Semantic Web applications: a framework for industry and business exploitation – What is needed for the adoption of the Semantic Web from the market and industry

In recent years, Semantic Web (SW) research has resulted in significant outcomes. Various industries have adopted SW technologies, while the ‘deep web’ is still pursuing the critical transformation point, in which the majority of data found on the deep web will be exploited through SW value layers. In this article we analyse the SW applications from a ‘market’ perspective. We are setting the key requirements for real-world information systems that are SW-enabled and we discuss the major difficulties for the SW uptake that has been delayed. This article contributes to the literature of SW and knowledge management providing a context for discourse towards best practices on SW-based information systems.

Potential Accessibility of Web-based mathematical information resources

This paper presents a research concerning the conversion of non-accessible web pages containing mathematical formulae into accessible versions through an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tool. The objective of this research is twofold. First, to establish criteria for evaluating the potential accessibility of mathematical web sites, i.e. the feasibility of converting non-accessible (non-MathML) math sites into accessible ones (Math-ML). Second, to propose a data model and a mechanism to publish evaluation results, making them available to the educational community who may use them as a quality measurement for selecting learning material.Results show that the conversion using OCR tools is not viable for math web pages mainly due to two reasons: many of these pages are designed to be interactive, making difficult, if not almost impossible, a correct conversion; formula (either images or text) have been written without taking into account standards of math writing, as a consequence OCR tools do not properly recognize math symbols and expressions. In spite of these results, we think the proposed methodology to create and publish evaluation reports may be rather useful in other accessibility assessment scenarios.

Entorns col•laboratius virtuals asíncrons basats en Web i enfocats en la gestió del coneixement = Web-based Asynchronous Collaborative Environments Focused on Knowledge Management

Report for the scientific sojourn at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, from september 2007 until july 2008. Communities of Learning Practice is an innovative paradigm focused on providing appropriate technological support to both formal and especially informal learning groups who are chiefly formed by non-technical people and who lack of the necessary resources to acquire such systems. Typically, students who are often separated by geography and/or time have the need to meet each other after classes in small study groups to carry out specific learning activities assigned during the formal learning process. However, the lack of suitable and available groupware applications makes it difficult for these groups of learners to collaborate and achieve their specific learning goals. In addition, the lack of democratic decision-making mechanisms is a main handicap to substitute the central authority of knowledge presented in formal learning.

Information systems for water resources management improvement in developing countries

Water resources management, as also water service provision projects in developing countries have difficulties to take adequate decisions due to scarce reliable information, and a lack of proper information managing. Some appropriate tools need to be developed in order to improve decision making to improve water management and access of the poorest, through the design of Decision Support Systems (DSS). On the one side, a DSS for developing co-operation projects on water access improvement has been developed. Such a tool has specific context constrains (structure of the system, software requirements) and needs (Logical Framework Approach monitoring, organizational-learning, accountability and evaluation) that shall be considered for its design. Key aspects for its successful implementation have appeared to be a participatory design of the system and support of the managerial positions at the inception phase. A case study in Tanzania was conducted, together with the Spanish NGO ONGAWA – Ingeniería para el Desarrollo. On the other side, DSS are required also to improve decision making on water management resources in order to achieve a sustainable development that not only improves the living conditions of the population in developing countries, but that also does not hinder opportunities of the poorest on those context. A DSS made to fulfil these requirements shall be using information from water resources modelling, as also on the environment and the social context. Through the research, a case study has been conducted in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia, an endhorreic basin 160 km south of Addis Ababa. There, water has been modelled using ArcSWAT, a physically based model which can assess the impact of land management practices on large complex watersheds with varying soils, land use and management conditions over long periods of time. Moreover, governance on water and environment as also the socioeconomic context have been studied.

XML-based information management environment for PE technologies

Printed electronics is an emerging concept in electronics manufacturing and it is in very early development stage. The technology is not stable, design kits are not developed, and flows and Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools are not fixed yet. The European project TDK4PE addresses all this issues and this PFC has been realized on this context. The goal is to develop an XML-based information system for the collection and management of information from the technology and cell libraries developed in TDK4PE. This system will ease the treatment of that information for a later generation of specific Design Kits (DK) and the corresponding documentation. This work proposes a web application to generate technology files and design kits in a formatted way; it also proposes a structure for them and a database implementation for storing the needed information. The application will allow its users to redefine the structure of those files, as well as export and import XML files, between other formats.

