ERCIM News No. 83 Special Theme: "Cloud Computing"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 83 has just been published at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/

Special Theme:
"Cloud Computing"
- coordinated by: Frédéric Desprez, Ottmar Krämer-Fuhrmann and Ramin Yahyapour
- featuring the keynote "Cloud Computing: The Next Big Thing?" by Burkhard Neidecker-Lutz, Keith Jeffery, Maria Tsakali and Lutz Schubert.

Next issue: January 2011 - Special Theme: "Intelligent and Cognitive Systems"

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News.
Feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

Best regards,
Peter Kunz
ERCIM News central editor
Follow us on http://twitter.com/ercim_news

Of note in ERCIM #83 :

An Infrastructure for Clinical Trials for Cancer – ACGT Project Successfully Terminated; by Jessica Michel Assoumou and Manolis Tsiknakis
http://eu-acgt.org/

Mastering Data-Intensive Collaboration and Decision Making through a Cloud Infrastructure; by Nikos Karacapilidis, Stefan Rüping and Isabel Drost
http://dicode-project.eu/

Finally, the first issue of 2011 #84 sounds a great prospect!

Musings in the nursing domain (specific language)

It is one giant leap from the humanistic world of nursing, health and social care to the m(a-e)chismo of information technology. It is no Earth-bound chasm that greets us in considering the vaguest possibility that nursing could ever be captured, distilled and represented in a domain specific language (DSL). Given the full title of Hodges' model my attraction to DSLs should be obvious, but how realistic is this fascination?

Here are some links to definitions / resources on DSLs:

• Michael Fowler
• DSL Bibliography
• WikiPedia

I am not advocating DSLs as a real time clinical software application, there is neither time here, nor on the wards. Since the sky above is clear blue with not a contrail in sight I am indulging in a little blue sky thinking, a reverie...

Nursing already has its concept analysis, but taken at face value this says nothing about domains as per h2cm (other than the context / application is nursing). To avoid confusion with career in the job-work sense, I have emphasized the notion of domains. By this I mean a partition of specific knowledge about a discipline or subject. This disciplinary focus or subject is often the province of expert practitioners. My forte then in Hodges' model are the INTERPERSONAL and SOCIAL care domains. This is my rationale for the musings here, as all experts were learners once upon a time, and are still as lifelong learners. It is an educational application that I have in mind.

I have come across a paper by Reinhartz-Berger, who describes the movement - Towards automatization of domain modeling. The author refers to domains artifacts and domain analysis:
(I have removed the reference numbers and inserted from prev para*)

A domain in this context [Domain engineering, also known as software product line engineering]* can be defined as a set of applications that use common concepts to describe requirements, problems, capabilities, and solutions. Domain artifacts are built and reused through domain analysis, which identifies the domains and captures their ontology to assist and guide system developers with particular applications in those domains. Despite the rapid growth of technologies and technical solutions, domain analysis models usually remain valid longer than domain designs and implementations, potentially justifying the cost and effort required for their development. Domain analysis artifacts may also serve as the basis for defining Domain-Specific Languages (DSL). Reinhartz-Berger (2010), p.491.

As the previous post - Reading the signs... Idealised Care - amongst several revealed, the domains within the health career model are broad to say the least. So broad that from the INDIVIDUAL-GROUP axis the left-hand margin of the INTRAPERSONAL-SOCIOLOGY^# care domains are but distant horizons (with no curvature in-sight). It's no surprise that I keep wondering about how to get a grasp on that 'space', for reasons of a website, a potential community of explorers, educational objectives and sheer enthusiasm for trying to mix IT up. Reinhartz-Berger continues:

Several domain analysis methods have been proposed over the years. However, they all can be criticized as making the domain engineer alone responsible for developing correct, complete, and consistent domain analysis artifacts. Since domains may cover broad areas and are usually understood only during the development process, creating domain models can be a very demanding task. It requires expertise in the domain, reaching a very high level of abstraction, and providing flexible, yet formal, artifacts. Reinhartz-Berger (2010), p.491.

