EP Topic News: 25th April 2002EP Topic News: 25th April 2002
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User Survey
FP6 - Expressions of Interest (EoI)
The Scout Report
W3C's Technical Architecture Group
Knowledge management resources
XML - practical guide
Searching with Internet Explorer
Teoma vs. Google
ITU - IP-based multimedia networks
Euromap Newsletter April 2002
EUSIDIC Spring 2002 report
Flatland Rover 3.2 released
JASSS March 2002
Open Archives Forum Workshop
Adobe FrameMaker 7.0
Managing intellectual property
Agent-based computational economics notes
EU government e-services consultation
Ariadne April 2002 issue
FP6 IST Partnering and Information Events
IBM XML technology updates
Children and web navigation
Agent standards developments
JILT March 2002
D-Lib Magazine April 2002
Google Answers beta trial
The results from the latest El.pub reader survey have now been compiled and published online. The figures are similar to those in the past surveys. The level of support for the service remains high despite the changes that have taken place over the past few months.
Although news continues to be the prime interest of readers, the high demand for other information such as topic, project, and resource pages, continues despite the drop in resources currently available for updating these sections. We will try to continue to keep these sections up-to-date at the expense of the other sections such as creative technology and events. The sections on associations and products will remain but not be actively extended.
We would like to thank all the people who took part in the survey, for helping us keep the site aligned with user requirements.
URL: survey results http://www.elpub.org/results4.htm
The European Commission has issued an invitation for the submission of what it is terming "Expressions of Interest (EoI)" to participate in research actions under the 6th Framework Programme (FP6). Organisations are being requested to submit Expressions of Interest for "Integrated Projects" or "Networks of Excellence" (new instruments in FP6) to assist the Commission in preparing Work Programmes and defining the scope of the first calls for proposals of the FP6.
It is hoped that the Expressions of Interest will help the European Commission in gauging the interest of the research community in particular areas and will facilitate the understanding of the potential of the new FP6 instruments in this field. Detailed information on how to submit an EoI can be found at the FP6 official site on Cordis (link below).
The Scout Report of March 29, 2002 includes an appraisal of a museum resources of interest to readers of El.pub. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has launched a new web site which brings together about half of Hirshhorn's collection, allowing Internet users to view and research artworks and holdings that have been previously inaccessible online and rarely on public display.
"A few of the site's highlights include a rotating display of individual artworks featured on every page; an interactive educational component that teaches visitors of all ages about the process of making art by allowing them the opportunity to construct their own sculptures using a palette of shapes, colors, and effects; and a cinematic slide show of the Hirshhorn story that documents the history of the institution".
You can subscribe free to the weekly email Scout Report which includes interesting examples of innovative information sources available via the web, and reviews of the latest web-based information management tools.
URL: Hirshhorn Museum http://hirshhorn.si.edu/
URL: Internet Scout Project http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
The Technical Architecture Group (TAG) was chartered by the W3C to take decisions on key matters relating to the architecture of the Web. XML.com reports that "over the past few months has the the group has got down to serious business: running head-on into some of the gnarliest issues to plague the XML world over recent years". Its "TAG Watch" article examines the TAG's progress so far, looking at the issues it has chosen to pursue, and those it has chosen to decline.
I3 Update/ Entovation International News is a free periodic email analysis service which focuses on knowledge management. The main feature in Issue No. 59 from March 2002 identifies potential pitfalls facing those wanting to map knowledge connections, there is also an article which addresses content management. A couple of additional news items include:
Knowledge Management Professional Society which offers its members news, articles, links to papers and discounted training. It is planning an information clearinghouse for software and technology vendors to showcase their KM-related wares.
AGiLiGENCE, a company founded to exploit the intellectual property of ShareNet, the collaborative knowledge sharing platform developed at Siemens, plans to integrate this with Xerox's Eureka, a technology that helps harvest ideas and insights from individuals and workgroups. The developers believe that the "combined solution of the two complementary collaboration technologies will help organisations build enhanced intranets, extranets and collaborative learning and commerce environments".
Subscribe to Entovation International News via the web site below.
