SOCoP Meeting Minutes from Wednesday SOCoP Meeting July 21 2010 from 11:00 - 12:00 EDT (2IJF) (2ITV)
Attendees-Participants John Moeller (NG), Gary Berg-Cross (Knowledge Strategies) Dave Kolas (BBN Technologies), Nancy Wiegand (U of Wisconsin ) Krzysztof Janowicz (Penn State), Peter Yim (CIM3), James Wilson (JMU) Dalia Vernanka (USGS), Todd Pehle (Orbis Tech) (2IJG)Following introductions the following were discussed: (2ITX)
1. Workplan for 2010 (2ITY)
a. Update on USGS integrated National Map (TNM) data becoming available Dalia provided an update noting that a URL to some of the data was available to SOCoP and that no account needed. http://usgs-ybother.srv.mst.edu The work is focusing on GIS data - vector data and easy access. It will include 6 watersheds and 3 urban areas (Atlanta, St Lewis ) (2ITZ)
This site includes the initial dataset: It is part of the Colorado watershed and includes Denver, CO Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) gazetteer -John Carters data Missouri. Note Eric Wolfe converted then from shape files but there was a glitch which will be corrected soon. (2IU0)
Todd asked about the extent of the data so he could download appropriate data. In response below is a list of the datasets that USGS plans to make available within the next few weeks. (2IU1)
The watersheds and urban areas are vector datasets (from ESRI shapefiles) (2IU2)
Watersheds: Pomme de Terre, MO; Upper Suwannee, GA-FL; Lower Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red, TX; Lower Beaver, UT; South Branch of the Potomac, WV; and the Piceance-Yellow, CO; (2IU3)
Urban Areas: Atlanta, GA; St. Louis, MO; and New Haven, CT. (2IU4)
Dalia would appreciate comments and these can be mailed to Dalia. It was noted in passing that this could be a discussion for the demo. (2IU5)
Krzysztof asked why USGS had used a tool for the translation of points and lines to triples? This seemed odd since it doesnt add semantics. Todd wasnt sure what Eric did and thought that we should review the data and approach. (2IU6)
Dahlia noted that Eric Wolfe had written a simple paper on spatial geo and relations. Gary asked if the paper would clarify this. Dalia said it was in review and may send info about this. No USGS work is copyrighted and she will ask if we can review it. (2IU7)
b. Update on the ongoing Demo development. (2IU8)
Todd will move the current focus to the Denver area of the USGS data and will make some simple data persist. As before work includes a same-place-as function. Todd will now download DBPedia to round out the demo which uses the Marbles tool based on sesame (see http://marbles.sourceforge.net/) it can call various services, aggregates and places this in the browser. (2IU9)
As a use one can type in a feature (Denver) and it will crawl the web and find things of interest. Todd noted that he needed a place to host the Marbles somewhere with USGS as an endpoint. Todd noted that he was alsi putting marbles on Google App Engine (a platform for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers) . Krzysztof said that he would be happy to do this sometime. Todd and he would work hand in hand to accomplish this. (2IUA)
Krzysztof has done Gazetteer work and vocabulary/ontology for Gazetteers (see http://www.personal.psu.edu/kuj13/) . He liked the idea of spatial data but wanted better handling of spatial data. He mentioned a relevant Pat Hayes paper called When owl:sameAs isnt the Same: An Analysis of Identity. The paper is available at http://events.linkeddata.org/ldow2010/papers/ldow2010_paper09.pdf (2IUB)
Since Todd and Dalia had mentioned topographic feature data, Nancy asked what model is being used for the data? Todd said this was a great question, but they havent completed the model of simple topology and spatial relations, but it will be a great opportunity to complete these. For the demo now he is using as simple an approach as possible. Todd just does cross linking and persues questions such as highway 21 the same as Denver Pike) Hugh Glaser (from Vocamp) has work on co-ref data (England) has an idea of multiple references in and between datasets, and the development of an ontology mapping service to facilitate the integration of the dataset with an existing Semantic Web application. (2IUC)
Gary asked if USGS would be interested in hosting the service thus become more than a Sparql end point. Dahlia said USGS would be interested in participating and perhaps hosting a service, but needed to know more of what is implied. This would be down the road and there would be an opportunity to work this through with the technical folks at USGS. SOCoP could make a proposal for this. After the hosting at Penn state is accomplished USGS may make a similar capability themselves. Nancy noted that she can provide help from a student intern. He has downloaded Jenna and could help if there are specific tasks. (2IUD)
Gary asked about the timeframe and Todd agreed with an end of August goal when he could expect to have the demo on a laptop. (2IUE)
John asked that after Todd had set this up on the laptop if the group could take a look at it? This will help us move towards the workshop and the RM. 2. Plans for the Fall workshop and STIDS paper (2IUF)
Gary reviewed the 2 options that Paulo Cesar G Costa ( Research Assistant Professor at the C4I Center / SEOR Department) and the STIDS group had provided. John asked about the cost of registration at the conference which would add some real expense for SOCoP member. Even the 2nd option (No commitment to STIDS (but held at the Johnson Center) would require paying for A/V support, parking, food, and access to the conference services and facilities, - all have a cost attached. Gary will ask for estimates of these. Due to costs a 3rd option was suggest using the MITRE facilities as in past years, but still market it as an adjunct thing to STIDS since people are here. Gary did check with MITRE on this and unfortunately there is no space available on Oct 26th. (2IUG)
We had a brief discussion on the STIDS paper. Mike, who was not on the call due to illness had sent out some feelers for the paper (due Aug 1, but received no response yet (according to Dave). We have yet to decide on a topic. One suggestion is to have the paper based on demo and some of its topics (e.g. Same place as ) Nancy Would asked if the paper would have to be on Defense and Security? Most thought Probably not. Past conferences have had many other topics. Dave attended others and said it is open. There seemed to be only loose link to the Defense and Security domains. (2IUH)
John noted that we needed to keep the paper moving along in Mikes absence and need to start writing pretty soon. (2IUI)
There being no other Items or New Business the group set a tentative date for the next planned meting as Wed. August 25th, 2010. (2IUJ)