a demonstration prototype of a service-oriented architecture enabling and supporting morphologically based phylogenetic studies.
Morphster.org - Assembling the Tree of Life - The University of Texas at Austin.
A new survey of ontology editors was conducted as a follow-up to an initial survey conducted in 2002. The results of the survey are summarized in this article. The results of the original survey may be found at www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/11/06/ontologies.html.
Ontologies are a way of specifying the structure of domain knowledge in a formal logic designed for machine processing. The effect on information technology (IT) is to shift the burden of capturing the meaning of data content from the procedural operations of algorithms and rules to the representation of the data itself.
OBO-Edit is an open source ontology editor written in Java.
OBO-Edit is optimized for the OBO biological ontology file format. It features an easy to use editing interface, a simple but fast reasoner, and powerful search capabilities.
OBO-Edit is developed by the Berkeley Bioinformatics and Ontologies Project, and is funded by the Gene Ontology Consortium. Contributions to the OBO-Edit codebase are always welcome.
Protégé is a free, open source ontology editor and knowledge-base framework.
The Protégé platform supports two main ways of modeling ontologies via the Protégé-Frames and Protégé-OWL editors. Protégé ontologies can be exported into a variety of formats including RDF(S), OWL, and XML Schema. (more)
Protégé is based on Java, is extensible, and provides a plug-and-play environment that makes it a flexible base for rapid prototyping and application development.
The Protégé Ontology Editor and Knowledge Acquisition System.
An article entitled Web 2.0 Still a No-go” in the September 2008 issue of the magazine of the American Bar Association reports that very few attorneys are using Web 2.0 technologies. For example, roughly 10% of attorneys use RSS feeds, and 27% use blogs. Lawyers, however, commonly use smartphones and Blackberrys (roughly 97% of attorneys at large firms).
Metadatarisk.org is a Web site run by Workshare, a company that produces tools to “compare, review, verify, secure, and audit documents.” The focus of Workshare is on designing products that help businesses keep their data secure and preventing leaks. Metadatarisk.org works hand-in-hand with the company’s products by seeking to educate people about information security.
Metadatarisk.org provides information about types of metadata that are often stored in documents, how to protect documents, and a way to share your story of embarrassment for everyone to learn from, if you are brave enough.
My favorite feature is the news section, which contains links to stories detailing breaches of security due occasionally to intentional malfeasance (e.g. identity thieves), but far more commonly, to mistake, accident, or neglect. This story from the New York Times describes how the Federal Trade Commission inadvertently released confidential information about Whole Foods’ marketing and business strategies by electronically filing documents containing words that were electronically shaded black, but could still be read. The court remedied the situation by removing access to the electronic version and reposting a scanned version in which the blacked-out portions could not be read, but not before people, including members of the press, had obtained a copy of the readable version.
As we discussed in class last week, sometimes people, lawyers and businesses especially, need to remove metadata from their documents to maintain the confidentiality of important information. If you scroll down to the bottom of the August 2008 Newsletter of the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association, you can find an article on tools for removing metadata from documents. Most of these tools remove metadata from Microsoft Office applications, but there are a couple of tools that will remove metadata from documents in WordPerfect and PDF formats. An interesting feature in Microsoft Word is the metadata alert feature, which warns you that the document contains comments or tracked changes when you try to print, send, or save the document. The Workshare tool warns you when your email or Office documents contain sensitive information such as social security numbers or tracked changes.
Within the article is a link to a PowerPoint presentation from the Arkansas Bar’s Mid-year meeting on the dangers of metadata, some metadata removal tools, what to look for in a tool. The presentation also mentions that codes of ethics may prohibit you from removing metadata in discovery situations, when the other party in a lawsuit is entitled to view that information because it is relevant to a lawsuit and not protected by a privilege of some kind. The answer may often lie in a gray area. A good example from the presentation of letting confidential data sneak by is outlined in this article about Google. Google posted a PowerPoint presentation that inadvertently contained in the notes section details about the company’s future plans that it did not want to reveal. Care must be taken not just with documents, but with emails as well. Another example from the presentation is from a litigation situation, in which the original showing markup of a Microsoft Word version of a complaint showed that Bank of America was the original defendant. The document revealed exactly when the Bank of America was removed as a defendant.
Perhaps not much with semantics, but this article covers a few of the music recommendation services:
Mufin: Better Music Recommendations through Algorithms? - ReadWriteWeb.
From Sitepoint.com:
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/opensocial-maps-mashup-flex/:
The emerging OpenSocial standard is a powerful new API for creating exciting new mashups. In this tutorial, Jack shows how to mix Google Maps, Flickr, and OpenSocial using Adobe Flex. Take the quiz at the end for your chance to win a book!
SitePoint.com is one of my all-time favorite resources for all things web, from web design and development, to theories shaping the field *now*. I just recently discovered it after one of my listserves sent out an announcement about their free downloads on software like Adobe Creative Suites. Anyway, i hope the article above is as elucidating for you as it was for me in clarifying the open semantic web platform and web services theory; and that it serves as a jumping-off point for more learning and resources for web development/learning/self-improvement! 
Also, here is the link to Emerald Insight Database, as promised in classs. This was a really helpful database for starting research on the S(s)emantic W(w)eb, and I was surprised with the depth and breadth of coverage in their articles: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/menuNavigation.do;jsessionid=D4EFE32BC17B4D9A04AA08ACFB0C7885?hdAction=InsightHome
I am still working on tracking down that academic project which three-dimensionalized the flickr photos, and will post it when I am able. For the meantime, check this link out, called flickrvision, which combines 3d imaging (globe), plus flickr photos, plus Twitter:
http://flickrvision.com/maps/show_3d
Thought I would share this lovely little reference/resource from “The Scientific American,” a little quick verification of terms commonly used in Semantic Web conversation.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web-glossary
This is very short and to-the-point, but also contains a link to an article on the Semantic Web. I found another glossary of terms from the Semantic Web hero, Tim Berners-Lee, which is called “Weaving the Web” and (of course) far more extensive:
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/glossary.html
This one contains web links, so be aware of the long tail as you’re perusing through definitions! 