As XML continues to mature, developers need to understand how this standard and its related technologies are revolutionising software development. "XML Family of Specifications: A Practical Guide" provides a complete roadmap for understanding how XML, XSL, XML Schema, and related specifications interlink to create powerful, real-world applications. There's an excerpt of the book on the web, though to read it all you'll have to buy a copy.
URL: http://wdvl.internet.com/Authoring/Languages/XML/XMLFamily/XMLSyntax/
Whilst Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser lets you surf the web it also features some powerful search capabilities built into it. An article from Search Engine Watch describes how to use IE to search and navigate the web more effectively.
URL: IE article http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/04-ie.html
URL: Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/
According to the computer/web industry press, it seems that Google may be about to experience some increasing competition in the web searching arena. The New York Times ran a story about two competitors to Google, Teoma.com and Wisenut. Teoma, it seems, claims more relevant searches with its technique of gathering relevant sites "dynamic ranking" rather than Google's web-wide backlink technique. A further article in SearchDay, "takes a look behind the hype and the real reasons you'll want to add Teoma to your web search toolkit".
URL: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/
URL: Teoma.com http://teoma.com/
URL: Wisenut http://www.wisenut.com/
URL: SearchDay article http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/02/sd0402-teoma.html
URL: ZDNet article http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-873583.html
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has developed a broad suite of recommendations for cable networks which could serve as the basis for a global communication system using the Internet Protocol (IP). The ITU believes that the initiative, known as IPCablecom, "will help cable operators and vendors meet the consumer demand for multimedia services such as interactive games, electronic commerce and streaming media applications such as voice and video conferencing".
Apparently, the 17 recommendations meet specifications defined by cable operators and vendors in North America, Europe, and Asia and detail the interconnection requirements required to ease product implementation and deployment. These fundamental requirements range from quality of service to security interfaces.
URL: ITU news http://www.itu.int/newsroom
The April 2002 Euromap Language Technologies monthly newsletter has been published on the web. The site features news concerned with developments in the field of Human Language Technologies from Europe and details of upcoming events and European Commission Research calls.
Euromap Language Technologies is a European Commission supported initiative dedicated to promoting greater awareness and faster take-up of Human Language Technologies within Europe.
EUSIDIC brings together both users and suppliers from the e-Content industry from throughout Europe. The organisation has pubslished a report from its most recent meeting held in Paris on 10-12 March 2002. The theme of the meeting: "e-Content: Divide or Rule", covered: taxonomies and metadata; search engine capabilities; content syndication, hosting and aggregation; content linking and copyright; and information communities.
There are details on the EUSIDIC site along with an announcement of the organisation's Annual Conference in September 2002 entitled: "Virtual Communities".
URL: EUSIDIC http://www.eusidic.org
According to Flatland, the latest release of its Rover 3.2 3D web browser is "much faster, easier to use and has more effects and features". Rover displays what Flatland calls "3DML web spots - 3D locations where you can walk around inside your web site". The listed enhancements include: dynamic coloured lights and fog; directory of exciting spots to visit; standalone player with skins; 3D Animation of blocks; built-in scripting similar to Javascript, DirectX 8 support.
The company also support a Flatland Forum community in which they encourage users and developers to help them shape future releases of the software. Rover is promoted as shareware - the player is free for 30 days, then costs US$ 30 to register.
URL: Flatland Rover 3.2 http://www.flatland.com
URL: DirectX 8 http://www.microsoft.com/directx
URL: Flatland Forums http://www.flatland.com/cgi-bin/ubb/Ultimate.cgi
The March 2002 issue of Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS), the refereed journal devoted to the exploration and understanding of social processes by means of computer simulation, is online. This issue features two articles on using simulation to understand the evolution of language and two papers examining cultural conventions and the Forum section describes a new tool for running dynamic microsimulations. There is also a book review section featuring reviews of: "Simulation and Social Theory", "Artificial Evolution", "Rational Ritual: Culture, Co-ordination and Common Knowledge" and "Self-Organization and the City".
