topic maps in the ehumanities

topicmapslab.de

eScience Conference 2009, Oxford

Topic Maps in the eHumanitiesDr. Lutz Maicher1 (presenter)

Co-Authors of the paper are: Khalil Ahmed2, Alida Isolani3, Aki Kivelä4, Sam Oh5, Antony Pitts6, Salvatore Vassallo7

1Topic Maps Lab, University of Leipzig, Germany2networked planet, Mill Street, Oxford, UK

3Signum - Scuola Normale Superiore, Via della Faggiola n. 19, 56126 Pisa, Italy4Grip Studios Interactive Oy, Kristianinkatu 15, 00170 Helsinki, Finland

5Sungkyunkwan University LIS, Faculty Hall 40314, Seoul, Korea6musicDNA & Royal Academy of Music, London, UK

7University of Pavia, P.za del Lino 2, Pavia, Italy

Einführung in Topic Maps

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What is Topic Maps? Subject-centric models!

Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])


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The real world

3Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])


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Subject-centric models of the real world



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What can Topic Maps be used for?



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Topic Maps is an integration technology



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Topic Maps is a portal technology



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Topic Maps makes information subject-centric usable



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The building blocks of Topic Maps



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The data model of Topic Maps (topics)

Nikolaikirchevariant

St. Nicholas Church

St. Nikolai

name

English

scope

1165occurrence

www.nikolaikirche-leipzig.de/

occurrence

foundation

type

website

type


shortname

type


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The data model of Topic Maps (associations)

St. Nikolai Leipzig

association

container-containee

ass. rolerole player

containercontainee

role type



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Integration model of Topic Maps

St. Nikolai

The identity of a topic is defined by a set of Subject Identifiers …

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipziger_Nikolaikirche

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicholas%27_Church%2C_Leipzig

http://www.nikolaikirche-leipzig.de/



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Integration model of Topic Maps

St. Nikolai

… whenever two topics in one topic map use the same subject identifier, they will be merged.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipziger_Nikolaikirche



Saint-Nicolas




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Integration model of Topic Maps• Merging of Topics: a new topic replaces the old ones and provides

all information of them as unified access hub • all subject identifiers• all names• all occurrences• all association roles, the topic is playing in

St. Nikolaihttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipziger_Nikolaikirche



Saint-Nicolasand all Occurrences and Roles Played from both Topics …



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What are Topic Maps (ISO 13250)?• Topic Maps are highly-networked data sources

• one topic for each subject• relationships of subjects are associations between topics• subject-centric modelling paradigm

• Topic Maps have a human-centric data model• vocabulary for documenting information fits human cognition• network resembles human cognition

• Topic Maps have an integration model• whenever two topics represent the same subject, they have to be merged• always one information access hub for each subject

• Topic Maps is an international industry standard (ISO 13250)



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How Topic Maps drive Semantic PortalsCase: Musica migrans



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The domain of Musica migrans (Lutz Maicher, Leipzig)

Personhas names

with a lot of different spellings

primary nationality of a person

Nationalitysecondary nationality of a personDate

birthday of a person

day of death of a person

Placebirthplace of a person

place of death of a person

Confessionconfessions of a person

Professionmain profession of a person

secondary profession of a person

Referencearchive encyclopaedia

further literature

has educational development

start and end of educational phase

place of educational phase

goal of educational phase

has professional development

start and end of a job

place of a job

profession in a job

has concerts

date of a concert

place of a concert



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Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])List page for persons in Musica migrans

http://www.musicamigrans.de


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Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])Individual page (general) for person in Musica migrans


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Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])Individual page (professional carreer) for person in Musica migrans


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Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])Individual page (working places) for places in Musica migrans


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Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])Individual page for profession in Musica migrans


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Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])Professional carreer as map for a person in Musica migrans


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Topic Maps in the eHumanities - eScience 2009 Conference - Oxford - Dr. Lutz Maicher ([email protected])Individual page (as pdf dossier) for person in Musica migrans


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Further Topic Maps projects in the eHumanities



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http://www.cedeca.it


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CeDECA (Salvatore Vassallo, Pavia)

• Topic Maps portal for census of cultural patrinomy in the province of Pavia, Italy– Books, Articles, pictures, music, persons, architectural heritage,

archives, immaterial heritage, etc.

– Organised as virtual museum with rooms of places, museum, folklore, history, memories and books

– Additional two transversal rooms: agents and multimedia items

– Current volume: 1.600 Topics and 4.000 associations• Main Challenge:

– Impossibility to define a priori the data model (fluid ontology)

– Various Names of individuals



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RAMline (Anthony Pitts, London; Khalil Ahmed, Oxford)


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RAMline (Anthony Pitts, London; Khalil Ahmed, Oxford)

• Part of long time project at Royal Academy of Music – Goal: provdie a model for connection between people, places and

musical work

– Provide pupil a tool to chart own musicial development and link it to a wider context of pathways and influences

• RAMLine is a Topic Maps application built on top of Microsoft Sharepoint

• RAMLine launched first spinn-off – musicGPS is an iPhone application



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RAMline (Antony Pitts, London; Khalil Ahmed, Oxford)

creating capturing connecting communicating


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Pansori Retrieval System (Sam Oh, Seoul)

• Topic Maps based knoweldge base about the Korean folk music Pansori– People and Pansori are first class

objetcs• User study has been shown

– users locate information with fewer browsing in less time

– provides conceptual understanding of a domain

– users performed well in complex tasks



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http://www.signum.sns.it


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Text and Semantic (Alida Isolani, Pisa)

• System for support of semantic research by providing aids for reading and interpretation of philosophical texts– Use Case example: Giordano Bruno‘s „De gli eroici furori“

– Users can navigate seperately the work and it‘s various interpretations



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Collection of Finnish National Gallery (Aki Kivelä, Helsinki)

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http://collection.fng.fi/


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Collection of Finnish National Gallery (Aki Kivelä, Helsinki)

• Virtual Museum (as Topic Maps portal) which presents all artworks from the Finnish National Gallery– Volume: 33.000 artworks from 3.600 artists (which is 100.000 topics

and 500.000 associations)• Based on three data packages (provided as Topic Maps)

– FNG‘s information system Muusa provides the most artwork information, including artist related

– Iconclass vocabulary used to annotate artwork from the Museum for Contemporary Art Kiasma

• And other ad hoc vocabularies from FNG museums

– Curated texts from exhibitions

– (GUI) texts



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Summary



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Topic Maps in the eHumanities



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Identity and Identification - our main challenge • In nearly all applications in the humanities we store

networked information about– Persons

– (historical ) Places

– Events

– Cultural Objects

• To unleash the power of global interconnection of data we need:– Normalized Identification of Individuals

– Standardized Ontologies for the eHumanitites domains



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ImprintThis talk was provided by the Topic Maps Lab

… it‘s a research group dedicated to Topic Maps technologies.

• Located at the University of Leipzig, Germany– Chair of the Topic Maps Labs: Dr. Lutz Maicher

Contact: [email protected] / 341 / 97 32303

• Funded by the BMBF (German Federal Ministry for Research and Educati on)

• Portal: http://www.topicmapslab.de


mailto:[email protected]

topic maps in the ehumanities

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