New version of the SPARQL Python wrapper

About half a year ago I announced the availability of a SPARQL endpoint interface to Python. It was really a beta release back then (ie, last July), but recently it went through a more thorough testing and improvement cycle. This was not my merit; all praise should go to Sergio Fernàndez and Carlos Tejo (both from CTIC Foundation, Spain) who decided to use the package in one of their internal projects. They revealed some problems (of course…), and we then worked together to prepare a proper 1.0 release. It is my pleasure to consider them as co-authors of this small package!

As before, the code is available from my site; the API documentation is included in the distribution (and is also available online). However, the project has also been moved to sourceforge, and is now available there, too (including the on-line documentation).

On the “Google generation”

I stumbled across an interesting study made for the British Library and the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) on the the “Google generation” and the Web, more exactly search. The goal of the study is to analyse this generation’s behaviour in terms of Web usage, more specifically in terms of finding information on the Web and the role that libraries can play. The target of the study are libraries and librarians, ie, it is a somewhat specialized view, but it is nevertheless interesting read.

Unfortunately, it is long. But, luckily, there is an executive summary; although it is 35 pages, it is worth reading. (I must admit I did not find the time or energy to read more than this summary until now.) I reproduced (in a little bit shortened form) slides 18 to 20 at the end of this blog: these are “myth buster” results that I found fairly interesting…

There is also an nice comment and predictions on the future evolution (and the necessity of libraries to react on those) which include a note on the Semantic Web. I quote from the pages on “looking into the future”:

The world wide web as we have seen and experienced it so far could be completely revolutionised by the advent of the `semantic web’. [...] Some pundits believe that this scenario is very far away and, indeed that it may never happen on a wide scale. Our view is that the semantic web is a tool that will reach its tipping point fairly soon. In five years, 2013, there could be substantial developments that might allow a whole generation of undergraduates to begin to experience its potential.

This is especially likely to be the case in niche areas, like e-Science, especially biology, creating new opportunities for major research libraries to be involved in completely new forms of activity such as real-time publishing and the sharing of experimental data on the internet.

Note that the text also refers to “sharing experimental data”. Amen!

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So here are some of the myth on this generation and the related finding of the study:

They are more competent with technology

Our verdict: Generally true, we think, but older users are catching up fast. [..]

They have very high expectations of ICTs

Our verdict: Probably true, since we live in a global web culture dominated by a handful of unifying brands. [...] this expectation is relative, all of us are information consumers now.

They prefer interactive systems and are turning away from being passive consumers of information

Our verdict: Generally true, as borne out by young people’s media consumption patterns: passive media such as television and newspapers are in decline.

They have shifted decisively to digital forms of communication: texting rather than talking

Our verdict: Open. it is very difficult to see messaging as a fundamental trend, its current popularity is certainly influenced by its relatively low cost compared with voice.

They multitask in all areas of their lives

Our verdict: Open. There is no hard evidence. However, it is likely that being exposed to online media early in life may help to develop good parallel processing skills. The wider question is whether sequential processing abilities, necessary for ordinary reading, are being similarly developed.

They are used to being entertained and now expect this of their formal learning experience at university

Our verdict: Open. [...] We are a little concerned by the current interest in using games technologies to enhance students’ learning and library-based experience. When broadcast news makers introduced entertainment show production techniques 20-30 years ago, research showed that these enhanced `interest’ but impeded the absorption of information.

They prefer visual information over text

Our verdict: A qualified yes, but text is still important. As technologies improve and costs fall, we expect to see video links beginning to replace text in the social networking context. However, for library interfaces, there is evidence that multimedia can quickly lose its appeal, providing short-term novelty.

They have zero tolerance for delay and their information needs must be fulfilled immediately

Our verdict: No. We feel that this is a truism of our time and there is no hard evidence to suggest that young people are more impatient in this regard.[...]

They find their peers more credible as information sources than authority figures

Our verdict: On balance, we think this is a myth. Research in the specific context of the information resources that children prefer and value in a secondary school setting shows that teachers, relatives and textbooks are consistently valued above the internet. We feel this statement has more to do with social networking sub-culture and teenagers’ naturally rebellious tendencies[...]

They need to feel constantly connected to the Web

Our verdict: We do not believe that this is a specific Google generation trait. Recent research by Ofcom shows that the over-65s spend four hours a week longer online than 18-24s. We suspect that factors specific to the individual, personality and background, are much more significant than generation.

They are the `cut-and-paste’ generation

Our verdict: We think this is true, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence and plagiarism is a serious issue.

They pick up computer skills by trial-and-error

Our verdict: This is a complete myth. The popular view that Google generation teenagers are twiddling away on a new device while their parents are still reading the manual is a complete reversal of reality[...]

They prefer quick information in the form of easily digested chunks, rather than full text

Our verdict: This is a myth. CIBER deep log studies show that, from undergraduates to professors, people exhibit a strong tendency towards shallow, horizontal, `flicking’ behaviour in digital libraries. Power browsing and viewing appear to be the norm for all. The popularity of abstracts among older researchers rather gives the game away. Society is dumbing down.