The first workshop of the Open Archives Forum (OA-Forum) : "Creating a European Forum on Open Archives Initiatives", will be held in Pisa, Italy on 13-14 May 2002. The Open Archives Forum provides a focus for dissemination of information about European activities related to open archives and, in particular, to the Open Archives Initiative. The first workshop seeks to bring together researchers, technical implementors and project managers who are experimenting, or are willing to experiment, with the open archives approach, in order to establish a basis for sharing experience and solutions among projects and initiatives.
The workshop combines presentations by invited speakers with the opportunity to work together in small groups on issues of concern to the open archive community, including those who are or who are considering implementing the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.
Although participants will have to fund their own accommodation and travel cost, the only charge for the workshop itself is 60 Euros to cover lunches and coffee breaks and an optional conference dinner at an additional charge of 50 Euros.
The Open Archives Forum is funded as an accompanying measure within the Information Societies Technology (IST) Programme.
URL: workshop http://www.oaforum.org/workshops_pisa.php
URL: Open Archives Forum http://www.oaforum.org/
Adobe have announced FrameMaker version 7.0, its enterprise authoring and publishing software will be available around June 2002. The latest version will include XML capabilities, which according to Adobe will enable "content creators to distribute information to multiple channels, including print, the Web and PDAs". Alongside the authoring software will be an enhanced FrameMaker Server product designed to enable users to access existing content with the latest Framemaker product.
The UK's patent office has launched a "Guide to Managing Intellectual Property" which provides strategic advice to universities about how to safeguard on how to manage the intellectual property relating to inventions and creations. The guide aims to explain how effective management of intellectual property helps convert research based innovation into commercial benefits. It therefore is potential interest to the wider research and development community. Further information and a copy of the guide are available via the link below.
URL: http://www.patent.gov.uk
URL: IPR Guide http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/notices/manip/index.htm
The latest news notes on agent-based computational economics (ACE) for April 2002 are now available online. ACE is the computational study of economies modelled as evolving systems of autonomous interacting agents. The news notes include announcements regarding journals, books, software, web sites, and miscellaneous news items that might be of use to people interested in ACE-related research. These notes are also archived (along with all past distributed news
news notes) at the ACE web site.
URL: April 2002 notes http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ace0402.htm
URL: ACE web site http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/ace.htm
An online consultation on the needs of citizens and enterprises for government e-services at the European level ("pan-European government e-services") was launched on 8th April 2002 by the IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations) programme of the Enterprise DG of the European Commission.
The purpose of the consultation, available on the Europa web site, is to help the Commission and the Member States to identify the needs and opportunities of EU enterprises and citizens in terms of pan-European government e-services, ie. the requirements for government e-services for those enterprises and citizens that interact electronically across Europe’s borders with public administrations in other Member States. Government e-services typically include web sites, one stop shops, downloadable forms, electronic transactions, interactive services, electronic forms. They also involve the increased provision of public sector information on government web sites.
Whilst e-services are being developed in all Member States there is concern that barriers to the continued development of the Internal Market and the associated freedoms of movement between States may be inadvertently errected. The report "Public e-Services within the European Union Today", noted that national e-services aimed at facilitating freedom of movement were poorly, if at all, developed.
Full details of the consultation can be found on the web and all stakeholders who make use of government e-services, particularly those who have a need to interact with public administrations across Europe’s borders, are invited to submit their contributions by 17 June 2002.
URL: consultation http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/consultations/government_e-services/index.htm
URL: IDA programme http://www.europa.eu.int/ispo/ida
Email: further information mailto:ida-central@cec.eu.int
Issue 31 (March/April 2002) of Ariadne is available online and includes the following main articles:
- "Setting up an institutional e-print archive".
- "Oxford puts its reference works online", which reviews the new Oxford University Press reference web site.
- "The 'Distributed National Collection' Access, and Cross-sectoral Collaboration: the Research Support Libraries Programme", providing an overview of the programme's objectives.
- "The Open Archives Forum", an introduction to this new project which aims to promote the ideas of the OAI in Europe.
- "The JISC Information Environment and Web Services", looks at possible relationships between the web services idea and earlier ideas about seamless access to information.
