Modeling Ontologies for Individual Artists

[This post presents research done by Daan Raven in the context of his Master Project Information Sciences]

There is a long tradition in the Cultural Heritage domain of using structured, machine-interoperable knowledge using semantic methods and tools. However, research into developing and using ontologies specific to works of art of individual artists is persistently lacking. Such knowledge graphs would improve access to heritage information by making reasoning and inferencing possible. In his research, Daan Raven developed and applied a re-usable method, building on the ‘Methontology’ method for ontology development. We describe the steps of specification, conceptualization, integration, implementation and evaluation in a case study concerning ceramic-glass sculptor Barbara Nanning.

This work was presented at Digital Humanities Benelux 2021. The abstract and presentation as well as other digital resources related to the project can be found below:

Below are some examples of competency questions with pointers to SPARQL queries in YASGUI.

Which artworks in the Verre Églomisé collection of Nanning are currently stored in her private collection?https://api.triplydb.com/s/wKZG4UFq5
Show me a timeline of all process that require the use of an Annealing Kilnhttps://api.triplydb.com/s/j4Qk0tHzK
 # Show me all process steps that require the use of an annealing kiln and that have a landing page
https://api.triplydb.com/s/N5mo4uTM3
Show me (in Gallery) all objects made by “Jiří Pačinek Glass Lindava” (person in Wikidata)https://api.triplydb.com/s/C6LsEgiZF
Show me (in Geo) the locations of creation steps for various works (uses geonames)https://api.triplydb.com/s/THTkhOYjd

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InTaVia project started

From November 1 2020, we are collaborating on connecting tangible and intangible heritage through knowledge graphs in the new Horizon2020 project “InTaVia“.

To facilitate access to rich repositories of tangible and intangible asset, new technologies are needed to enable their analysis, curation and communication for a variety of target groups without computational and technological expertise. In face of many large, heterogeneous, and unconnected heritage collections we aim to develop supporting technologies to better access and manage in/tangible CH data and topics, to better study and analyze them, to curate, enrich and interlink existing collections, and to better communicate and promote their inventories.

tangible and intagible heritage (img from project proposal)

Our group will contribute to the shared research infrastructure and will be responsible for developing a generic solution for connecting linked heritage data to various visualization tools. We will work on various user-facing services and develop an application shell and front-end for this connection
be responsible for evaluating the usability of the integrated InTaVia platform for specific users. This project will allow for novel user-centric research on topics of Digital Humanities, Human-Computer interaction and Linked Data service design.

screenshot of the virtual kickoff meeting

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Hearing (Knowledge) Graphs

[This post is based on Enya Nieland‘s Msc Thesis “Generating Earcons from Knowledge Graphs” ]

Three earcons with varying pitch, rythm and both pitch and rythm

Knowledge Graphs are becoming enormously popular, which means that users interacting with such complex networks are diversifying. This requires new and innovative ways of interacting. Several methods for visualizing, summarizing or exploring knowledge have been proposed and developed. In this student project we investigated the potential for interacting with knowledge graphs through a different modality: sound.

The research focused on the question how to generate meaningful sound or music from (knowledge) graphs. The generated sounds should provide users some insights into the properties of the network. Enya framed this challenge with the idea of “earcons” the auditory version of an icon.

Enya eventually developed a method that automatically produces these types of earcon for random knowledge graphs. Each earcon consist of three notes that differ in pitch and duration. As example, listen to the three earcons which are shown in the figure on the left.

Earcon where pitch varies
Earcon where note duration varies
Earcon where both pitch and rythm vary

The earcon parameters are derived from network metrics such as minimum, maximum and average indegree or outdegree. A tool with user interface allowed users to design the earcons based on these metrics.

The pipeline for creating earcons
The GUI

The different variants were evaluated in an extensive user test of 30 respondents to find out which variants were the most informative. The results show that indeed, the individual elements of earcons can provide insights into these metrics, but that combining them is confusing to the listener. In this case, simpler is better.

Using this tool could be an addition to a tool such as LOD Laundromat to provide an instant insight into the complexity of KGs. It could additionally benefit people who are visually impaired and want to get an insight into the complexity of Knowledge Graphs

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A look back at UCDS at ICT.Open2018

Two weeks ago, ICT.Open2018 was held in Amersfoort. This event brings together Computer Science researchers from all over the Netherlands and our research group was present with many posters and presentations.

We even won a prize! (Well, a 2nd place prize, but awesome nonetheless). Xander Wilcke presented work on using Knowledge Graphs for Machine Learning. He was awarded the runner-up prize for best poster presentation at ICTOpen2018. Congrats!

 

Ronald Siebes presented work in the ArchiMediaL project on reconstructing 4D street views from historical images.

Oana Inel presented her work on Named Entity Recognition and Gold Standard critiquing. She also demonstrated the Clariah MediaSuite.

Anca Dumitrache talked about using crowdsourcing as part of the Machine Learning life cycle.

Tobias Kuhn talked about Reliable Granular References to Changing Linked Data, which was previously published at ISWC2017.

Cristina Bucur introduced  Linkflows: enabling a web of linked semantic publishing workflows

I talked myself a bit about current work in the ABC-Kb Network Institute project

All in all, this was quite a nice edition of the yearly event for our group. See you next year in Amersfoort!

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