Minutes from Wednesday’s SOCoP Meeting August 24, 2011 from 11:00 - 12:00 EDT

Attendees-Participants: Gary Berg-Cross (Knowledge Strategies), Nancy Wiegand (U of Wisconsin), Peter Yim (CIM3), Mike Dean and Dave Kolas (BBN), James Wilson (JMU)  

The following topics were discussed.
 
1. The status of the Nov. SSO workshop
The Nov. Spatial Semantics and Ontology (SSO) Workshop (at ACM SIGSPatial) has received  10 submissions which we hope are good submissions. We are now in the review process and using the same review form as developed for Terra Cognita.
Nancy has read Xuan Shi’s article (“Where are the spatial relationships in the spatial ontologies”), which was proposed as the basis for a panel on that spatial relationships topic.  Nancy still has to think about a panel and also a key note speaker. 

Nancy thought that we might do something interesting with a presentation on our INTEROP project. We might also have a lightening round, but probably not posters due to the cost.

2. Update on the Terra Cognita workshop
Foundations, Technologies and Applications of the Geospatial Web, in conjunction with the 10th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2011). It is being held October 23-24, 2011, Bonn, Germany:
Workshop website: http://asio.bbn.com/terracognita2011/
ISWC website: http://iswc2011.semanticweb.org/

Dave reported that they got 18 submissions (they have a merged workshop) and are now in a short review period. They might accept 8 or so papers as was done on the last session. People also like lightening talks.

They haven’t locked down a key note speaker, but might get someone from Europe this time since Max Egenhofer has already presented at previous workshops. 

3. Plans for CyberGIS meeting at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL Knoxville,TN) from Sept 28-30th.  You can see a link to the meeting at CyberGIS.org.

Gary proved an overview of the 3 day agenda:
•	Day 1: Tutorials (good for our technical folks – Naijun, Mike, Dave…James will come too
•	Day 2: Plenary sessions; ORNL Facility tour – we would have a 30’ presentation
•	Day 3: Internal project meetings – we would do project planning & them discuss collaboration ideas with them.
. 
Nancy thought that a reasonable outline of our talk would be maybe Mike demonstrating the OOR, Dave talking about GeoSPARQL, and Naijun could show a demo. Since we have a half hour talk slot each could have 6-7 minutes starting with an overview from Nancy.  Gary might talk about the ontology in general and ontologies in the OOR. 

We need to write a 500 word group position paper by Friday.  Nancy will draft one and the group can edit it along with providing a short bio.

Peter pointed out that it might be useful to meet with Line Pouchard (from the ORNL Computer and Computational Directorate) while we are at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  Line is involved with the NSF DataOne project (https://public-web.dataone.org/) and she is also works on semantics in a project called NASA-ORNL-DAAC (http://daac.ornl.gov/) which uses NASA MODIS data (http://modis-land.gsfc.nasa.gov/).  Part of this work involves the Earth Science Semantics Portal (ESSP) (http://www.bioontology.org/earth-sciences-semantics-portal ). Line has a person working with her who is conversant in BioPortal which they have tweaked as part of ESSP. Line also co-chaires the Linked Science Workshop (LISC 2011) at the International Semantic Web Conference.

There is also a USGS partnership in the DAAC effort on Land Processes see https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/:

LP DAAC is a component of NASAs Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS). LP DAAC processes, archives, and distributes land data and products derived from the EOS sensors. Located just outside Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the LP DAAC handles data from three EOS instruments aboard two operational satellite platforms: ASTER and MODIS from Terra, and MODIS from Aqua. ASTER data are received, processed, distributed, and archived while MODIS land products are received, distributed, and archived. Both data sets are vital contributors to the inter-disciplinary study of the integrated Earth system. They constitute approximately 1.5 Petabytes of volume in the LP DAAC.

Following the meeting Peter sent Line an email to start a conversation about visiting at ORNL.

4. Plan for SemTechEast 
There was no update on work yet since the final presentation is not due till Oct.  However, Gary suggested a possible 2nd VoCamp coordinated with the workshop,  This could either be before SemTech on Monday Nov 28 or after it on Friday Dec 2.  Todd and Gary might mature the idea and get back to the group.  

