Blog

2006-05-18

• CAB Meeting 2006-05-18
  • Minutes being taken by Valentina - ask what will happen to these... I want a copy online...
  • http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/citizens/
    • http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/pygywebsite/
      • This is excellent
      • Join Pygywyg
        • http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/pygywebsite/members.html
  • licre esrc youth crime criminal justice
    • http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Images/ESRC_CRE_Specification_tcm6-15207.pdf
    • What about overlap with immigration control and deportation?
  • Launch of LUCI happening soon
    • http://www.leeds.ac.uk/city/projects.htm
  • http://www.leeds.ac.uk/city/
    • Relevant to loads work in SoG
    • http://www.leeds.ac.uk/press/community/
  • http://www.hull.ac.uk/ccrs/
• EGC Meeting 2006-05-18
  • Lindsay Banin
    • Some of the basal density statistics is really interesting and relevant to GWS
      • How can GWS help this?
    • Global gentry dataset publicly available
    • CTFS plot data not publicly available
    • For that Lindsay is doing looking at scaling CTFS data is probably more useful as the plots are larger
    • Assumptions are like wet fishes!
    • Does ratio of basal area to biomass vary depending on environment?
      • Nutrient, light, temperature
    • Usual assumption that resource use is optimised is in effect...
      • I think there is some punctuated equilibrium (based on nutrient supply e.g. sands on the winds, volcanic ash, old/big trees dying by disturbance)... This perturbs the picture?
      • Old trees like a sail in the wind less flexible, so more likely to break and die...
    • Oliver thinks that in general as a response to climate change, basal area is increasing faster than the stem density
    • Chronis thinks that climate change has been very extreme in the past, and thinks there needs to be an appreciation that tyhe whole thing is very variable anyway...
    • Dendrachronology data - is there any evidence of the little ice age?
    • Plants are getting more efficient?
    • Are changing carbon dioxide levels the most significant change?
    • What places have a range of soils but the same climate?
  • Cluster Launch
    • Tim went through the state of play What does Chronis want? What about launching a load of balloons? What about launching a drone to collect remote sensed data?
• Robin Smith - lesson in referencing...
• David Ashley - we put the world and Sog to rights...

2006-05-17

• John Corr came and took down the newspaper articles I had been posting on the coridoor. We had a nice chat about things... He is a good guy! I will be emailing Jackie (cc John) to ask about glass fronts so that I can resume my newpaper article activity...
• Staff Review meeting
• Sorting my blog...

2006-05-16

• Preparation for my Staff Review... Had some great feedback from Louise Dyson and Mark Birkin... Need to email Phil the form, a copy of any feedback, and the URL to My Staff Review 2006-05-17 Page.

2006-05-15

• Lunch with Katherine, Pakorn, Alona and two ODL students...
  • Southampton are in charge of the GIS and Environment module (indeed Southampton are delivering all courses taught face to face at Leeds)
  • There is a general challenge with regard how to use Masters students to support teaching and research in SoG. ODL students surely have a part to play...
• RELU documentation updated
• Chatted with Rupam one of the current SoG Masters cohort about future plans and feedback. He said that he was looking to move into GIS consultancy looking at web GIS. We shared some concerns over the lack of IT focus in the current GIS Masters programmes. Many companies want skills in database like Oracle that were only touched upon in the GIS and databases part of the course. Javascript and .NET skills are also in high demand and the Masters feel poorly provisioned with regard experience in these fields. I mentioned that this was a hangover from our loss of a very experienced highly IT literate member of staff last year (Ian Turton). He is greatly missed and as yet no replacement has been made that covers much of his skills and knowledge. I encouraged Rupam to feedback and that this would be something that could be added to an already glowing reference. Rupam is an excellent student and maybe he or one of his compatiriate cohort may stay to work with us and help us develop...