- "The AIM25 project", presents AIM25, a project providing electronic access to descriptions of archives held in various London institutions.
- "eVALUEd", details of a project developing a transferable model for e-library evaluation.
URL: Ariadne Issue 31 http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue31/
URL: Ariadne http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/
Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) IST Partnering and Information Events addressing specific research topics will be held by the European Commission in May. These events will have very limited places, which will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. An up-to-date diary of these events is expected to be published on Cordis, provisional dates and country venues sent to El.pub are:
- Software, May 2, Brussels
- Microsystems, May 7, Brussels
- Interfaces, May 13-14, Luxembourg
- Knowledge Technologies, May 15-16, Luxembourg
- Communications Networks, May 27-28, Brussels
Other events, to be confirmed are:
- Complex Problem Solving & Grids, May 14
- Trust and Security, May 30
Further events on Microelectronics, Social Challenges and in Work & Business Challenges may be announced.
Additionally the Idealist project (partner finding service) has announced two similar events to be held in the Netherlands in May. They are: Mobile systems on May 8, and Embedded Systems on May 29. Further details from the Idealist project web site.
URL: Cordis http://www.cordis.lu/ist
URL: Idealist project http://www.ideal-ist.net
IBM alphaWorks has published updates of two of IBM's more popular XML technologies and also details of its new ServletManager, an XML-based servlet controller package.
- XML Parser for Java - Version 4.0.1 - a complete rewriting of Version 3.2.1.
URL: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xml4j?open&l=136,t=gr- Web Services Toolkit - Version 3.1
URL: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/webservicestoolkit?open&l=136,t=gr- ServletManager
URL: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/servletmanager?open&l=136,t=gr
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for April 14 reports on the company's usability study of children which found that "they are as easily stumped by confusing web sites as adults. Unlike adults, however, kids tend to view ads as content, and click accordingly. They also like colourful designs, but demand simple text and navigation". There is also a link to Newsweek's coverage of the study.
URL: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020414.html
URL: Newsweek's coverage http://www.msnbc.com/news/738304.asp
AgentNews reports on:
OilEd is an ontology editor allowing the user to build ontologies using DAML+OIL that has been developed by Manchester University in the UK. OilEd uses the FaCT reasoner to classify concept hierarchies and perform consistency testing.
Common Logic Standard - a note which describes new efforts to create a common standard language for logic based on the proposed ISO standards for the Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) and Conceptual Graphs (CGs).
AgentNews is an electronic newsletter published at the UMBC Lab for Advanced Information Technology, subscribe to the free email news service via the site.
The March 2002 edition of the Journal of Information Law & Technology (JILT) is available online. Topics include: the use of IT by law firms; the use of computers in the police and the courts; e-commerce; digital signatures; privacy; intellectual property; databases, UCITA and legal IT software. This issue includes six refereed articles, five commentaries, a work in progress piece, and two book reviews.
The April 2002 issue of D-Lib Magazine includes articles entitled:
- "The National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program: Expectations, Realities, Choices and Progress to Date";
- "Metadata Principles and Practicalities";
- "Challenges for Service Providers When Importing Metadata in Digital Libraries";
- "Integrated and Aggregated Reference Services: The Automation of Drudgery";
- "An Update on the Digital Preservation Coalition".
The issue also includes the usual clips and pointers section and book reviews.
URL: D-Lib http://www.dlib.org/
URL: D-Lib April 2002 contents http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april02/04contents.html
Google is running a beta trial of a new service called Google Answers, in which selected users are able to ask questions of trained researchers on any subject, for a fee set by the user themselves. Google's expert researchers then find answers to the query and notify you once their research is complete. Google believes that "the answers you receive will be thorough and accurate and contain links to additional resources, if available".
Google suggests that their new service is a good "way to find answers to complicated questions you don't have time to research yourself", such as: Should I trade in my car or sell it myself? What companies make human vaccines? Give Google Answers a try via the URL below, and because the service is still in development Google would appreciate questions, comments and suggestions from users, via the support email below.
URL: Google Answers https://answers.google.com/answers/main
Email: feedback mailto:answers-support@google.com
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