The effects of poor financial information systems on the long term sustainability of local public services. Empirical evidence from the Catalan Municipalities

In this paper we describe the existence of financial illusion in public accountingand we comment on its effects for the future sustainability of local publicservices. We relate these features to the lack of incentives amongst publicmanagers for improving the financial reporting and thus management of publicassets. Financial illusion pays off for politicians and managers since it allowsfor larger public expenditure increases and managerial slack, these beingarguments in their utility functions. This preference is strengthen by the shorttime perspective of politically appointed public managers. Both factors runagainst public accountability. This hypothesis is tested for Spain by using anunique sample. We take data from around forty Catalan local authorities withpopulation above 20,000 for the financial years 1993-98. We build this databasis from the Catalan Auditing Office Reports in a way that it can be linkedto some other local social and economic variables in order to test ourassumptions. The results confirm that there is a statistical relationship between the financialillusion index (FI as constructed in the paper) and higher current expenditure.This reflects on important overruns and increases of the delay in payingsuppliers, as well as on a higher difficulties to face capital finance. Mechanismsfor FI creation have to do among other factors, with delays in paying suppliers(and thereafter higher future financial costs per unit of service), no adequateprovision for bad debts and lack of appropriate capital funding either forreposition or for new equipments. For this, it is crucial to monitor the way inwhich capital transfers are accounted in local public sheet balances. As a result,for most of the Municipalities we analyse, the funds for guaranteeing continuityand sustainability of public services provision are today at risk.Given managerial incentives at present in public institutions, we conclude thatpublic regulation recently enforced for assuring better information systems inlocal public management may not be enough to change the current state of affairs.

Management information systems: The balanced scorecard in Spanish public universities

Organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the need for management information systems, due largely to the changing environment and a continuous process of globalisation. All of this means that managers need to adapt the structures of their organisations to the changes and, therefore, to plan, control and manage better. The Spanish public university cannot avoid this changing (demographic, economic and social changes) and globalising (among them the convergence of European qualifications) environment, to which we must add the complex organisation structure, characterised by a high dispersion of authority for decision making in different collegiate and unipersonal organs. It seems obvious that these changes must have repercussions on the direction, organisation and management structures of those public higher education institutions, and it seems natural that, given this environment, the universities must adapt their present management systems to the demand by society for the quality and suitability of the services they provide.

Patterns of impact resulting from a 'sit less, move more' web-based program in sedentary office employees

Purpose Encouraging office workers to ‘sit less and move more’ encompasses two public health priorities. However, there is little evidence on the effectiveness of workplace interventions for reducing sitting, even less about the longer term effects of such interventions and still less on dual-focused interventions. This study assessed the short and mid-term impacts of a workplace web-based intervention (Walk@WorkSpain, W@WS; 2010-11) on self-reported sitting time, step counts and physical risk factors (waist circumference, BMI, blood pressure) for chronic disease. Methods Employees at six Spanish university campuses (n=264; 42±10 years; 171 female) were randomly assigned by worksite and campus to an Intervention (used W@WS; n=129; 87 female) or a Comparison group (maintained normal behavior; n=135; 84 female). This phased, 19-week program aimed to decrease occupational sitting time through increased incidental movement and short walks. A linear mixed model assessed changes in outcome measures between the baseline, ramping (8 weeks), maintenance (11 weeks) and followup (two months) phases for Intervention versus Comparison groups.A significant 2 (group) × 2 (program phases) interaction was found for self-reported occupational sitting (F[3]=7.97, p=0.046), daily step counts (F[3]=15.68, p=0.0013) and waist circumference (F[3]=11.67, p=0.0086). The Intervention group decreased minutes of daily occupational sitting while also increasing step counts from baseline (446±126; 8,862±2,475) through ramping (+425±120; 9,345±2,435), maintenance (+422±123; 9,638±3,131) and follow-up (+414±129; 9,786±3,205). In the Comparison group, compared to baseline (404±106), sitting time remained unchanged through ramping and maintenance, but decreased at follow-up (-388±120), while step counts diminished across all phases. The Intervention group significantly reduced waist circumference by 2.1cms from baseline to follow-up while the Comparison group reduced waist circumference by 1.3cms over the same period. Conclusions W@WSis a feasible and effective evidence-based intervention that can be successfully deployed with sedentary employees to elicit sustained changes on “sitting less and moving more”.