2006-05-12

• Chat with Mike Crabtree and Frank Cudjoe on Carbon Neutrality
  • Annoyed at waste of electricity
  • SoG to be charged for electricity?
  • Is SoG being metered for electricity/power use?
  • How can SoG reduce power consumption?
  • How recycleable are our consumables?
  • The little things all add up...
  • How can we equate and reduce switch to a positive carbon balance?
    • We should all debate our grand claim of being carbon neutral...
    • At present I don't believe it is calculated right and that it is marketting rubbish.
    • Need to ask Louise how she is currently doing it...
    • How I would measure SoG Carbon balance:
      • Quantify physical inputs (stationary, furnishings etc...) in terms of carbon (exclude food).
      • Quantify physical outputs (waste, but not what goes down the toilets)
      • Quantify staff journeys - fuel usage (travel to work and travel for work) - mode of travel, destination and any ticket information (for future calculations)
      • For geography vehicles we can simply keep a record of the amount of fuel input.
      • Quantify tree planting and other activities that effect carbon balance
      • Perform the quantification as an ongoing activity and periodically look to see if we are reducing our deficit...
  • Email Lou...
• MoSeS Documentation, Coding and Data Cooking...
• http://geology.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/bookfortey.htm
• Staff Review
  • I was supposed to have a meeting with my nominated reviewer Phil Rees. He over ran his previous appointment by 20 minutes and so we rescheduled (we planned for a 30 minute meeting). Phil provided an alternative staff review document for me to fill in, this is of unknown origin and dates to 2003. We rescheduled to meet on 2006-05-17 at 11am and I agreed to fill out the form that Phil emailed and provide a copy to Phil prior to the meeting. I plan to contact Louise Dyson our Human Resources manager and ask for advice...

2006-05-11

• Emailed David Appleyard, Mike Crabtree, Valentina Guerrieri and Chris Cox to offer training on Web Content Information Management...
• CCG Geoinformatics RAE 2002 CASAP CSAP Meeting with Andy Evans, Alison Heppenstall, Linda See... Alison has asked that details of this meeting remain confidential.
• http://www.eco-web.com
• River Basin Processes and Management Research Cluster meeting
  • Avijit Gupta talk on The Mekong River - A future with limited data
    • Mekong is huge crosses political boundaries. Rock cut for 1000s of kilometers.
    • Floods move the lower course of the river a lot. These are seasonal events and the river has very different discharge in low and high flow. Seasonility is greatest in the lower course.
    • Sediment locked in the channel in the upper part of the river
    • River used for power, water, transport increasingly also for enviornmental/ecological farming type uses
    • Most important use of the river is navigation now in the upper river Thailand - China.
    • Plans for lots of dams in the mountains. Some built some not... Cascade is to be finished by 2020 as it sounds like a good year! Some dams are closed/full. Is this good or bad? The cut off of sediment will surely effect the coast...
    • The effect of Dams will be erosion of sediment deposited on bedrock especially in the rock cut channels initially...
    • Amount of sediment coming out of the Mekong is estimated (by The Mekong river commission) at 150-170 Million tonnes per year... . How do they do that?
    • Dams are likely to have a major impact on a major river. There are many scarey physical and ecological scenarios that can be articulated! Catfish (important food source) and fresh water dolphins seriously effected?
    • Geomorphology if the upper river is very interesting. It is techtonic and uplift driven nothing really to do with glaciation...
    • Inner channel can be remotely sensed in the dry season. There is some sonar work done from boats. The inner channel is straight like the river itself...
    • Any river diseases likely to be effected?
    • • http://www.mrcmekong.org
      • http://www.eco-web.com/register/02769.html
      • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong_River_Commission
• Ecology and Global Change Research Cluster meeting
  • Andy Turner's EGC Research Cluster Page: 2006-05-11

2006-05-10

• Discussion with Andy Evans about CCG. For the first time in a long time we both feel positive about the future involvement of most of our colleagues in ASAP. The process of developing the CCG now needs to be bottom up...

