Access Innovations Collaborates with Leading Scientists on Unified Astronomy Thesaurus
February 6, 2013
Astronomy researchers have a powerful new tool, thanks to an important alliance. “Access Innovations Partners with Leading Scientific Organizations for the Launch of a New Thesaurus Created for Astronomy Community,” announces the information management firm. Access Innovations worked with the American Institute of Physics and scholarly publisher IOP Publishing to achieve this landmark.
The new Unified Astronomy Thesaurus will be freely available to members of the astronomy community for development and use. The common vocabulary will be used within NASA’s powerful Astrophysics Data System to improve linking with astronomy research journal articles. The write-up informs us:
“The thesaurus will be used in semantic technologies to enable researchers to execute faster, more accurate information searches and ultimately improve the discoverability of research. With many thousands of resources being published each year in the field of astronomy, these kinds of tools are vital to ensure that researchers continue to be able to find relevant information quickly and ultimately improve the discoverability of research. This applies as much to data, web services and other resources, as it does to the bibliographic resources to which thesauri have traditionally been applied.”
The John G. Wolbach Library at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in collaboration with the Astrophysics Data System and the International Virtual Observatory Alliance, will continue to develop the thesaurus, enhancing and extending its contents as astronomy research continues to expand.
Graham McCann, Head of Product Management and Innovation at IOP Publishing, remarked:
“This is an exciting and ambitious collaboration that will have real long-term benefits for researchers. IOP’s investment in semantic enrichment is a great example of how publishers serve the scientific community by underpinning the scholarly communications process using the very latest technologies.”
Indeed, it is always a pleasure to see technological advancements lend a hand to other scientific fields.
Founded in 1978 as an information-services company, Access Innovations now offers an extensive line of information management and database construction products and services for academic institutions, government agencies, and industry, as well as specialized taxonomies in a wide range of fields. Their Data Harmony software is at the heart of their thesaurus-construction and database-management tools. The professionals at Access Innovations pride themselves on a culture of hard work, cooperation, and respect that makes them a pleasure to work with.
Cynthia Murrell, February 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Repercussions of Facebook Graph Search
February 6, 2013
As with the arrival of most new things, no one is quite sure what the results of Facebook’s venture into search will be. Forbes investigates the possibilities in, “Facebook Graph Search is a Disruptive Minefield of Unintended Consequences.” It is good to see we are not the only ones who think this development could shake up the search terrain.
Journalist Anthony Wing Kosner begins by noting that Graph Search is not something users have requested, but rather a marketing initiative. For the feature to work, users will have to help by continuing to populate Facebook with data in the form of likes, check-ins, photos, and profile info. Somehow, I don’t think that’s a big hurdle, even if some users do get spooked by the very real search-related privacy concerns. More tricky, perhaps, is convincing users they want to narrow their searches from the World Wide Web to their own Facebook network.
Kosner writes:
“I think Graph Search is indeed important, but the results of Facebook’s search for increased relevance may be both more and less than it intends. Its users may find the utility of searching their own social graph to be hit-or-miss, but they also may find themselves feeling much more exposed in the searches of others than they ever intended to be. Rather than phrase this negatively, however, I want to try to identify the potentially explosive issues, land mines if you will, that Facebook will encounter in its path to build out its third pillar and suggest what it needs to do to avoid or diffuse them.”
Not surprisingly, the main suggestion is to make it easier for users to protect their privacy. The current process can be cumbersome, and not even a Zuckerberg can be certain the results will be as expected. With Graph Search in particular, the inability of algorithms to understand irony or a love of randomness, both hallmarks of today’s youth culture, can result in acute misrepresentation of someone’s views. Sometimes this could simply be amusing, but other times, it could cause real damage. And you might never know.
If you are concerned about these issues (and if you or someone you love uses Facebook, you should be), check out this detailed article. I suppose we will just have to wait and see where the chips fall, while helping spread the word—be careful out there.
Cynthia Murrell, February 06, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
How to Gain the Maximum Value Out of Big Data
February 5, 2013
From the Harvard Business Review comes an article that outlines the results of an interesting survey conducted by NewVantage Partners on how businesses plan to achieve value from big data and the technological solutions that tap into it. In the article, “Getting the Maximum Value Out of Your Big Data Initiative both statistics from the study are shared in addition to next steps for organizations looking to employ big data.
As many as 85% of participating companies answered that that either have big data initiatives in the works or currently underway in order to improve business practices and increase efficiency.