Web de control de tráfico marítimo

El proyecto Web de Control de Tráfico Marítimo (WCTM) un proyecto Web que va a gestionar información útil para el Control del Tráfico Marítimo de una determinada zona del mundo. Usa el concepto de arquitectura SOA, una arquitectura que se basa en los servicios Web, proporciona en tiempo real información sobre los buques usando los mapas de Google.

Personalized touristic routes implementing semantic web on GIS

Nowadays, when a user is planning a touristic route is very difficult to find out which are the best places to visit. The user has to choose considering his/her preferences due to the great quantity of information it is possible to find in the web and taking into account it is necessary to do a selection, within small time because there is a limited time to do a trip. In Itiner@ project, we aim to implement Semantic Web technology combined with Geographic Information Systems in order to offer personalized touristic routes around a region based on user preferences and time situation. Using ontologies it is possible to link, structure, share data and obtain the result more suitable for user's preferences and actual situation with less time and more precisely than without ontologies. To achieve these objectives we propose a web page combining a GIS server and a touristic ontology. As a step further, we also study how to extend this technology on mobile devices due to the raising interest and technological progress of these devices and location-based services, which allows the user to have all the route information on the hand when he/she does a touristic trip. We design a little application in order to apply the combination of GIS and Semantic Web in a mobile device.

Aplicació web per a la vigilància epidemiològica a Barcelona emprant sistemes d'informació geogràfica de programari lliure

This project is about the development of a web that uses the tools offered by the Geographic Information Systems based in open source in order to monitoring and detect legionella clusters in Barcelona. This web also produces thematic maps for the study of epidemiologic diseases and has been made with the colaboration of the Barcelona public health agency.

Comunicación de riesgo y sistemas de información en la Web: cinco modelos

Las administracionespúblicas de los países avanzadosestán llevando a caboiniciativas para gestionar lainformación y la comunicaciónde riesgo y emergencias mediantesitios web concebidos ydiseñados para ello. Estos sitiosestán pensados para facilitarinformación a los ciudadanosen caso de emergencias, perotambién contienen informaciónútil para los expertos y las autoridades.En este trabajo, y ala luz de la legislación españolasobre emergencias, se comparanlos sitios de la administraciónautonómica catalana y delgobierno de España con lossitios de tres países de referencia:Estados Unidos, Francia yReino Unido. Al mismo tiempose propone una metodologíasimple para llevar a cabo unacomparación que permita extraerconclusiones y plantearrecomendaciones en un aspectode la gestión de la información que puede resultar clave para salvar bienes materiales y vidas humanas.

Personalized touristic routes implementing semantic web on GIS

Nowadays, when a user is planning a touristic route is very difficult to find out which are the best places to visit. The user has to choose considering his/her preferences due to the great quantity of information it is possible to find in the web and taking into account it is necessary to do a selection, within small time because there is a limited time to do a trip. In Itiner@ project, we aim to implement Semantic Web technology combined with Geographic Information Systems in order to offer personalized touristic routes around a region based on user preferences and time situation. Using ontologies it is possible to link, structure, share data and obtain the result more suitable for user's preferences and actual situation with less time and more precisely than without ontologies. To achieve these objectives we propose a web page combining a GIS server and a touristic ontology. As a step further, we also study how to extend this technology on mobile devices due to the raising interest and technological progress of these devices and location-based services, which allows the user to have all the route information on the hand when he/she does a touristic trip. We design a little application in order to apply the combination of GIS and Semantic Web in a mobile device.