• ASAP Meeting

  • Andy Turner's ASAP Page
  • Andy Turner's ASAP Research Cluster Half Away Day 2006-05-10 Page

2006-05-09

• Emailed ASAP and put information on NIEeS/NERC GridGIS Working Group wiki about Development of the Evidence Base for Natural Environment Policy a DEFRA Science Funding Competition . I plan to submit an expression of interest and wondered if others are interested...
• Chat with Alison and Dan about ASAP meeting tomorrow and Web and information management strategy
  • A gentle introduction is probably best for tomorrow rather than a full on acronym soup
  • Best not mention XML OASIS, DCMI, RSS or anything so sophisticated
  • Plan to show the group Andy's blog entry that he uploads during the coffee break as an example
  • Hope to sell to Chris Cox the idea that he learns how to develop Web content in standard ways
  • Andy has already emailed Mike Crabtree and David Appleyard about this and offerred to provide some training. This is an example of colleagiality or whatever that word is that Adrian likes...
  • Basically we want every memeber of the team to develop web content in standard ways. The more ASAP members can blog the better!
• I am keen to read about: Methodological investigations in agent-based modelling for the social sciences. This is linked from the Biosystems home page at the following URL:
  http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/biosystems/
  I've asked my friend John Bryden to help me find the resource...
• Helen Durham helped out Heather bio5hrb with a MapManager6.2 problem she approached me with as I am involved with GEOG5060.
• I encouraged Helen to Blog by writing a start page for her and linking it in. Helen had a necessary account so the samba mapping was not an issue.
• Chat with Alison on organising some information for web development and communication for ASAP meeting tomorrow. Are we supposed to be doing something? Again I encouraged her to start blogging. I think she will as she is a star!
• Chat with Alison on the setting up of a new research group and the state of the CCG.
• MoSeS Documentation, Coding and Data Cooking...
• MoSeS meeting
• Nudged David Hughes about OGC documentation...
• Steven emailed and is going to drop in to show me a demo of the Resources Map he has been making for the NGS... I've had a look, it is OK, but I don't know all the flying controls A Z B Something else (B ?) Ctrl Arrow Keys and others... Met Steven at lunch... He will give me an update when the next version is available...

2006-05-08

• Attended Miles Hill Residents meeting with Leeds North East Homes as a resident and member of Who Really Runs Leeds Project . Detailed notes are forthcoming...
• Journal of Maps
• Journal of Maps Special issue on Glacial Geology and Geomorphology - Link from geomorphometrics information...
  • Geomorphological Map from the Journal of Maps - Link from geomorphometrics information...
  • NW England Drumlin Geomorphological Map from the Journal of Maps - Link from geomorphometrics information...
• Emailed Andy and Alison to try to encourage them to keep an eye on Google Summer of Code with a view to getting more involved next year.
• Ordnance Survey GIS strategy
• Give us back our crown jewels - Guardian article on the business of government data and the lack of open access...
• Peter Weiss (2002) Borders in Cyberspace: Conflicting Public Sector Information Policies and their Economic Impacts. U. S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service Summary Report.
• Assessed Rodolfo, Nicolas, Edward and Khalid's geomorphometrics assignment and let them and Steve know I wouldn't be providing feedback just yet.
• MoSeS Documentation, Coding and Data Cooking...

2006-05-05

• Ragged loads of Maps out of the Map Library... Need to index what I have...
• RELU meeting... Need to let Klaus know about availability for meeting in June... Done!
• MoSeS Documentation, Coding and Data Cooking...

2006-05-04

• EGC/EBI meeting Dr Luke Skinner, from the Godwing Laboratory for Palaeoclimate Research, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge. The talk will be about "Abrupt climate change and the deep Atlantic heat and carbon budgets"....
• MoSeS Documentation, Coding and Data Cooking...

2006-05-03

• MoSeS Meeting
• Documentation...

