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Call For Papers: #Microposts2016 workshop @www2016ca

Posted on by Danica

microposts_logo2016
As an Organising Committee Chair of the Microposts 2016 workshop at the 25th World Wide Web conference, I am inviting you to check out the  Call for papers and contribute with your expertise and research. The workshop is interdiscipinary and gathers academics and professionals from the Computational Sciences and Social/Web Science studies. Also, have in mind that we will have a best SocSci paper award. For more information, please visit this page.

What are Microposts?

Microposts – “information published on the Web that is small in size and requires minimal effort to publish” – remain a popular means for communicating information. Microposts include tweets (using plain text or with embedded links and objects); social network endorsement using Instagram hearts; check-ins via Facebook and Foursquare, pins on Pinterest; links to brief, pre-recorded and streaming video via Snapchat and Meerkat. Microblogging apps for the ubiquitous smartphone and other small, personal devices, which support capturing photos and short videos, allow these to accompany text or serve in themselves as the Micropost.

#Microposts2016 will focus on topics including, but not exclusive to, the three areas below:

MAKING SENSE/UNDERSTAND – focusing on the human in Micropost data generation and analysis, we encourage submissions that look at understanding how situation and context drive individual and Continue reading “Call For Papers: #Microposts2016 workshop @www2016ca” →

Workshop programme – MAKING SENSE OF MICROPOSTS #MICROPOSTS2015

Posted on by Danica

The Microposts2015 programme at WWW2015 is published, please take a look at the main track paper and poster presentations and share it with those interested. For Social Sciences track, these papers were selected by our PC, after the conference they are published at CEUR – Online Proceedings for Scientific Workshops.

See you soon in Florence, Italy.

Interview / Joanne Manaster

Posted on by Danica

JoanneManasterJoanne Manaster is a cell and molecular biology lecturer at the University of Illinois. She currently works as an online course developer and lecturer of science courses for the School of Integrative Biology. Prior to this current position, Joanne has taught histology, cell biology, and tissue engineering laboratories to biology and bioengineering students for nearly 20 years. Beside her academic career, she is a science writer and communicator, science video host, and STEM advocate. Joanne has run a girls’ bioengineering camp, and helped with the iGEM synthetic biology team and other outreach activities. She also makes video reviews of popular science books as well as whimsical science experiments with cats, cookies, gummy bears and make-up.

Joanne writes about science at her website, Joanne Loves Science and also at Scientific American blogs. She has been named by Mashable as having one of the 25 Twitter Accounts That Will Make You Smarter. You can find her on Twitter as ScienceGoddess.

Would you, please, tell our readers a little bit more about yourself? What is your scientific background, and your professional scope?

Thank you for asking me to join you!

I am a faculty lecturer at the University of Illinois. I initially started my college studies with plans to head to medical school but through my course of studies I found I really clicked with cell and molecular biology and was very adept at lab work. Through various opportunities, I also discovered I had a knack for explaining scientific concepts so eventually changed my path to teach at the university level. I studied muscle development at the microscopic level in grad school and eventually transitioned to teaching cell biology and histology.

How did you initially get interested in science? When did you start to express your curiosity for science?

I always loved nature and had a fascination with human health. I spent a lot of time in nature and did a lot of reading on science topics. I didn’t know any scientists. I knew they existed from reading textbooks, but the whole field seemed shrouded in mystery. However, I understood what doctors did and thought that becoming a physician would be a valid way to pursue my passion for science. As I mentioned above, it wasn’t until college that I realized how scientists did their work, and could then consider that as a career path.

It is interesting to mention that you are a former international model, back in the days of your adolescence. Did you find something scientific in the world of modeling and fashion?

As far as modeling goes, I was discovered while I was in high school. Initially, I wasn’t enthusiastic about it but realized it would be a great way to earn money for medical school. While I was modeling, I wasn’t thinking about it in any scientific manner as I was learning to interact with a very new and somewhat foreign world. It wasn’t until I completed my science training in college did I really start to see how science explained just about everything. In my course of teaching students, I also began to see the value in piquing their interest by talking about things they could relate to in terms of science, and that extends to my online outreach!

Would you tell us more about your role within executing online courses for current and future science teachers?