Also in the literature Chavarriaga and Macías (2009) highlight two approaches that are the focus more generally to help get a grip and the big wide world of knowledge: The Semantic Web and Web 2.0.:

... However, in spite of its semantic power, one of the main underlying problems with this [semantic] paradigm is the explicit representation and visualization of information, mainly focused on ontologies and the complex relationships that these code. This has made the Semantic Web inaccessible and unmanageable by most designers that are not expert on ontological representations and languages, but on domain specific applications and creative design.
On the contrary, the Web 2.0 paradigm provides a rather pragmatic vision. It is based on the use of wikis, folksonomies and protocols like SOAP, mainly intended to the automatic management of services and the collaborative maintenance of (mainly) syntactic knowledge-based information. Moreover, Web 2.0 can be considered an end-user paradigm. ... Chavarriaga and Macías (2009), p.1329.

The Semantic Web, Web 2.0 will (at some point) figure in the new site. A folksonomy can be quite broad by definition, as there is no strict control on the definition of terms. As to DSLs in Hodges' model, there we have four VERY broad domains. Exactly how domain analysis proceeds and what domain artifacts might emerge from this model would no doubt depend on reducing each of the domains, sub-dividing, being more specific.

If nothing else at present the health career model is a hybrid cognitive domain specific language.

References: (my source: Science Direct)

Iris Reinhartz-Berger (2010) Towards automatization of domain modeling, Data & Knowledge Engineering, Volume 69, Issue 5, May 2010, Pages 491-515. doi:10.1016/j.datak.2010.01.002

Enrique Chavarriaga, José A. Macías (2009) A model-driven approach to building modern Semantic Web-Based User Interfaces, Advances in Engineering Software, Volume 40, Issue 12, December 2009, Pages 1329-1334. doi:10.1016/j.advengsoft.2009.01.016

Lovelace, women's IT and QUADratic equations

When you stop and think about it - really stop and think, the foresight of Charles Babbage was astonishing, even though he did not quite achieve his objectives. What is even more amazing then is the role that Ada Lovelace played in the development of computing and scientific computing.

This post is to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day. As per this post 12 months ago, I am and always will be celebrating Enid Mumford and her work on the need and importance of sociotechnical insights when we attempt to apply IT in the work place*. Her work also exemplifies what women can and do contribute to IT.

In terms of the 3R's I am 'literate', but real maths evades me at least the level of ability I wish I had. Namely, the expertise to exercise some of puzzles in the social sciences.

BBC radio 4's Woman's Hour has regularly featured maths education for women and girls, bemoaning the maths abilities of the female population. Some maths has come to me through programming in BASIC, sorting, recursion, functions and using SPSS (DOS version!).

They should teach more programming in schools. Computing and maths are often equated (sorry!) and fittingly the BBC have also featured the genius of Ada Lovelace.

So all these things are connected: the pioneering insights of Ada Lovelace, the state of mathematics education for girls and how girl's are engaged in IcT today globally.

Additional links:

Gender IT: http://www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml

Europa: Women and ICT Status Report 2009

Association for Progressive Communications: http://www.apc.org/

APC Women

Alice innovative 3D programming environment

Image source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/01/2010_07_mon.shtml

* Jones, P. (2009) Socio-Technical Structures, the Scope of Informatics and Hodges’ model, IN, Staudinger, R., Ostermann, H., Bettina Staudinger, B. (Eds.), Handbook of Research in Nursing Informatics and Socio-Technical Structures, Idea Group Publishing, Inc.

Opportunity for Semantic Web Academic Position: 5 prize lectureships at the University of Sheffield

Great opportunities here for the right people:

The Engineering Faculty at the University of Sheffield has announced 5 prize lectureships across 7 Engineering departments, including the Department of Computer Science. The key criterion is the "capacity to make an outstanding contribution to the Faculty, and the University, as a research-led academic".