2006-05-02

2006-04-27

2006-04-26

2006-04-25

2006-04-24

2006-04-21

2006-04-20

Level 1 Teaching and Personal Web Content has now been updated to DCMI and XHTML1.0-strict... Research next...

Chris's group have produced some metrics for an area up in Durham. They are thinking about identifying the channel and the flood plain and comparing with a flood risk map. Great!

Rodolfo got back about timings for the 50% Geomorphometrics coursework. I suggested to meet up and have a chat. There are many things that can be done. In meeting up we should find it easier to work out something of interest and something reasonable. It is difficult to judge peoples programming abilities and I am fairly new to the game of portioning work packages for which marks are to be awarded. Need to email Steve...

Erling popped in for a chat. He is interested in genography and had a good Easter in York learning about History. He thinks there is a gap in history from 500-700 AD. His web page is still rubbish! Alas, he said he is listening and may get at least the current details corrected...

Inkscape Open Source Scalable Vector Graphics Editor - This looks useful!

google-sitemap_gen project home page - The sitemap_gen.py script analyzes your web server and generates one or more Sitemap files. These files are XML listings of content you make available on your web server. The files can then be directly submitted to Google... Seems very useful...

google-ajaxslt project home page - AJAXSLT is an implementation of XSL-T in JavaScript, intended for use in fat web pages, which are nowadays referred to as AJAX applications. Because XSL-T uses XPath, it is also an implementation of XPath that can be used independently of XSL-T... Should give it a try asap... Also check out how they are doing RSS, looks right to me!...

Geographically Encoded Objects for RSS feeds - This site describes a number of ways to encoding location in RSS feeds. As RSS becomes more and more prevalent as a way to publish and share information, it becomes increasingly important that location is described in an interoperable manner so that applications can request, aggregate, share and map geographically tagged feeds.

Refractions Research / Jody Garnets page capturing some ideas for Google "Summer of Code"

Google Earth KML 2.0 Document Version 1.001 - Last modified: Tue Apr 04 2006

Google "Summer of Code"

Responded to Belinda's email about [MoSeS] Population modelling information and meeting to explain model and think about how to visualise progress...

Responded to Rodolfos email about geomorphometrics 50% coursework project. Need to email Steve about this...

Registered an interest with Paul about Who Really Runs Leeds? Should be interesting. Here are some brief answers to the questions set out:

• Who really runs Leeds?
  In terms of general day to day, week to week, year to year, people and their organisations run leeds e.g. bus drivers and transport, businessmen and businesses, criminals and crime etc...
• Who are the big players & power brokers?
  It depends on the context... Power brokering can mean so many things. It depends on what type of power. If it's utilities its one thing, if its politics its another, if its law and order its different again, if its economic then it's again different. One thing that interests me is that some types of power are easier to control from outside Leeds than others per se... I'm more a proponet of the cock up theory than of any detailed conspiracy!
• Who makes the decisions?
  Again this depends on the context. Decisions about land and land use involves a number of authorities and potentially complex economics etc... Decisions about utilities, transportation, infrastructure generally, operational control etc they are all different.
• Who sets the agendas for change & regeneration?
  What agendas? I'm not sure there is sufficient organisation...
• What are the external influences & effects of businesses in Leeds?
  Leeds affects and is effected greatly. I think you need a Semantic Web to answer this!
• What role do citizens play in all this?
  The most important. Ultimately I think the people have power!
• Who are the winners & losers in the governance of Leeds?
  Everyone, but most significantly the people that set foot in the city.

I'm interested about who comes, who expresses interest in this event. More than anything else, I'm interested in how the information is mapped.
We all really know that batman runs leeds!

Data Documentation Initiative http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/dtd/index.html http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/*checkout*/ddi-alliance/ddi/dtd/Version2-1.dtd

Chased Andy Evans about OGC membership agreement...