The article states:
In order to achieve this goal, many of the firms interviewed have established a new business metric for measuring the value of their Big Data initiatives — Time-to-Answer (TTA). TTA reflects the speed by which executives can answer critical business questions and has become a common measure on Wall Street and among other leading firms. The Pentagon has established an equivalent metric known as Data-to-Decision, which is dramatized in the analyses conducted by the intelligence community in the Academy Award–nominated film Zero Dark Thirty.
These organizations developing metrics for evaluating ROI such as TTA are a few steps ahead of others. These such organizations were most likely the early adopters of key technology components such as PolySpot. Their solutions enable connectivity between data across the enterprise.
Megan Feil, February 5, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
The Ugly Underbelly of Search
February 5, 2013
By now everyone has heard about the major snafu incurred by the Github repository at the end of January. Search is our favorite topic of discussion, and while we primarily focus on all the good it can do for individuals and organizations, there is another side to search. In the wrong hands, or in incapable hands, search can have serious negative repercussions. The H Open article, “GitHub Search Exposes Uploaded Credentials,” fills us in.
The article gets to the heart of the problem:
“Users of the GitHub project hosting system have been reminded not to upload sensitive information to the system’s Git repositories. The reminder comes after GitHub launched a new search service based on elasticsearch. The launch of the service sent people off searching the code and, as people tend to do, they searched for private information. Various searches for terms such as ‘BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY’ were revealing many people had, in fact, been uploading private keys.”
Perhaps as a blessing in disguise, the elasticsearch infrastructure collapsed under the weight of searches as curious readers searched for themselves after hearing the news on Twitter. So the moral of this story is to never upload private keys or similar data into repositories, under any circumstances. A little common sense goes a long way. And, just to be safe, explore a more trusted solution based on Lucene and Solr, which pull from the strength of a large open source community. These solutions, like LucidWorks, are less likely to crack under the pressure.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 5, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
A New Enterprise Search For Social eCommerce
February 5, 2013
Enterprise search is one of the key forces behind any enterprise deployment plan. Why? The reason is, if you cannot find your content, how can you do your job? PR Newswire reports that “Hakia Enterprise Semantic Search (HESS) To Drive The Social eCommerce Provider, Flow.” Flow, Inc. is a Canadian corporation that recently licensed hakia Enterprise Semantic Search (HESS). The HESS is a modular, extensible, and adaptable toolset for enterprise, government, education and research applications that enables developers to use the meaning of language for various search applications in addition to simple text string matching.
Flow has already added the alpha version of Hess to its mobile commerce platform. The company hopes to gather data relating to user intent and contextual meaning of terms as they are searched on Flow’s dataspace.
The higher-ups of each company had this to say:
“William Cockburn , Executive Director of Flow said ‘We believe that semantic search will facilitate the next evolution in data delivery, namely, a powerful engine to deliver relevance, context, interpretive cultural lexicon and imagery targeted by a user’s request.” Cockburn further stated that “we believe this is a fundamental practical requirement for people to find answers in a global marketplace… the who, what, where, why and when from their search.’
Dr. Riza C. Berkan , CEO of hakia, said ‘We are excited that Flow has chosen to integrate HESS into its social commerce platform. We expect many other technology innovators to move in this direction.” Dr. Berkan added that,” HESS provides the technological and ontological resources that enable a new dimension to search and content analysis applications in the current marketplace’.”
The mobile market is where many companies are focusing their new business plans. It is still relatively untapped and ready for innovation.
Whitney Grace, February 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
A Quote To Note About Search
February 5, 2013
Search is act of trying to find the answer to a question. Internet users browse the Web searching for answers to their questions. The main tool people user to search the Internet are search engines, but while reading Explore this quote came up:
“Forget search engines. The real revolution will come when we have research engines, intelligent Web helpers that can find out new things, not just what’s already been written. Facebook Graph Search isn’t anywhere near that good, but it’s a nice hint at greater things to come.”
Gary Marcus, a neuroscientist, said this quote about Facebook and how its new Graph search mean big changes for search in the coming years. Explore also mentioned that it echoes Vannevar Bush’s 1945 vision for the future of knowledge. Bush was an engineer and well known for his work on analog computers and little project called the Manhattan. Reflecting on this quote, one can only agree that yes, Graph Search and other searches, are on the brink of something grand. From the science fiction and romantic writing angle, these will be the times that people will find nostalgic for our infant-like knowledge. All the information in the world can be discovered on a little device someone carries around in their pocket, but people are still clueless about how to use it.
Google is already trying to remedy this with Knowledge Graph, which is the start of a Star Trek like computer. People need to be taught how to use information and what it can do for them, rather than passively let it seep through their heads. The time to start is now.