Continue reading “Interview / Joanne Manaster” →

Connecting the Quantum Dots

Posted on by Danica

(This post was originally written for Australian Science)

Last week, after I spent a couple of days in Brest, Brittany at a ESF, EU workshop/seminar brainstorming with other internet and scientific researchers on interesting topics related to  internet science and innovation,  I got myself back to Paris. I visited a French national institute with an international reputation for  scientific excellence – ESPCI (École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles) and the CNRS department of Physics, Quantum Foundations – a group dedicated to  research on quantum effects in materials. Also, I took the opportunity to meet up with two Australian Science writers who reside in Paris: Rayna, and Charles.

ESPCI Paris Tech stands for Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (a French “Grande École d’ingénieurs”). Founded in 1882, ESPCI is a major institution of higher education – an internationally renowned research center, gathering  leading scientific innovators like Nobel Prize laureates Pierre and Marie Curie, Paul Langevin, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, and Georges Charpak.

ESPCI ParisTech
ESPCI ParisTech

At ESPCI, I met with Arjen Dijksman, a physicist and researcher interested in tiny semiconductive nanoparticles, known as “quantum dots”. His background is in applied physics, and his research interests are focused on time-resolved spectroscopy of core-shell CdSe-CdS quantum dots. Arjen works at the Laboratoire de Physique et d’Étude des Matériaux − (Department of Physics and Materials Study) – an inspiring and interesting lab, and a place for the scientist interested in these innovative fields of physics.  Arjen is also a science blogger at Physics Intuitions, and you may not know the fact that Arjen is also the scientific database creator for Physics Quote of the Day: hashtag on Twitter #xsw (exploring the scientific world), he spent years collecting interesting quotes from famous scientists.

Before going to the lab, we stopped by ESPGG  – the  Pierre-Gilles de Gennes center, where science meets culture and society.  This open place is promoting international exchanges, meetings, lectures, exhibitions, and joint discussions between researchers, science communicators, journalists, artists, and storytellers interested in science and culture. Matteo Merzagora, a program director, introduced us to the Biophilia Education program happening this month: workshops led by musician Björk at the intersection between science, education and musical awakening.

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Pierre-Gilles de Gennes center, Paris

During the lab tour, Arjen showed me the labs and demonstrated synthesis of Quantum Dots. Arjen’s research puts into practice the results of quantum mechanics using semiconductor nanocrystals. To the contrary of insulators, in which electric current can not flow, and conductors, where it can circulate easily, semiconductors are materials in which  current can only flow if one adds a little extra energy.

In his laboratory, Arjen synthesizes these crystals, dubbed  quantum dots . They are sometimes called “artificial atoms” because their diameter is of the order of a few nanometers – the size of a few atoms. Cadmium selenide, a semiconductor material, is often used because in that case, they show amazing properties of fluorescence. In particular, electrons are confined in the small volume of the quantum dots. They are unable to move out of this space. Continue reading “Connecting the Quantum Dots” →

Interview / Marcus Foth

Posted on by Danica

As an internet researcher and social media consultant, I ask some of the guests to tell me and my readers more about themselves, their current projects, and their views on topics including internet technology, the use of the Web in science and education, and certain aspects of the digital technologies that influence our everyday lives and work.  Earlier this month I had a conversation with Marcus Foth, the interview is published for Australian Science.

Marcus Foth is an Associate Professor and Director of the Urban Informatics Research Lab, as well as the Principal Research Fellow at the School of Design, Queensland University of Technology. He has authored and co-authored over 90 articles published in journals, edited books, and conference proceedings, as well as the Urban Informatics web site. You can follow him on Twitter.

mfWould you, please, tell our readers a little bit more about yourself? Where do you come from, both geographically and philosophically? What is your scientific background, and your professional scope? 

Certainly. I was born and grew up in the Northern part of Germany, in a town called Lübeck, at the coast of the Baltic Sea, about an hour from Hamburg. After high school I moved what appears to be as far away diagonally as possible within Germany in order to commence a computer science degree at the University of Furtwangen in the Black Forest that offered a – at the time – unique specialisation: Medieninformatik which combined technology applications and media studies. This was in 1997. The internet was just starting to become commercially successful, and many current students were still working on kiosk installations and multimedia CD-ROMs which were the latest fad at the time.
Continue reading “Interview / Marcus Foth” →

Interview / Kingsley Idehen

Posted on by Danica

Being a Semantic Web, Open Linked Data, Open Source enthusiast, and at some point the contributor to the AP for the FOAF and other metadata standards, recently I had an opportunity to talk with Kingsley Idehen on his current projects,  views on the use of the Web technologies, Open Linked Data,  WebID, serendipity, and certain aspects of the Internet that influence our everyday lives. The interview is published for Australian Science.