They are expert searchers

Our verdict: This is a dangerous myth. Digital literacies and information literacies do not go hand in hand. A careful look at the literature over the past 25 years finds no improvement (or deterioration) in young people’s information skills.

They think everything is on the web (and it’s all free)

Our verdict: Open. Anecdotally, this appears to be true for a large minority of young people, but no one seems to have framed a research question in this form and investigated it more deeply. Certainly this was a prevalent view earlier in the evolution of the internet, indeed its central ethos. To reverse the question, there is much evidence that young people are unaware of library-sponsored content, or at least reluctant to use it. This is the library’s problem, not the fault of young people.

They do not respect intellectual property

Our verdict: This seems to be only partly true. Findings from Ofcom surveys reveal that both adults and children (aged 12-15) have very high levels of awareness and understanding of the basic principles of intellectual property. However, young people feel that copyright regimes are unfair and unjust and a big age gap is opening up.[...]

They are format agnostic

Our verdict: This may be true of some users, young and old, but not all. We have not found any careful analysis of this question, which is surprising given its import for libraries and publishers alike. We suspect that this is no longer a meaningful issue: content is no longer format dependent in cyberspace.

Europe: the nationality of a First Lady

One of the nice and also interesting aspects of the European Union is that people take many of its advantages for granted. At a time when “Euroscepticism” has a certain (in my view, unjustified) popularity, it is worth reminding people about small things (like the Shengen agreement) that are really part of our life in a unified Europe, and the advantages it bears.

Living as a European national in another European Union country has become the most natural thing of all. I live in the Netherlands with a French passport, my colleague with whom I share an office is a British national; I have several colleagues (French, German, Dutch, Italian) who do not live in the country of their origin. And, administratively, this has become a breeze, not much more complicated as moving to another province (yeah, it is not all that rosy, the “portability” of pensions, for example, is not yet solved, but there is progress).

This week-end has seen a highly visible case. The current French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has married a woman called Carla Bruni. The publicity around this took (in my view) a completely ridiculous turn in the French people magazines, but I did find one interesting aspect of the whole story. Indeed, the new First Lady in France is… an Italian national! I wonder whether she would be asked to take the French nationality; I sincerely hope not. There is absolutely no reason: her presence in that position is just another proof that, well, Europe works…

New DCMI documents published

I must admit I did not realize that… but the DCMI has just published two important documents. It was not such a long time ago, though, so I may not be the only one who missed it (thanks to Kjetil Kjernsmo who drew my attention, too, to this in a mail he sent to the Linking Open Data mailing list).

The first document is an update of the well-known DC terms that we all use. This updated “DCMI Metadata Terms” defines the ranges and domains of most of the terms and puts all these terms into the same namespace (http://purl.org/dc/terms/). The old namespace (http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/) remains untouched, ie, no documents using those become “invalid” in any sense, but it is probably better to start using the /terms/ namespace: it gives a better semantic inference possibility. There is a separate documentation for the terms, and the namespace dereferences (of course…) to the appropriate RDF/XML document.

For those who are familiar with the DCMI “Abstract model” but also care about the Semantic Web the second document is also interesting. The title of the document tells it all: “Expressing Dublin Core metadata using the Resource Description Framework (RDF)”…

See also the DCMI news items on the new term document and the RDF one for more details.

Overview paper on SAWSDL in IEEE Internet Computing

Jacek Kopecký, Tomas Vitvar, Carine Bournez and Joel Farrell have published an overview paper on SAWSDL in the December issue of IEEE’s Internet Computing[1]. It is unfortunate that IEEE does not put its proceedings into the public domain, but, well… Maybe some of the readers have access to IEEE’s Digital Library. In any case, here is the abstract of the paper:

Web services are important for creating distributed applications on the Web. In fact,they’re a key enabler for service-oriented architectures that focus on service reuse and interoperability. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has recently finished work on two important standards for describing Web services: the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 2.0 and Semantic Annotations for WSDL and XML Schema (SAWSDL). Here, the authors discuss the latter, which is the first standard for adding semantics to Web service descriptions.

[1] Kopecký, Jacek, Tomas Vitvar, Carine Bournez, and Joel Farrell. “SAWSDL: Semantic Annotations for WSDL and XML Schema.” IEEE Internet Computing 11, no. 6 (2007): 60-67. See also the online reference on the IEEE site.

