Life - Linked Data for eScience Services

• Applicants: Dr. Auriol Degbelo, since 1/2014; Dr. Beate Tröger
• Subject Area: Geophysics
• Term: from 2012 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 218455645

• Final Report Year: 2015

Final Report Abstract

The LIFE (Linked Data for eScience Services) project was jointly carried out by the University Library (ULB) at the University of Münster, and the Münster Semantic Interoperability Lab (MUSIL) at the Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster. The project aimed at developing tools and workflows that allow librarians and scientists to annotate their datasets with spatio-temporal and semantic references, so that they can be interlinked with other datasets distributed over the Web, and searched according to space, time and content. The project had three use cases: spatio-temporal library information, spatiotemporal explorer for cancer causes, and campus navigation. Within the first use case, a key contribution of the project was the semantic description and spatio-temporal georeferencing of historical maps, which helps document retrieval to go beyond keyword-searches to incorporate search with respect to content. Another achievement within this use case is the Historic Map Georeferencer, a linked-data based georeferencing and map description tool. Other achievements related to this use case are a search tool for the Institut für Stadtegeschichte (ISTG) in Münster, which allows retrieving information across heterogeneous urban history databases about maps, texts, postcards, and bibliographic records, as well as a biographical thesaurus, which allows searching for people in North Rhine-Westphalia. The second use case, developed in collaboration with the Institute for Epidemiology and Social Medicine at the University of Münster, yielded a domain ontology (derived from the monographs of the IARC - International Agency for Research on Cancer) and an application to explore linked environmental and epidemiological datasets in a cancer cluster investigation scenario. Within the third use case, the project team built - in collaboration with the Institute for Geography and the “Rektoratsbeauftragter für Behindertenfragen” in Münster - a Web tool which pro vides building accessibility information for disabled people. Finally, the project produced SPEX, a tool which allows the exploration of linked data about library documents based on space, time as well as content. All tools were developed and tested in close collaboration with project partners, and are accessible from http://lodum.de/results/.

Publications

• (2014). Content and context description - How linked spatio-temporal data enables novel information services for libraries. gis.Science, (04)
  Scheider, S., Degbelo, A., Kuhn, W., & Przibytzin, H.
  
• (2014). Encoding and querying historic map content. In J. Huerta, S. Schade, & C. Granell (Eds.), The 17th AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Science - Connecting a Digital Europe Through Location and Place (pp. 251–273). Castellón, Spain: Springer International Publishing
  Scheider, S., Jones, J., Sanchez, A., & Keßler, C.
  
• (2014). Linked Data - A paradigm shift for Geographic Information Science. In M. Duckham, E. Pebesma, K. Stewart, & A. U. Frank (Eds.), Geographic Information Science - Eighth International Conference (pp. 173–186). Vienna, Austria: Springer International Publishing
  Kuhn, W., Kauppinen, T., & Janowicz, K.
  
• (2014). Little steps towards big goals. Using linked data to develop next generation spatial data infrastructures (aka SDI 3.0). In J. Huerta, S. Schade, & C. Granell (Eds.), Connecting a Digital Europe through Location and Place - Proceedings of the AGILE’2014 International Conference on Geographic Information Science. Castellón, Spain: AGILE Digital Editions
  Harvey, F., Jones, J., Scheider, S., Iwaniak, A., Kaczmarek, I., Lukowicz, J., & Strzelecki, M.
  
• (2014). Making the web of data available via web feature services. In J. Huerta, S. Schade, & C. Granell (Eds.), The 17th AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Science - Connecting a Digital Europe Through Location and Place (pp. 341–361). Castellón, Spain: Springer International Publishing
  Jones, J., Kuhn, W., Keßler, C., & Scheider, S.
  
• (2015). Automated generation of indoor accessibility information for mobility-impaired individuals. In F. Bacao, M. Santos, & M. Painho (Eds.), AGILE 2015 - Geographic Information Science as an Enabler of Smarter Cities and Communities (pp. 235–252). Lisbon, Portugal: Springer International Publishing
  Kostic, N., & Scheider, S.
  
• (2015). Linked Data basierter Explorer für krebsrelevante Ursache-Wirkungs-Beziehungen im raum-zeitlichen Kontext. In FOSSGIS 2015 - Anwenderkonferenz für Freie und Open-Source Software für Geoinformationssysteme (pp. 120–124). Münster, Germany: FOSSGIS e.V.
  Müller, F., & Lemke, D.
  
• (2017). Exploratory querying of SPARQL endpoints in space and time. Semantic Web, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 65-86, 2017
  Scheider, S., Degbelo, A., Lemmens, R., van Elzakker, C., Zimmerhof, P., Kostic, N., Jones, J., Banhatti, G.