[socop-forum] Draft minutes from April 21st SOCoP Meeting

[Gary Berg-Cross <gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx>]

SOCoP Meeting Minutes from  Wednesday April 21, 2010 from 11:00 - 12:00 EDT

Attendees/Participants John Moeller (NG),  Gary (Knowledge Strategies), Carl Diebert (Sandia Labs), Laura Reese (TASC), Todd Pehle (Orbis Technologies), Josh Liebermann (Traverse Technologies), Dave Kolas (BBN ), James Wilson (JMU ) Nancy (U of Wisconsin )

Following  Introductions the following were discussed:                                  

 

1.  There was no update on USGS integrated National Map (TNM) data becoming available except that the data is not yet available for use in the demo, but is expected to be so soon.

 

2.     Workplan for 2010 including

a.      Update on planning for a good presentation/demo for USGIF (US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation) Emerging Technologies Tech Days at Hyatt in Reston. John provided info on activities for the week.  See http://usgif.org/events/2010/5/76-usgif-workshop-series-motion-imagery-workshop  for  info.

 

Events start at 9 so we should get there early to check out laptops.

 

Gary will send out info on this event and others in a separate email.

 

John described the 30 minute time block with 20 of presentation (15 for demo) and 10 for Q and A. The first part, which Gary might present sets the context for the demo giving a SOCoP background including past activities and the plan for 2010. This would probably include some thoughts on the Reference Model and targets for the remainder of year.

As Todd describes it the demo should help illustrate the potential and continuing advancement of spatial data integration technology.  The SOCoP intent in developing a demonstration is to showcase geospatial intelligence through the use of “Linked Data”.

 

The demo will use a “geo/spatial sparql” in the SAIL which is functioning fine. Todd is converting small samples of some U.S.-based open source geo data (USGS Geonames, Census, Linked Geo Data [Open Street Map], maybe others) into RDF and will host these as SPARQL endpoint(s). As time permits he also would like to have some Social Web data, perhaps DBPedia wiki data, few blogs marked up in RDFa, etc.

John suggests illustrating integrating data of different type from a variety of open sources. It was agreed that US based data would be focus. (This expansion may be ready for the June demo)

 

The idea is then to showcase the semantic linking, search and discovery that is possible across multiple heterogeneous datasets whether Geo Web data or Social Web data. In regard to our Reference Model (RM) the demo capability described above is possible because it leverages W3C- RDF and OGC GML geometry  standards.

 

For the presentation layer Todd is “hacking out” a simple GUI that will have an Open

Layers map and perhaps a few other widgets to demonstrate. The demonstration will “link” disparate Geo Web data together with Social Web data in a uniform manner providing better search and easier search of geospatial information. By utilizing common vocabularies and semantics defined using W3C and OGC standards, the demonstration will show the potential increase in geospatial intelligence by increasing geo-semantic interoperability.  Todd doesn’t yet have data persistent on the web, but the demo for Tech days should be together by Thursday May 20^th, without TNM data hosted up yet.

 

To help focus his effort Todd asked about the type of audience that comes. John noted that it is a mix of technical and program so the presentation should be a mix. 

Todd would like to address linked data by example and noted that what is often overlooked is how it works. You see a search of a query and boom and answer. But what happens? He will try to address this for a mixed audience.

 

Currently there is no fixed scenario and there is a chicken and egg issue of which comes first - a scenario or data.  We have already had some discussion on various data sources. Practically we could develop a scenario first or settle on the core data.

 

Todd asked about connectivity at Tech Days.  He has had trouble in the past using a live internet connection. John will try to enable him to access the data locally.  John will check to see if others are using it.

To be conservative Todd proposed a three part approach – live, local and a video which pulls down a sample of the demo as a backup. For the demo he will wrap up a few virtual machines on his PC.   But he will have tested a distributed system and may have a video of this.

 

Plans for moving forward include checking  on status each week to mature the scenario and data set.

 

Todd had a question using the Parliament triple store server (http://parliament.semwebcentral.org/) that BBN Tech developed and  is now  open source. Dave was able to say that there are no restriction. Todd will download this and ill also let us know next week how things are progressing.

 

b.      We got an update on plans for June OGC  (14^th – 18^th) meeting and the Geosemantics DWG part of this. John asked Josh what he was planning on doing there and a relation to the RM.

Josh indicated that there was not much progress on this because semantics hasn’t been too hot a topic. Instead MMI area has been looking at vocabulary and mappings to enhance work. Josh has developed some concepts to go into these. GeoSparql is part of this – e.g. exploiting the operators.  This work is also representing maps and geo-expansions.  One part of OGC that needs work is simple features that have operators and represent things.  A question that has come up is what does it mean to link features? How are they and sub-features related? 

 

This is the novel part of RM to work on – the maturing of features.  Once we get/link to the feature what else can we get to?

 

Carl liked this direction. He suggested that we need a abstract concept like “exclusion zone” that are outside of geospatial. We are interested in this type of “expansion”.

 

To proceed efficiently Josh need to set up a collaboration space we can utilize.  Right now this discussion and material is on the OGC portal.  Josh proposed discussed this further with Gary and Todd to set something up more mutually available so SOCoP members can utilize it.  John can check with Mark on using OGC space but Josh saw a few possibilities .

·        The first is the OGC network – which is not currently visible to.  There is a version that is  visible but not editable

·        The 2^nd is doing the pilot in a Google site.

 

Gary could also set up a page under RM on Ontolog and he agreed to do that as an interim effort till the other options are explored to see if they are better. Gary will follow up with Josh on the agenda and how it relates to our RM.

 

Gary pointed out that we will probably need a WG meeting in between now and  the next meeting for further development of a  reference model and OGC collaboration.

 

3.Status of NSF INTEROP proposal (Nancy Wiegand). No word back, but the program officer has changed from Philip Bogden to Mimi McClure.

Josh indicated that some proposals have been turned down (GS dynamics proposal with U of GA and others) the week before last.

 

4.     Other Items/New Business      

Gary invited Laura to offer ideas for upcoming meetings. The Demo is the 20^th so maybe we would have a short meeting after that to provide status.  Alternaterivey we might do without one and have notes on the meeting for people to read and see the slides,      

 

Josh suggested that he might use the June OGC meeting as a “summit” for joint work with SOCoP,   say Wed.  June 16th .  Carl asked if are non-members invited?  It was noted that they normally are not, but that government membership is cheap. 

They have has such summit sessions on particular topics with small fee for none members. Also they could have a telecom line in for people who couldn’t attend.         

 

-- 
Gary Berg-Cross,Ph.D.
gbergcross@xxxxxxxxx      http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?GaryBergCross
SOCoP Executive Secretary
Knowledge Strategies
Semantic Technology
Potomac, MD
240-426-0770
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