Steven Pickering dropped by to get an outline of the US mainland as some text file. Nice to do a bit of GIS work... We talked and I learned some of what Steven is up to. I encouraged him to set up a web home page to map out his virtual organisation and information flows. I think he will. I'm going to email a URL to this entry to remind him... Great Steven has emailed back and Dr Steven Pickering's Home Page is under active development :)
While Steven was here we emaied David Meredith as I wanted to know how to logon to the NGS portal... David got back to me and copied in Xiao and Xiabo (I think these are guys that were at the NCeSS training school recently and are who Rob Allan suggested I contact to develop our sakai portal... Great, I'll do a bit of investigation and email back...

A google search for gridshib turnerd up this shibgrid-bof list from which I found this interesting article: "Shibbolzing" Zope might email Paul...

Chris is around... Need to develop GIS Grid Collision proposal...

Had a look at Upcoming OGC Events . Put OGC TC/PC Meetings 26th-30th June 2006 Edinburgh in my calendar.

Paul came by and set me up properly for using SRB on the testbed. We chatted about a few things and showed each other some tricks on Web content development and delivery - standards and tools :)

Chanced upon the Semantic Grid Community Portal ... How to aggregate the RSS I wonder... The RSS dosen't validate currently, but not to worry...

I'm interested in European Science Foundation (ESF)/ Inventing Europe: Technology and the Making of Europe, 1850 to the Present . This interest is from an e-Infrastructure and e-framework perspective, in particular developments since the advent of the World Wide Web. Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) is contributing to the invention of Europe as an e-Research collaboration with a world-wide mission. If such a collaborative contemporary information technology focus ties in with your interests - please let me know, and maybe we can harness resources to organise a detailed response... I propose that the centre of gravity or core area of such a response be 1. Building Europe through Infrastructures from the following list:

1. Building Europe through Infrastructures: examines how Europe was shaped by transnational infrastructures - the material links within and between nation states (and regions) including canals, rivers, railroads, highways, energy, media, communication, and information networks.
2. Constructing European Ways of Knowing: examines the ways in which Europe became articulated through efforts at bringing knowledge and practices together on a European scale. These efforts range from informal networks to formal large-scale European projects.
3. Consuming Europe: explores how a range of social actors-including businesspeople, the state, professionals, consumer groups and consumers-proposed, developed, and reworked material artefacts for specific local, regional, and national contexts. At times these efforts defied and at other times reinforced prevailing trends toward European markets, statist arrangements, use patterns, and identities.
4. Europe in the Global World: explores the making of Europe through colonial, ex-colonial, trans-Atlantic, and other global exchanges. By "provincialising" Europe, the non-teleological nature of the processes studied will become clearer.

The deadline for outline proposals is 31 May 2006.

Chanced upon the Semantic Grid Community Portal ... How to aggregate the RSS I wonder... The RSS dosen't validate currently, but not to worry...

Once upon a time there was a MoSeS meeting when I shared a dream of the future where one day by routine we could link individual census records and helath data by name and address and that Grid Computing would allow it to be done safely and securely. I was informed this was a pipe dream, or at least there was some scoffing and the words "... it'll never happen ... they'll never allow it ... oh no no ... " began to ring... On page 68 of Ethnicity and health in Scotland: can we fill the information gap? A demonstration project focusing on coronary heart disease and linkage of census and health records is a diagram showing exaclty what can be done... It seems it has been done... I have not read the report in detail yet, but I will give it some attention in the not too distant future... The conclusions are certainly encouraging...

Added some information about the JISC OGC Grid collision proposal to the NERC GRIDGIS Working group wiki ... Also had a look, but seems like no activity from others. I wonder what is happening to the EPSRC Responsive Proposal ...

Read OGC Grid collision proposal... Done... Develop some additions and email thoughts...

GEMEDA had a quick look and emailed Paul and Mark to spark off some emails. Paul was communicating with Pascal last week. It seems GEMEDA is moving away from grid enabling CAS and focusing on SARs...