Some thought that this was tool much if SOCoP also plans a Fall Workshop at USGS.  A consolidating idea is to have the workshop on Nov 28 or Dec 2 at USGS. Dalia had confirmed that the Reston facility is available on these dates.

There was some discussion of when we would do our own workshop.  We have money for it, but have not developed a plan. One possibility is to run a workshop at AAG in NYC in Feb. A drawback is that NYC can be costly. Running a workshop at our own place and time remains an option. 

5. Update on OOR and candidate ontologies
Gary discussed the idea of a call for people to submit ontologies to the OOR. Mike thought it is a good idea and is in the processes of refining the draft of a call that John and Gary developed. 

One thing Mike suggested is that we should encourage people to submit their own ontologies and not load it for them. 
Mile thought it also important to have a staged call for ontologies with just a few people invited.  This would be more manageable and help to test out the tool, assess how well it is going, and give us a chance to make corrections or improvements as needed.

We should have older, standard ontologies such as GEOSS, but also GeoSPARQL and Neo-Geo.
Dave will ask Matt Perry if we can load the draft GeoSPARQL.
Ultimately we should put the call on the Wiki.

Mike and Peter discussed how the OOR effort is moving beyond the sandbox phase. Mike wants to make sure that the OOR is ready and stable for our use and so there will be a teleconf among the OOR group to make sure that they are prepared. Peter suggested that this call might take place something like Sept. 6.

Peter also provided an update with a big change of relations between the OOR and BioPortal and the code base. The idea of forking code was adopted earlier, but now both parties agree to go back to the same code base before branching. There will be a joint meeting in Sept. where people will report on progress and plans.

Peter also noted that Ray Fergerson, developer of Protégé, is now back as NCBO project director and moving things along.  As an example there will be some big OOR developments to support things like Common Logic.
 
Gary mentioned having some mapping problems on an ontology he had loaded.  Peter suggested that he get on the BioPortal support list, they might tell me why one ontology failed to parse. Another suggestion was to load Protégé 3.4 and try this on ontologies before placing them on the OOR. Mike will look at the parsing problem using the Admin interface which may tell more about the problem.

6. Plans for an improved Web Site   
There was no update on plans or status since Naijun was not on the call. Gary hopes we can quickly create a better front page and functionality for the site.  More details should be available at the next meeting when some REU student resources should also be available.

7. Use case and Collaboration update 
Gary summarized discussions with Fox (RPI) on sharing use cases, data and ontology. 

He also noted that Erle Ellis of UMBC has work on sharing Land Use Use cases that could be interest to us.  See Globe http://ecotope.org/projects/globe/).  Erle’s work was identified by Dawn Parker (Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation) & Gary Polhill (James Hudson Institutes) who have developed an ontology called MR POTATOHEAD (Model Representing Potential Objects That Appear in The Ontology of Human-Environmental Actions & Decisions) which serves as framework for agent-based models of land use change.  They may contribute revised ontologies as they are developed.

8. Update on the NSF annual report.
Nancy noted that our report was accepted. There was no still update on a visit from Mimi McClure, who remains busy by all reports.

Other Topics of Interest
The community may be interested in keeping track of the NSF Earth Cube, This effort sounds similar to our interests and is an infrastructure effort. 

“NSF seeks transformative concepts and approaches to create integrated data management infrastructures across the Geosciences. In a new partnership, the Geosciences Directorate (GEO) and the Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) recognize the multifaceted challenges of modern, data-intensive science and education and envision an environment where low adoption thresholds and new capabilities act together to greatly increase the productivity and capability of researchers and educators working at the frontiers of Earth system science.”

The next NSF Webinar for the EarthCube project (Geosciences OCI
   initiative) is:

   Meeting status: Registration Starting date: Monday, August 22,
   2011 Starting time: 3:00 pm, Central Daylight Time (Chicago,
   GMT-05:00) Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes Host's name: CLIFFORD
   JACOBS More Info

   You can register for this webinar at:
   https://mmancusa.webex.com/mmancusa/j.php?ED=170141257&RG=1&UID=1219598912&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D 

The next SOCoP meeting is targeted for Sept. 21, 2011.