- From: Gannon Dick <gannon_dick@yahoo.com>
- Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 14:31:35 -0700 (PDT)
- To: "murillo@ieee.org" <murillo@ieee.org>, "eGov IG \(Public\)" <public-egov-ig@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <1375911095.46572.YahooMailNeo@web122904.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
Martin, First, terrific idea and very timely, given that governments are scrambling to define the persistent principles of the Rule of Law in an age where opportunistic organizational projections of human nature are given peer status as "innovation". Second, resource allocation always involves ethical dilemmas and supererogatory solutions. If your business plan involves a tiny bit of slavery, a moderate eco-disaster, and extended litigation of local ordinances, it needs some work before it will survive government transparency expectations. Tyranny and dystopia mean a whole lot of extra work for the civil servant little people and the tools you gave them are lousy :-) The point is that an ontology which presumes that civil servants dislike the Rule of Law and hate extra work for the same reason fails the paleontology projection test. It is very much like saying a dinosaur species is extinct because the species would not eat meat on Fridays. There is no reason to believe that intelligent robots will handle that nonsense any better than dinosaurs. Science Fiction writers, among many others, do not believe so. Third, getting to the bad news, for me travel to Geneva would be prohibitively expensive. Fourth, and back to point 2, (I think) it is possible to avoid the logical pitfall described by creating broad proxy classes for human concerns for Policy Making purposes rather than insist on strict identification, demonstration that a government is failing to address a particular need and legal standing. Mean policies are miscalculations and if allowed to fail gracefully do no damage to the Rule of Law. The simple fact is that no "race conditions" (in the data processing sense) ever develop for ethical judgements and the benefits of the surveillance state remain a theoretical potential - a product of imagination which assumes limitless inertia. Having accepted that invasions of privacy, however conceptualized are expensive to produce and expensive to perpetuate under the Rule of Law, what may surprise is just how easy the implementation is: http://www.rustprivacy.org/2013/egov/pii/ One thing which is abundantly clear is that the Rule of Law is not inherently complex however much the desire to influence the game for personal advantage may make it seem so. If anyone would like to co-author a paper to that effect, let me know. --Gannon ________________________________ From: Martin J. Murillo <murillo@ieee.org> To: eGov IG (Public) <public-egov-ig@w3.org> Sent: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 10:31 AM Subject: Call for short papers: DownScale2013 - Second International Workshop on Downscaling the Semantic Web Dear all, Apologies for any cross-posting. Downscale, focusing on downscaling the semantic web and it application to the less empowered, welcomes short papers, including the application of mainstream research/implementation/ideas to specific scenarios. Please find the attached call for papers and see how you could apply your ideas/processes/research/development to areas that are in dire need of appropriate applications. Martin http://worldwidesemanticweb.org/events/downscale2013 CALL FOR PAPERS ------------------------ Second International Workshop on Downscaling the Semantic Web - DownScale2013 19th September 2013. - Co-located with the Open Knowledge Conference 16th-18th September, Geneva, Switzerland WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION Knowledge acquisition is a necessary and first condition for the empowerment of individuals. The need for appropriate and effective knowledge sharing is universal and global. Linked Data and Semantic technologies provide great potentials for carrying out those tasks. While mainstream Semantic Web research and development is moving vertiginously (focusing mainly on centralized and very powerful infrastructure and services in highly endowed application domains and regions where does not seem to be constraints), little work seems to be done on the applications of these and more appropriate technologies to less connected scenarios and challenged regions where new knowledge means day to day sustenance, survival, or to exercise rights. Indeed, 4 Billion people who don’t have access to Internet or whose Internet connectivity is limited by bandwidth, quality of service, government or natural blockades, and modern device availability and affordability would welcome innovative solutions that are fit to their situation. The reality is that it will be tens of years until these subsets of the population enjoy the same level of Internet experience that most of the western population enjoys and takes it for granted. Thus it is important to consider these stakeholders in the development of solutions that center around