Had a skim of the NCeSS Service Delivery Board Minutes from March . The NCeSS website is to be revamped and a content management system (CMS) may be used. Good, IMHO the website is very important and should be developed well and given suffient resources. I want it to be standards compliant and like a portal, more ReDReSSlike. A CMS is a good idea. I wonder what software will be used... lenya, plone, sakai, something else... Mark has already asked me to be responsible for developing MoSeS content. This is good as I can move it from it's current location...

Browsed the Grid Engineering Group report to NCeSS Service Delivery Board . Great NCeSS are incorporating portal technology into the website based on uPortal . Nothing on the test site publicly available yet.

SCIENCE CONSULTATION: Your help needed
Replied to research support to let them know: IMHO the key is a full implementation of fully qualified Dublin Core and the development of Semantic Web Content across the board to: understand our information flows and operations; enhance collaboration and efficiency. Team work and respect at every level across administrative boundaries...
Really should push to get my own web content in order... Echoed this reponse to Kirsty Finn who is working on a consultation exercise on the future needs for research into research methods and methodology for NCRM (ESRC).

Bumped into David Appleyard and discussed his training and role as web content developer. It seems David needs to have a meeting with Mike Crabtree his line manager to detail a training and development plan. For some parts of David's work he can feed from some of the research going on in the School of Geography, particularly MoSeS. IMHO David needs to be drawn into a development cycle for updating the schools web content. A move to XML and in particular XHTML2.0 will be of great benefit. I am fairly confident that this can be done without those viewing the current content being aware of the underlying changes. This should prevent major disputes over the presentation style of information content. I am learning a lot about how to develop the next generation standard web content and would like to pass on what I have learned so that we all benefit... I'll email this entry to both Mike and David now... It'll be up to David to chase this up... Done!

Long IRC with Belinda. Here are the logs .

Web content development at http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.turner/ coming along... trying to move to qualified Dublin Core... First things first Andy Turner's Web Content @ School of Geography, University of Leeds RDF XML ...

Mike Crabtree popped along with an update on the linux server he is setting up for MoSeS. Mike will need to know the root password, but is giving MoSeS access to this level. Initially the server will allow connections from machines within the University of Leeds. Routes through the firewall will be opened on an as needed basis. Root will maintain an XML file detialing configuration on the base install. MoSeS will be responsible for backing this up along with any content. 2.5G P4 1.5G RAM, very useful resource. Mike will let us know when it will be ready - hopefully early next week. I will email the team now so they know what is going on... Done!

Trying to get postgres configured so as to run through Belinda's Toy Model code... Done... Got Belinda's code running in NetBeans... Time to give Eclipse a run...

Great! Chris Higgins got back with a draft proposal on OGC Grid Collision. Need to read this in detail and organise with Terry et al at NCeSS to provide second draft version to Chris by COB on 2006-04-13.

Some of this looks interesting and relevant. I see some of our NCeSS colleagues are in the programme: Research Methods Festival Programme . I quite fancy a trip to Oxford 17th-21st July and have emailed Belinda, Paul and Mark... Belinda had planned to go anyway...

Developed Andy Turner's xhtml1.0-strict Home Page @ School of Geography, University of Leeds and made it my default home page...

Had a quick look at OSSIM which is being integrated with uDIG for raster support...

Trying to get postgres configured so as to run through Belinda's Toy Model code... Done... Got Belinda's code running in NetBeans... Time to give Eclipse a run... Wow, Eclipse is great! I'm converted... I wonder if I will revert to NetBeans...

Great! Chris Higgins got back hopefully a draft proposal on OGC Grid Collision should be distributed before next week. Must remember to keep everyone in the loop. Not sure about anyone other than Mark from the School of Geography at Leeds. Awaiting some response from these folk...

Could do with linking information about white rose grid talk I gave last week...