Addendum on the 29th: Jan Zemanek commented that the paper is available on-line on Tomas Vitvar’s site! (Thanks Jan)

Couperin, Duphly

The beauty of (classical) music is that after many years one can still discover new things, new pieces that, for various reasons, one has not heard before… The last in the line for me was the discovery of the keyboard music of François Couperin, thanks to a program on the French public radio channel, France Musique. More specifically, the record I discovered was a collection of some of Couperin’s keyboard pieces by Alexandre Tharaud. 19 different pieces, all very different from one another, and astonishingly modern and romantic. But the real novelty for me was a beautiful short piece, called “La Pothouïn”, of another French composer called Jacques Duphly. I must admit: this is the first time I even heard this name! So many things still to discover…

There is also a more personal aspect of this music. I have lost a dear colleague/friend about a year ago, who was a great fan of ancient music. This was really “his” music. I know he would have loved this recording…

Using GRDDL and/or RDFa to annotate REST services

Carine Bournez (merci, Carine!) drew my attention to a position paper of Karthik Gomadam et al.[1] An extract of the paper that could also be considered as an abstract:

“Reuse and data mediation have led to several proposals for Semantic Web services, leading to the W3C recommendation for the Semantic Annotation of WSDL and XML Schemas. But adding semantics to REST is more challenging than adding semantics to WSDL. Unlike WSDL, REST-based services are often embedded in Web pages written largely in XHTML.”

The authors propose the usage of a small vocabulary plus GRDDL and RDFa, which, combined with the XHTML file containing the reference to the REST service, can provide a proper Semantic description. A simple but powerful use case both for GRDDL and RDFa…

As an aside, the following paragraph, comparing GRDDL and RDFa, is also interesting by itself (thanks to Mark Birbeck for pointing that out in a mail):

“GRDDL’s advantage is that it’s less intrusive than RDFa, and it lets the user embed annotations in whatever way is most convenient to them. RDFa’s advantage is that annotations are self-contained in the HTML page, so the user only needs to create and maintain a single document (GRDDL forces the user to create two documents, the HTML page and the translation document). RDFa also has the advantage of being a standardized microformat, which makes it simpler for a developer to maintain and understand a page created by someone else.”

[1] K. Gomadam, A. Ranabahu, and A. Sheth, “SA-REST: Semantically enhancing REST services (SWS-XG position paper and discussion draft)”; http://knoesis.wright.edu/research/sss/standards/sa-rest/.

BB King and Tátrai…

Part of my standard actions at the beginning of the year is to clean up my browser bookmarks. So I did today, and I found two references to YouTube videos that I’d stored sometimes last summer. They are both extracts from a concert given ten years ago by BB King in Budapest, together with an amazing Hungarian jazz guitarist called Tibor Tátrai. There is some sort of a nostalgia for me in that; Tátrai was part of an absolutely amazing jazz-rock group (called Syrius) that was around in Budapest for 2-3 years when I was young (i.e., early 70’s). There are some traces of that group on YouTube, if you are interested, but the group has disappeared very quickly…

Anyway, here are the two BB King & Tátrai videos if you are interested in jazz and blues:

and

The wise friend of Michael…

I wish I was as wise as Michael Sperberg-McQueen’s unnamed friend: “…always dare to be wrong, even if you’re not sure you are.” But it is difficult to exceed one’s instincts…

The Manhattan Project

A friend of mine (Bebo White) drew my attention on the “Manhattan Project” book[1], which turned out to be really interesting. It is not yet another history book on the Manhattan Project, but rather a compilation of eyewitness accounts, of texts of those who had written on the subject, and even extracts of fiction that used the Manhattan Project as a background. Despite its nature the book it gives a good overview of what happened and, because it is a compilation of sources, it reflects the sometimes conflicting opinions on the more controversial issues.

In some ways, the last two chapters of the book (“Reflection on the Bomb” and “Living with the Bomb”) were the most interesting for me. The chapter on reflections shows the enormously diverging views on the issue whether the US was justified or not to use the bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are 13 different texts there, and almost 13 different views… In some ways, the short text written in 2005 by Gar Alperovitz sums up the situation the best: “One might think that by now historians would agree on all fundamental issues. The reality, however, is just the opposite. All the major issues involved in the decision are still very much a matter of dispute among experts.” I must say I did not realize that before.

The last chapter (“Living with the Bomb”) is even more discomforting. I personally grew up in a World when the A- and H-bombs were the constant subjects of political discourse. However, since the end of the Cold War, this issue has pretty much disappeared from the collective psyche, as if the problem had gone away. Far from being true… The book cites two articles that were published about a year ago: a paper written by a number of US politicians from both sides of the aisle[2] and another one written by Mikhail Gorbachev[3], both arguing that, well, the issue is still very much alive (to say the least) and that major powers should make decisive steps towards a complete elimination of those weapons. And it is not comforting at all that none of these papers were discussed publicly (not being a regular reader of the Wall Street Journal I did not hear about them until now). The recent turmoils in Pakistan, i.e., the danger of an A-bomb falling into the hands of a completely chaotic and disorganized political leadership is just a reminder of the danger…

Good book. Worth reading it.

[1] Cynthia C. Kelly. The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators, Eyewitnesses and Historians. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2007

[2] George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn: A World Free of Nuclear Weapons, Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2007.

[3] Mikhail Gorbachev, The Nuclear Threat, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2007