Whitney Grace, February 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
More Real Time BI Promises
February 5, 2013
Have we not heard this story before? Datamation reports that, “Real Time Is BI Right Time BI,” an article about real time intelligence being incorporated in businesses. While the technology does exist, companies are reluctant to adopt real time because of the cost and the complexity associated with it. Technology has changed, as have consumers’ requirements. Real time solutions have become a desired if not necessary BII solution, as found in a series of surveys (though it is not mentioned who conducted it).
We can assume this company issues the surveys:
“Tony Cosentino, VP & Research Director of Ventana Research, noted that the survey found even stronger interest in implementing real time BI/analytics in the next two years via complex event processing.”
But the main question that keeps popping up is: what exactly is real time intelligence?
“’There is still a lot of confusion over what right time and real time really are,’ noted Cosentino. ‘When we talk about real-time transaction processing, with data streaming into mobile devices right from transaction systems, rules-based analytics trigger actions. This complex event process is like when a car crashes and the air bags deploy. These rule-based systems are different than the complex algorithms that may be at work behind the scenes.’ In addition to the immediate reaction to an event, Cosentino and others warn IT that everybody expects everything right away. “If someone waits more than two seconds for something to appear on their screen, they will jump to another screen,’ Cosentino added.”
Throw in people’s constant ned for immediate access to everything and analytics and the IT departments have a lot of work cut out for them. Will real time finally deployed? Maybe now more than ever, but we will have to see…again.
Whitney Grace, February 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Challenging Google Translate: Duolingo
February 4, 2013
A happy quack to the reader who sent me the story “App Seeks to Translate Entire Web.” The article appeared in the February 4, 2013 USA Today, page 3A. This is a publication one of my library contractors calls “McPaper.” Well, if the Economist can use McDonald’s as a method of pegging currency buying power, I am okay with a report about a start up which wants to translate the “entire Web.” The Web is dynamic, so the latency issue is one which someone needs to consider. You can find a version of the story at this link, but I don’t know how long it will be alive.
The idea is that Duolingo is a “massive scale online collaboration” tool. You can do the Rosetta stone type language learning or you can relay on the system to translate the Web. The Web site for this challenge to Google’s little appreciated online translation capability is www.duolingo.com. The system is linked to Carnegie Mellon University and a wizard (Luis von Ahn) who was a TED speaker. Link here. (To make the short link I used the enjoyable Captcha to key “udoping squ”. Coincidence? If you are a fan of the security feature which requires a user to type letters which are messed up in order to access a Web site, then you will be primed to embrace Duolingo. The inventor of Duolingo worked on the Captcha system.)
Is Google poised to snap up this innovation? Who knows.
Stephen E Arnold, February 4, 2013
Silicon Brains
February 4, 2013
I read “New $1.6 billion supercomputer Project Will Attempt to Simulate the Human Brain.” Not to be a doubting Thomas, but is this not what Google hopes to do with Ray Kurzweil’s guidance? See “Ray Kurzweil Plans to Create a Mind at Google—and Have It Serve You.” Since Watson had to go back to college, there is a need for a truly smart system I believe.
Stephen E Arnold, February 4, 2013
Possibilities for ROI Loom Large for Organizations Using PolySpot
February 4, 2013
While the term big data has been around for quite some time now as a commonly used phrase, there are still some media sources exploring the story and lineage behind the term used today. The New York Times‘ recent article “The Origins of ‘Big Data’: An Etymological Detective Story” delves into the subject, but first presents a staggering fact.
The Library of Congress announced last month that their directory of public tweets had reached 170 billion and this number is only rising. Because of a deal between Twitter and the Library, these tweets are not yet available for researchers to use, but this shows how connected both people and businesses are to big data.
From economists to John Mashey, the author explores possibilities of who should be credited with the origin of big data:
In the 1990s, Silicon Graphics was the giant of computer graphics, used for special-effects in Hollywood and for video surveillance by spy agencies. It was a hot company in the Valley that dealt with new kinds of data, and lots of it. There are no academic papers to support the attribution to Mr. Mashey. Instead, he gave hundreds of talks to small groups in the middle and late 1990s to explain the concept and, of course, pitch Silicon Graphics products.
While the story of big data’s origin is an interesting one, what is more exciting to businesses today are the possibilities for ROI. Technologies such as PolySpot that are designed to increase productivity and efficiency in the workplace are helping organizations achieve competitive advantage.
Megan Feil, February 4, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.