Linked Data. For that purpose, we identify three major aspects that need to be addressed when bringing Linked Data to everyone: Infrastructure, interfaces, and content sharing. Infrastructure: Current design of platforms and utilities that make use of Linked Data assume the availability of a Web infrastructure encompassing centralized data-centers, high speed reliable Internet connectivity, and powerful modern client devices. The implications can be serious: If any of these necessary conditions is missing, end users are unable to be served of the benefits that Linked Data provides. This is not only relevant in natural disaster scenarios but also in the reality of daily life of billions of people. Solutions that are less centralized and do not require constant connectivity are required, among others. Interfaces: Literacy and language barriers currently prevent many people to reap the benefits of the World Wide Web, including knowledge acquisition, participation, and the exchange of ideas. Data-driven solutions such as Linked Data, being language-agnostic, provide huge potentials for the implementation of relevant interfaces for information sharing services, allowing more people to reap its benefits. Voice technologies, icon/symbol-based interfaces, touch interfaces, all provide unprecedented potentials, in the context of their power and lowering cost. Sharing of appropriate content: Context and culture awareness are key for developing (Linked) Open Data applications. To ensure local uptake, it is paramount to identify relevant knowledge that is valuable to a community or a group, including local language to symbol appropriatedness. While western-oriented approaches might seem globally applicable, the reality is otherwise. Linked data provides a huge potential in that context. This half-day workshop seeks to provide first steps in exploring appropriate requirements, technologies, processes and applications for the deployment of semantic Web technologies in constrained scenarios, taking into consideration local contexts. For instance, making Semantic Web platforms usable under limited computing power and limited access to Internet, with context-specific interfaces. TOPICS Topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to: * Offline linked data storage/synchronisation * Energy-efficient storage of data, i.e. low resource demanding triple stores * Application of Semantic Web to disaster data management * Utilization of Off-line linked data in disaster scenarios * Innovative linked data interfaces for illiterate and/or young users * Solutions for sharing locally relevant knowledge * Decentralised data management platforms * Collaborative, decentralised, educational software SUBMISSIONS We welcome: * Short papers that present downscaled versions of previously published systems, accommodation of current mainstream technologies to constrained scenarios, specific cultures, languages, situations. * Position and systems papers presenting novel ideas and approaches. * Demo papers describing a working application or prototype that can be demonstrated during the workshop and fits its scope. * Others Short papers are expected to be 2-4 pages in length, not exceeding 5 pages. Submissions should be formatted using Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) formatting guide. Submissions are managed via EasyChair: < https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=downscale2013> INVITED SPEAKERS AND SCHEDULE * Invited speaker: Stephane Boyera, SB Consulting (SBC4D) IMPORTANT DATES * Abstract submission deadline: August 18, 2013 * Notifications: August 30, 2013 * Camera ready version: Sept 6, 2013[a] * Workshop date: Morning, September 19, 2013 SPONSOR Downscale2013 is sponsored by The Network Institute <http://www.networkinstitute.org> WORKSHOP CHAIRS * Victor de Boer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands <v.de.boer@vu.nl> * Martin Murillo, IEEE Data Connectivity for Rural Areas Initiative, Canada <murillo@ieee.org> PROGRAMME COMMITTEE * Anna Bon, CIS Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Nederlands * Victor de Boer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands * Stephane Boyera, SB Consulting, France * Philippe Cudré-Mauroux, University of Fribourg, Switzerland * Gianluca Demartini, University of Fribourg, Switzerland * Maria Esther Vidal, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela * Christophe Guéret, Data Archiving and Networked Services, Netherlands * Bastien Guerry, Association OLPC France, France * Jérôme David, INRIA Grenoble – Rhône-Alpes, France * Laurens Rietveld, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands * Mathieu D’Aquin, KMi Open University, UK * Andreas Thor, University of Leipzig * Wolfgang Nejdl, L3S Research Center * Ivana Marenzi, L3S Research Center * Martin Murillo, IEEE Data Connectivity for Rural Areas Initiative, Canada * Elena Simperl, KIT Karlsruhe * Jean Thiery, Association OLPC France, France * Arjen P. de Vries, CWI, Netherlands Best regards, Martin and Victor
Received on Wednesday, 7 August 2013 21:32:04 UTC