era of globalization is happening so quickly. The ability of humans to develop a variety of science (knowledge) is getting better with the tacit and explicit knowledge. From this development both tacit and explicit knowledge can be combined and varied to a Knowledge Management System. PT SCF (Limited) Palembang branch is a company engaged in the field of inspection and certification services. The problem faced by this company is that the process and media for sharing and transferring knowledge between colleagues is still small and not yet entrenched. This condition makes the company less effective in terms of producing and disseminating knowledge to staff quickly and accurately. Documentation of daily activities and routines are not carried out in a planned and integrated manner. Each department carries out its own activities in its own way, for example storing documentation on a CD, as well as a piece of paper. So the authors are interested in analyzing and designing Web Knowledge Management System. The method used is the object analysis and design method. While the tools for modeling using Unified Modeling Language (UML). The results obtained are a prototype web Knowledge Management System (KMS) that can be a media of information and knowledge sharing related to employee acceptance and training

A Comparative Evaluation of Geospatial Semantic Web Frameworks for Cultural Heritage

Recently, many Resource Description Framework (RDF) data generation tools have been developed to convert geospatial and non-geospatial data into RDF data. Furthermore, there are several interlinking frameworks that find semantically equivalent geospatial resources in related RDF data sources. However, many existing Linked Open Data sources are currently sparsely interlinked. Also, many RDF generation and interlinking frameworks require a solid knowledge of Semantic Web and Geospatial Semantic Web concepts to successfully deploy them. This article comparatively evaluates features and functionality of the current state-of-the-art geospatial RDF generation tools and interlinking frameworks. This evaluation is specifically performed for cultural heritage researchers and professionals who have limited expertise in computer programming. Hence, a set of criteria has been defined to facilitate the selection of tools and frameworks. In addition, the article provides a methodology to generate geospatial cultural heritage RDF data and to interlink it with the related RDF data. This methodology uses a CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) ontology and interlinks the RDF data with DBpedia. Although this methodology has been developed for cultural heritage researchers and professionals, it may also be used by other domain professionals.

Clinicopathological Significance of Long Non-Coding RNA GHET1 in Human Cancers: A Meta-Analysis.

Cancer is considered as the main public health problem and the second leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Numerous environmental-lifestyle related risk factors account for around one-third of cancer deaths. Recently, the key role of lncRNAs has been widely investigated in a variety of disorders, including cancer. The lncRNA GHET1 has been considered as an essential oncogenic lncRNA in many types of human cancers. Clinical investigations indicated that expression of lncRNA GHET1 is correlated with clinicopathological characteristics in cancer. This metaanalysis investigated the correlation between the lncRNA GHET1 expression and clinicopathological features in different types of cancers. Comprehensive literature searches in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Knowledge were conducted up to April 11, 2019. Sixteen studies were included in this meta-analysis. All statistical analyses were conducted using Stata software, version 12.0. The pooled OR and 95%CIs of the sixteen relevant studies showed that over expression of lncRNA GHET1 was associated with tumor-size ≥5 cm (OR= 2.51, 95% CI: 1.89-3.33, p=0.00, I2=38.30%), positive lymph node metastasis (OR= 2.83, 95% CI: 1.78-4.52, p=0.00, I2=45.60%), advanced tumor stage (OR= 3.92, 95% CI: 2.97-5.19, p=0.00, I2=0.00%), positive distant metastasis (OR= 5.74, 95% CI: 2.58-12.77, p=0.00, I2=0.00%), advanced tumor status (OR= 2.97, 95% CI: 1.40- 6.29, p=0.01, I2=34.70%), and positive vascular invasion (OR= 2.69, 95% CI: 1.61-4.50, p=0.00, I2=29.20%). Taken together, the current study demonstrated that overexpression of lncRNA GHET1 is significantly associated with clinicopathological features in human cancers. Our results suggested that lncRNA GHET1 can be utilized as a prognostic biomarker in human cancer.

Indoor haze particulate control using knowledge graphs within self-optimizing HVAC control systems

Transboundary haze pollution in South East Asia is posing a threat to conventional design of buildings yet indoor air pollution from haze particulate infiltration has still received less attention in Malaysia compared to haze pollution outdoors. Because of this minimal research effort, indoor building environments have increasingly become very complex environments for facility managers to monitor and control due to the corresponding growth in heterogeneity within building behavioural information and monitoring (sensory) systems. As a solution to this and part of an ongoing study, this paper presents the preliminary process of modelling heterogeneous building information related to indoor air quality (IAQ) (building envelope, sensors, contaminant properties, geometry, occupancy schedules and weather data) within modular and extensible semantic web knowledge graphs (KG). This work argues that this data model can preserve the existential and latent parametric relationships within such information therafter availing an accurate representation of the heterogeneous state-space in machine learning workflows of self-learning building monitors and controllers. Compared to the conventional homogenous feature vectors, KGs hold sufficient context-aware semantics for an algorithmic building control system to smartly monitor the IAQ and autonomously learn to adapt air handling units towards occupant comfort in an energy efficient manner. Specifically, this paper highlights the high-level implementation process of KGs within the deep Q-learning process of the aforementioned control systems. Finally, a brief discussion is provided on how this process reduces the complexity that facility managers face while operating their IAQ control systems followed by the conclusions and future work to be carried out in this study.