These lectureships come with a very attractive startup package including (from the job advert):

- an open-ended lectureship appointment within one of our seven departments.
- an allocation of funded PhD places to support your research.
- a research start-up grant of £40K to £100K.
- reduced teaching and administrative duties for the first 3 years.
- access to a mentoring scheme tailored to suit your individual needs.

Appointment can be at the Lecturer or Senior Lecturer/Reader grade.

Closing date is *** March 5 2010 ***

We are interested in applications from outstanding individuals in the area of Semantic Web to join the OAK group in the Department of Computer Science and in general the Interfaculty Activity of Research in the Digital World currently lead by the head of the group Prof. Fabio Ciravegna.

The OAK group does research on, and provide applications of, Information and Knowledge Technologies for tomorrow's Web, with a particular focus on their use for Knowledge Management. The group has current funds of over £3m coming from the EU (including the coordination of a large Integrated Project and the participation in two other large IPs and a large STREP), Industry (recent funders are Rolls-Royce plc, Kodak and Lycos Europe) and UK Research Councils (EPSRC, ERC, JISC, AHRC, TSB). The group has currently one academic (Professor Fabio Ciravegna) and around 20 post-doctoral researchers and PhD students. A senior lecturer/lecturer will join the group by the end of the academic year (we are currently interviewing).

This is an opportunity to get a permanent academic position in the Department of Computer Science. The Department has an international reputation for the quality of its research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), 65% of our research work was rated world leading or internationally excellent in terms of its originality, significance and rigour. According to the widely used "research power" measure (research quality multiplied by volume) the Department is ranked 15th out of 81 similar departments in the UK. Our research activities are split into research groups:

• Computational Systems Biology
• Creative Interaction and Media Lab
• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• Organisations, Information and Knowledge (OAK)
• Speech and Hearing
• Verification and Testing

Informal enquiries for the Semantic Web / Digital World field should be addressed to - the head of the OAK research group, Professor Fabio Ciravegna, fabio AT dcs.shef.ac.uk .

Further details and process of application are given on the official university Web page.

Professor of Language and Knowledge Technologies,
Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield,
Regent Court, 211 Portobello, S1 4DP, Sheffield, UK
www: http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~fabio/

Drupal musings 1: To Do List - Not To Do List

I have not written about my tinkerings with Drupal for a long time. Now I've new reading glasses with occupational lenses to boot I can hopefully make some proper headway.

The new PC is going to have to wait a while, so although the PC can and does run WAMP and Drupal I'm using a refurbished 15" Macbook Pro running MAMP to explore the budding functionality of Drupal 7.

As posted under Drupal on W2tQ ages ago I have taken the old html pages:

1. My introduction to Hodges' model (1998)
   
2. Brian's original course notes (I)
3. Brian's original course notes (II) Bridging theory and Practice

- with the aim of creating an archive within the new site. I'm re-visiting this job and have stripped the pages - naked: right down to the body and p tags. Eventually I will build some styling with CSS. I need a handle on the basic functionality to offer from day 1. The plan now is to push this (personal) envelope ever further without having a repeated scratch start. Drupal really does demand persistence. That's a problem when you can't give a project like this your ongoing attention.

A couple of additions I must organise include the constant companion that will be the Drupal notebook and a whiteboard. These will be useful over the coming weeks and months. The Drupal and PHP communities through a wide variety of sources are full of tips and code that you want to capture, filter and so possibly infuse into your project. I'm fast running out of excuses for the Drupal site no-show. On the positive side I have invested a great deal already attending the European Drupalcons in '08 and '09. Meeting a great group of Drupallers in Manchester and abroad. Reviewing my notes from Szeged + Paris and now with Copenhagen August 2010 in my sites (sorry!) - this means the project To-Do-List can get lengthy and threatens to overwhelm.

So, .... the Not-To-Do-List is even more important!

Many more Drupal musings - to follow ...