Kingsley Idehen is the Founder & CEO of OpenLink Software. He is a recognized technology enthusiast and expert in areas such as: Data Connectivity middleware, Linked Data, Data Integration, and Data Management.  He is also a founding member of DBpedia project via OpenLink Software. Kingsley’s  background is quite varied: he had planned to become a scientist in the genetic engineering realm but ended up being more fascinated by the power Information Technology and its potential to reshape mankind. From science, accounting, and programming, he followed his scientific instincts to architect OpenLinkVirtuoso, a powerful and innovative open source virtual database for SQL, XML, and Web services. The Virtuoso History page tells the whole story about Kingsley’s vision and accomplishments. You can follow him on Twitter and read his Google+ posts.

Would you explain to our readers a bit about the OpenLink Software, for those in the Web technology who may not be familiar with it? Can you give us a story about the inception, history, work and achievements of the OpenLink Software?

OpenLink Software develops, deploys, and supports bleeding edge technology covering the following realms:
1. Relational Database Connectivity Middleware — ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, OLE-DB, and XMLA Drivers/Providers
2. Disparate Data  Virtualization
3. Personal & Enterprise Collaboration
4. Relational Tables (RDBMS) and Relational Property Graph (Graph DB) based Database Management Systems
5. Federated Identity Management.

I founded OpenLink in 1992 with open database connectivity middleware supporting  all major RDBMS products as our focus. By 1998 we evolved our vision to include RDBMS virtualization, and by 2000 we decided that the Semantic Web technology stack provided all the critical standards that would enable us extend data virtualization to include other data sources and formats beyond the RDBMS.
Continue reading “Interview / Kingsley Idehen” →

Nikola Tesla and the magic of science

Posted on by Danica

Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity – Nikola Tesla

One of the greatest people in the history of science, and the greatest inventor of the post industrial society, Nikola Tesla, is the visionary that many people have never even heard of or about his work. He could visualise the future inventions with the greatest facility. Numerous articles have been published, books have been written related to this magician of the science. There are many sources about this man who lit the world, and his developments.

Among many Tesla’s inventions,  the most relevant that influence directly our everyday life include: radio, wireless telegraphy, remote control, robotics. He even photographed the bones of the human body. But the high point was the realisation of a childhood dream: harnessing the raging powers of Niagara Falls, and bringing light to the city. Tesla has over 700 patents to his name: invented the World First AC Generator which led to electrical development and enlightment of the world. This high frequency high volatage electricity is used today in many communication devices.

Also, Tesla’s Wireless power System including certain devices is now considered to be an untouched method to transmit electrical current without wires. Extraterrastrial Radio Transmitter – Teslascope, radio transceiver designed with the intention of communicating with extraterrestrial life on other planets. It received publicity after Tesla’s statement on the device was published by Time magazine in their July 20, 1931 issue celebrating Tesla’s 75th birthday.

We should mention here Tesla’s Earthquake Machine invention that probably many people never heard of. This is an excerpt from the New York World Telegram, July 11, 1935:

“Nikola Tesla revealed that an earthquake which drew police and ambulances to the region of his laboratory at 48 E. Houston St., New York, in 1898, was the result of a little machine he was experimenting with at the time which “you could put in your overcoat pocket.” The bewildered newspapermen pounced upon this as at least one thing they could understand and Nikola Tesla, “the father of modern electricity” told what had happened as follows:

Tesla stated, “I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. There was a peculiar cracking sound. I asked my assistants where did the sound come from. They did not know. I put the machine up a few more notches. There was a louder cracking sound. I knew I was approaching the vibration of the steel building. I pushed the machine a little higher. “Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. The building would have been about our ears in another few minutes. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say nothing. We told the police it must have been an earthquake. That’s all they ever knew about it.”

Nikola Tesla – called “the greatest geek who ever lived“, was not only the physicist, electrical engineer, philosopher, futurologyst, genius who lit the world, but above all – the humanist who created for the mankind.

Check out this very interesting TED presentation of Marco Tempest, who combined the projection mapping and a pop-up book, visually telling the story of Nikola Tesla.

Image source.

Australian Science cross-post.