Comparative Analysis of Information Retrieval using Ontology Based vs Traditional Information Systems in Food Science Domain

The current methods of searching and information retrieval are imprecise, often yielding results in tens of thousands of web pages. Extraction of the actual information needed often requires extensive manual browsing of retrieved documents. In order to address these drawbacks, this paper introduces an implementation in the field of food science of the ontology-based information retrieval system, and comparison is made with conventional information systems. The ontology of Food Semantic Web Knowledge Base (FSWKB) was built using the Protégé framework which supports two main models of ontology through the editors Protégé-Frames and Protégé-OWL. The FSWKB is composed of two heterogeneous ontologies, and these are merged and processed on a separate server application making use of the Apache Jena Fuseki an SPARQL server offering SPARQL endpoint. The experimental results indicated that ontology-based information systems are more effective in terms of their retrieval capability compared to the more conventional information retrieval systems. The retrieval effectiveness was measured in terms of precision and recall. The results of the work showed that traditional search results in average precision and recall levels of 0.92 and 0.18. The ontology-based test for precision and recall has average rates of 0.96 and 0.97.

The intellectual contours of corporate social responsibility literature

PurposeCorporate Social Responsibility (CSR) deliberated regarding business firms' actions for doing well to society and natural environment. Specifically, CSR has been about firms contributions towards stakeholder management. As world economy has prospered over the last couple of centuries, business firms have had also increased its footprints in social landscape. In such a scenario, the roles and responsibilities of business firms have expanded in society. Over the years, CSR as a domain of research and literature has developed into a very potent and rich field. Presently, CSR literature as a body of knowledge has become substantial. The authors in this literature review study attempts to conceptually map this complex field of CSR literature.Design/methodology/approachThe objective of this literature review study was to present a visual mapping of intellectual structure of CSR in five-dimensions and to identify the subfields of CSR research concluded by co-citation analysis. All the citation research documents which were listed in the Web of Knowledge (WoK) database between 1998 and 2019 were analysed. Multivariate analysis was undertaken for the literature review. The study conducted a sequence of statistical analyses comprising of factor analysis, multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis.FindingsThis literature review research study summarised the contours and status of CSR research by categorizing the CSR literature into five classification factors, namely CSR Drivers CSR, Contextual Grounding of CSR, Historical Legacy of CSR, Strategic CSR and CSR Implementation. Further, based upon the analysis of literature review of extant research in CSR, both the contemporary and imminent CSR-related research themes were also deliberated upon.Research limitations/implicationsThe results were helpful for academic scholars of CSR to comprehend both the gamut and focus of CSR literature over the years (between the years 1998 and 2019). The sequence of analyses involved factor, multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. CSR literature was categorized into five factors namely- CSR Drivers, Contextual Grounding of CSR, Historical Legacy of CSR, Strategic CSR and CSR Implementation.Originality/valueThis study was one of the first set of studies to review the literature on CSR research articles by using citation, co-citation and social network analysis.

A Framework for Exploration and Visualization of SPARQL Endpoint Information

Widely accepted standards, such as the Resource Description Framework, have provided unified ways for data provision aiming to facilitate the exchange of information between machines. This information became of interest to a wider audience due to its volume and variety but the available formats are posing significant challenges to users with limited knowledge of the Semantic Web. The SPARQL query language alleviates this barrier by facilitating the exploration of this information and many data providers have created dedicated SPARQL endpoints for their data. Many efforts have been dedicated to the development of systems that will provide access and support the exploration of these endpoints in a semantically correct and user friendly way. The main challenge of such approaches is the diversity of the information contained in the endpoints, which renders holistic or schema specific solutions obsolete. We present here an integrated platform that supports the users to the querying, exploration and visualization of information contained in SPARQL endpoints. The platform handles each query result independently based only on its characteristics, offering an endpoint and data schema agnostic solution. This is achieved through a Decision Support System, developed based on a knowledge base containing information experimentally collected from many endpoints, that allows us to provide case-specific visualization strategies for SPARQL query results based exclusively on features extracted from the result.