The first book that deals specifically with visualization of the XML-based Web. It presents the state-of-the-art research in this area and focuses on key topics such as: visualization of semantic and structural information and metadata; exploring and querying XML documents using interactive multimedia interfaces; topic map visualization; visual modelling of XML/RDF ontologies and schemas; rendering and viewing of XML documents; SVG/X3D: new visualization techniques for the semantic web; and methods used to construct high quality metadata/metadata taxonomies. Most of the techniques and methods discussed here can be applied now, making this book essential reading for SML and Web developers as well as visualization researchers.

Dealing with visualization of the second-generation Web, this text presentsresearch on topics such as: visualization of semantic information and metadata;querying XML documents; topic map visualization; visual modelling of XML/RDFontologies; e-commerce and Web search applications; and more.

Correcting the Great Mistake People often mistake one thing for another. That’s human nature. However, one would expect the leaders in a particular ?eld of endeavour to have superior ab- ities to discriminate among the developments within that ?eld. That is why it is so perplexing that the technology elite – supposedly savvy folk such as software developers, marketers and businessmen – have continually mistaken Web-based graphics for something it is not. The ?rst great graphics technology for the Web,VRML,has been mistaken for something else since its inception. Viewed variously as a game system,a format for architectural walkthroughs,a platform for multi-user chat and an augmentation of reality,VRML may qualify as the least understood invention in the history of inf- mation technology. Perhaps it is so because when VRML was originally introduced it was touted as a tool for putting the shopping malls of the world online,at once prosaic and horrifyingly mundane to those of us who were developing it. Perhaps those ?rst two initials,“VR”,created expectations of sprawling,photorealistic f- tasy landscapes for exploration and play across the Web. Or perhaps the magnitude of the invention was simply too great to be understood at the time by the many, ironically even by those spending the money to underwrite its development. Regardless of the reasons,VRML suffered in the mainstream as it was twisted to meet unintended ends and stretched far beyond its limitations.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2008, held in Karlsruhe, Germany, during October 26-30, 2008. The volume contains 43 revised full research papers selected from a total of 261 submissions, of which an additional 3 papers were referred to the semantic Web in-use track; 11 papers out of 26 submissions to the semantic Web in-use track, and 7 papers and 12 posters accepted out of 39 submissions to the doctorial consortium. The topics covered in the research track are ontology engineering; data management; software and service engineering; non-standard reasoning with ontologies; semantic retrieval; OWL; ontology alignment; description logics; user interfaces; Web data and knowledge; semantic Web services; semantic social networks; and rules and relatedness. The semantic Web in-use track covers knowledge management; business applications; applications from home to space; and services and infrastructure.

This book introduces a novel approach for intelligent visualizations that adapts the different visual variables and data processing to human’s behavior and given tasks. Thereby a number of new algorithms and methods are introduced to satisfy the human need of information and knowledge and enable a usable and attractive way of information acquisition. Each method and algorithm is illustrated in a replicable way to enable the reproduction of the entire “SemaVis” system or parts of it. The introduced evaluation is scientifically well-designed and performed with more than enough participants to validate the benefits of the methods. Beside the introduced new approaches and algorithms, readers may find a sophisticated literature review in Information Visualization and Visual Analytics, Semantics and information extraction, and intelligent and adaptive systems. This book is based on an awarded and distinguished doctoral thesis in computer science.

Provides a single record of technologies and practices of the Semantic approach to the management, organization, interpretation, retrieval, and use of Web-based data.

Linked Data (LD) is a well-established standard for publishing and managing structured information on the Web, gathering and bridging together knowledge from different scientific and commercial domains. The development of Linked Data Visualization techniques and tools has been followed as the primary means for the analysis of this vast amount of information by data scientists, domain experts, business users, and citizens. This book covers a wide spectrum of visualization issues, providing an overview of the recent advances in this area, focusing on techniques, tools, and use cases of visualization and visual analysis of LD. It presents the basic concepts related to data visualization and the LD technologies, the techniques employed for data visualization based on the characteristics of data techniques for Big Data visualization, use tools and use cases in the LD context, and finally a thorough assessment of the usability of these tools under different scenarios. The purpose of this book is to offer a complete guide to the evolution of LD visualization for interested readers from any background and to empower them to get started with the visual analysis of such data. This book can serve as a course textbook or a primer for all those interested in LD and data visualization.

This book introduces advanced semantic web technologies, illustrating their utility and highlighting their implementation in biological, medical, and clinical scenarios. It covers topics ranging from database, ontology, and visualization to semantic web services and workflows. The volume also details the factors impacting on the establishment of the semantic web in life science and the legal challenges that will impact on its proliferation.

Visualizing with Text uncovers the rich palette of text elements usable in visualizations from simple labels through to documents. Using a multidisciplinary research effort spanning across fields including visualization, typography, and cartography, it builds a solid foundation for the design space of text in visualization. The book illustrates many new kinds of visualizations, including microtext lines, skim formatting, and typographic sets that solve some of the shortcomings of well-known visualization techniques. Key features: More than 240 illustrations to aid inspiration of new visualizations Eight new approaches to data visualization leveraging text Quick reference guide for visualization with text Builds a solid foundation extending current visualization theory Bridges between visualization, typography, text analytics, and natural language processing The author website, including teaching exercises and interactive demos and code, can be found here. Designers, developers, and academics can use this book as a reference and inspiration for new approaches to visualization in any application that uses text.

Cultural Heritage (CH) data is syntactically and semantically heterogeneous, multilingual, semantically rich, and highly interlinked. It is produced in a distributed, open fashion by museums, libraries, archives, and media organizations, as well as individual persons. Managing publication of such richness and variety of content on the Web, and at the same time supporting distributed, interoperable content creation processes, poses challenges where traditional publication approaches need to be re-thought. Application of the principles and technologies of Linked Data and the Semantic Web is a new, promising approach to address these problems. This development is leading to the creation of large national and international CH portals, such as Europeana, to large open data repositories, such as the Linked Open Data Cloud, and massive publications of linked library data in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Cultural Heritage has become one of the most successful application domains of Linked Data and Semantic Web technologies. This book gives an overview on why, when, and how Linked (Open) Data and Semantic Web technologies can be employed in practice in publishing CH collections and other content on the Web. The text first motivates and presents a general semantic portal model and publishing framework as a solution approach to distributed semantic content creation, based on an ontology infrastructure. On the Semantic Web, such an infrastructure includes shared metadata models, ontologies, and logical reasoning, and is supported by shared ontology and other Web services alleviating the use of the new technology and linked data in legacy cataloging systems. The goal of all this is to provide layman users and researchers with new, more intelligent and usable Web applications that can be utilized by other Web applications, too, via well-defined Application Programming Interfaces (API). At the same time, it is possible to provide publishing organizations with more cost-efficient solutions for content creation and publication. This book is targeted to computer scientists, museum curators, librarians, archivists, and other CH professionals interested in Linked Data and CH applications on the Semantic Web. The text is focused on practice and applications, making it suitable to students, researchers, and practitioners developing Web services and applications of CH, as well as to CH managers willing to understand the technical issues and challenges involved in linked data publication. Table of Contents: Cultural Heritage on the Semantic Web / Portal Model for Collaborative CH Publishing / Requirements for Publishing Linked Data / Metadata Schemas / Domain Vocabularies and Ontologies / Logic Rules for Cultural Heritage / Cultural Content Creation / Semantic Services for Human and Machine Users / Conclusions