Great, Vinny came along and installed postgres. Unfortunately Belinda's code did not work work first time. Needed to get beanutils, but that was simple. Emailing Paul and Belinda to work out next step... Done... Awaiting reply... Oh, discovered I was being over optimistic. Netbeans failed to notice the change in jars and the lack of a class to extend until I modified my code... Oh well, I'm sure we can fix this soon...

Code... Getting there... Nearly seprerated communal establishment (CE) populations... Code is getting a bit messy though... Many improvements can be made... Perhaps biggest improvement is to select only CE residents from ISAR to populate CEs. This can possible be done from reltohr=-9. It best done with a newly ordered AGE0RELTOHRSAR... Great! I seem to have ironed out the bugs and have the population creation program running in a way. There are several ways forward from this point... Next I am to re-integrate the other optimisations... I think this is done... Having to revert to use ToyModel version 0.1 though :(...

10:30-10:45 Impromptue meeting with Martin about population modelling... He will check his email about the meeting next week.

Found another excellent Java resource: http://java-source.net/ Maybe I should write a Java web page...

Meeting Paul at 3:30... Another good meeting, we are learning a lot from each other I think... It does seem like I should move to Eclipse from NetBeans sooner rather than later... We are a little concerned that Belinda's MoSeS code platform currently relies on postgres. Why not Apache Derby I wonder... Perhaps the easiest way is for me to get IT to install postgres on my machine then dig into Belinda's java...

Meeting with Phil and any others, Martin etc that want to learn about the population modelling and how the information about the process is disseminated... Scheduled for 10:30Am Wednesday 12th. (No network in East Building then!) I'll email belinda and let her know its happening... Done!

Code...

Registered for Spatially Embedded Complex Systems Engineering (SECSE) Twiki account... Plan to set up collaboration to look at Geographically Weighted Statistics and the network formation of relationships from the UK Human Population modelling from 2001 to 2031 as part of MoSeS.

Replied to Mark's workflow email attaching a GEON architecture description I scraped from the GEON portal (it was presented at AllHands2005). An important function of GEON seems to be to act as a data repository. I wonder: 1) How does Kepler compare to jBPM ? Kepler and GEON Documentation seems fairly poor and I found little mention of standards which is worrying. Despite this, the GEON portal may offer something we can build on, or an architecture we can use. In NCeSS there is at least one expert on workflow (Edoardo Pignotti) There are also portal experts (Tobias Shiebeck, Rob Allan, Rob Crouchley et al.). I think we should try to use this expertise. To try to pull on this we should conduct our conversation on the NCeSS forum? There might be added benefits of this, openning the discussion up even wider.

Code...

Belinda made a good MoSeS toy Model code release on BSCW. I need to get postres and hibernate installed on my Pc to use it... having trouble with this... Paul offered to help me out if I've not figured this out before tomorrow...

Excellent meeting with Paul about MoSeS. Great that he can now focus more energy on the project! We covered so much ground in the meeting it is too much to blog now especially since I need to get on with coding...

Chris Higgins communicated again about JISC OGC collision. All fairly confidential really, so not going to throw notes up here yet. Chris will hopefully email Rob Proctor, Mark Birkin and myself later today.

Great, Cecilia got back to me. Hopefully her colleague will get back to me once she returns from holiday. Raj Bhopal has done some interesting work linking census and health data (using name and address data)? Does this report that detial it?

Dived deep into XML again... There is so much to learn and so much application needed... Perhaps work through some examples then go home...

Chatted with Rob Lewis from the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Cecilia MacIntyre Head of Demography, General Register Office for Scotland about NCeSS and MoSeS over lunch. Both are on the UPTAP Advisory Committee. Rob is very keen for links to be made with regard dissemination beyond the academic community. Cecilia talked metadata and fortunetly we both managed not to get indigestion or too worked up. The quality of metdata in Social Science data and government is improving. However UK population census metadata is in the pre XML pre DCMI dark ages. Interestingly Cecilia knows of a project that used name and address information to link ethnicity from the census with a health database. Fantastic! I want to know more. Justin Keen and the other MoSeS big wigs will be suprised, they did not think such a thing could be done. I will email Cecilia now, I should caveate that the standard of this page is 1999, not 2006...;) Wow, sending Cecilia an email was tricky... Now I understand why she was worried about spam, they have clearly been having problems. Let's hope the webmaster comes up trumps...

