Via the Official Google Research Blog at the University of Google, Alon Halevy, Peter Norvig and Fernando Pereira have published an interesting expert opinion piece in the March/April 2009 edition of IEEE Intelligent Systems: computer.org/intelligent. The paper talks about embracing complexity and making use of the “the unreasonable effectiveness of data” [1] drawing analogies with the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” [2]. There is plenty to agree and disagree with in this provocative article which makes it an entertaining read. So what can we learn from those expert Googlers in the Googleplex? (more…)
April 17, 2009
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Google
December 2, 2008
SWAT4LS: The Semantic Web in Scotland
Last Friday, the UK National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh hosted a workhop, Semantic Web Applications and Tools for the Life Sciences (see SWAT4LS.org for the full details). Here are some incomplete and abbreviated notes from the workshop where there were some interesting people, paperware and software.
People and Paperware
- Nadia Anwar presented a paper on Semantic Data Integration for Francisella tularensi Proteomic and Genomic Data. This described experiences of developing a system for converting proteomics data in Excel to RDF, and what the benefits were.
- Heiko Dietze presented a paper on GoWeb: A semantic search engine for the life science web. Have a look at GoWeb query for the hexokinase enzyme for an example of the currently capability of GoWeb.
- Simon Jupp presented a paper on Knowledge Representation for Web Navigation which described why the Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS) is sometimes a more suitable language for modelling knowledge than OWL and RDF – see also SKOS in the context of Semantic Web Deployment by Alistair Miles
70 people registered to attend SWAT4LS in total, many familiar names and faces, plus some new people I’ve never met before: (more…)
O'Really? 