Workshops: Making technology work for patients and practice

The RCN - Royal College of Nursing is holding a series of workshops supported by Intel Digital Health Group. Come along and see technology in action and try out a range of interactive resources and new initiatives.

eHealth is much more than just computers; it is using technology to make your working life easier, helping you improve your practice and make better decisions about patient care. These workshops will give you more practical information on eHealth and how it can benefit you.

Venues & dates

• London - Wednesday 3 March
• London - Thursday 4 March
• Cardiff - Tuesday 9 March
• Nottingham - Wednesday 24 March
• Birmingham - Thursday 25 March
• Leeds - Tuesday 13 April
• Newcastle - Wednesday 14 April
• Llandudno - Thursday 27 May
• Bolton - Friday 28 May
• Cambridge ? Thursday 10 June
• Perth ? Friday 18 June
• Exeter - Wednesday 30 June

Workshop fee is only £25.

Make sure your colleagues do not miss out on this opportunity by forwarding on this email.

For more information about the event including how to book your place, visit eHealth workshops.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.
We look forward to seeing you at one of our events soon.

Pat Anslow
RCN Events Conference Organiser
pat.anslow at rcn.org.uk

Topicscape Care Domain links in 3D - for the PC

Following the post on Sunday, January 24, 2010 I have tried Topicscape and the 3D rendition of my links pages which is for the PC only. Unfortunately, for me the experience is very slow as my 7 year, 2 month old Pentium 4 2.6Ghz with its equally aged graphics card is really not up to the task. If you have a recent PC with a suitably endowed graphics card*, perhaps you will see what I sadly - for the time being - am missing.


Thanks again to Roy Grubb for recognising the organisation and effort behind the four links pages I have compiled from 1998 to date. There's a great irony in my viewing the links as a 'monster', then here they are rendered by GPU's that more commonly play host to a variety of game monsters. Recently people# have let me know of their surprise and pleasure to see that there is still a role for a human hand (and reflective mind) to weave something beyond raw Google. Of course the developments in the semantic web and RDF ... can take this even further.

Additional links:

Hodges' model links in 3D with Topicscape

*I plan to correct this in the near future with a new PC sporting a CUDA capable graphics card - also for SETI @ Home et al.

#Dear Peter

Many thanks for this, I look forward to reading the material and learning more on what seems to be an interesting model.
I’ve added a link on our site to yours – the wealth of links available on your site is phenomenal!

Many thanks and kind regards

Charley
---------
Charley Baker
Madness & Literature Network
Research Associate
Fellow of the Institute of Mental Health
University of Nottingham
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy
Education Centre,
London Road Community Hospital,
Derby, DE1 2QY

Hodges' model links in 3D with Topicscape

Roy Grubb (Hong Kong) got in touch recently regards his appreciation of the links resource I have compiled, organise and maintain using Hodges' model. Roy's intention to create a Topicscape in 3-D has now borne fruit. Unfortunately, on my Macbook Firefox fell over trying the link below. I then learned Topicscape runs on Windows PCs only. I look f/w to trying on my (aged) PC, but despite that limitation - this is a great development. Many thanks Roy!!

Here is Roy's post from his site (the larger image below with link is from his initial post):

I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. Now that I have permission from Peter Jones to use the lists on his pages of links organized according to Hodges’ Health Career Model, I can announce that it is on-line and live in the form of a read-only Topicscape. You can search (just type) and visit the pages (links are in the details panel – just click). Links to the four main pages of links in the Hodges’ Health Career Model site are in the four main topic cones: Intrapersonal, Political, Science, Sociology.

Give it time to load the Topicscape software first time. Subsequent visits will be much quicker.

For you to fly around and explore this you will need a PC with 3D graphics hardware with an up-to-date graphics driver (requirements here).


There’s a wiki page with some helpful pictures that explain the few things you need to know to get you flying and zooming with the best of them. If you need any help, email me at r dot g at topicscape dot com.

Roy

Additional links:

The medical profession and mind maps – the quiet ones

Topicscape - Roy's initial post 'Hodges’ Health Career Model'

Science domain: H2CM (Visualization I & II, VR, Diagrams)