UPTAP is running late... But running well. Oli's presentation was fantastic. Virtual and not interactive, but will hopefully initiate a lot of collaboration. For MoSeS we are particualrly keen to set up collaboration with Oliver to develop a model of the UK population from 2001 to 2031. This is a brief entry to stimulate this. I will email Oli in due course... After the presentation some guy looking at the southern part of the NE region was interested in the relationships with housing build and demand. He reckoned that there was evidence showing that the southern part of the NE region was relatively self-contained with regard commuting and migration. I made a point that to the audience that the MoSeS Node of NCeSS was developing a UK human population model for 2001 to 2031 to showcase eScience tools for modelling and simulation. I made the point that the remit of e-Social Science is much broader than simply looking at this. I hope to organise further collaboration will Oli. To kick this off, I will email and link to this entry. Roona Simpson made a point that Living apart together is not captured in any of the data Oli was planning to use. Some other guy reckoned the work of John Haskey was relevant in this. I think Oli is moving in the right direction to help us understand more of the complexities of things like extra household family relationships by looking within the household at individuals relationships.

Release MoSeS code... Done. I'll email Paul and Belinda... Done... On to Oli's talk now then...

Went over to say pass on my farewells to Luke who is off to work in a library down south. Popped into reception to check post and had a conversation with Jan about modelling and carbon neutrality and information management. Jan is our receptionist that is using software to track the whereabouts of School of Geography staff. She knows about my blog now. Am I expecting too much of my colleagues to map their whereabouts, information and energy flows? Probably... Ho hum, back to code release :)

Release of MoSeS code interupted by desire to go to Oliver Duke-Williams' talk at UPTAP...

I am chomping at the bit... Really want to get using the new webserver Mike is setting up for developing our MoSeS portal. First things first, I need to cut a new release of MoSeS code for Paul. After that I should get back to the nightmare that is modelling the UK human population from 2001 to 2031 based initially on UK Population Census data... First I will deal with communal establishments populations and data creation using the Individual SAR. Next I will write the loaders for the Household SAR... We need to start handling the look up files for Super Output Areas too... Ugh!

Kevin Porteous from Leeds University Catering and Conference Service knocked on my door looking for David Appleyard and the Graphics Unit. He is wanting a map so for a Piano competition held at leeds. We talked briefly about Google Earth and Google Maps. Google Map View of LS2 9JT I'll email Kevin who doesn't have a Web Home Page (poor Kevin). His email box is full! Ah well... Hopefully he will get what he wants from the graphics unit and David will move us into 2006 with a bang and start mapping using google or something similar...

I want to go to this: FOSS4G2006 12-15th September in Switzerland. My plan is to present on the Grids software I have developed and to see how to open its development in the future and integrate it with other products. I have submitted an abstract and developed a page about my involvement in FOSS4G2006 . Abstract submitted . Status of the abstract

BBC Health News
Securing Good Care for Older People: Taking a long-term view (Derek Wanless report) Justin Keen has his head in it. Thanks for the link Justin. Thanks Sarah Smith for the pointer.

UPTAP Conference at the School of Geography. So very relevant to MoSeS... Lot's of collaboration to be had... Network network... Unfortunately no information found online at present about the event!

UPTAP Adding to the carbon neutrality debate...

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) Home Page The future seems to be XHTML2.0. Are there any browsers that handle it?

NCeSS Sustainability Working Party Need to refer back to this. Has Terry put any documentation on the Intranet yet? If so it is not where I was expecting it...

Want a new version of this Blog that sends RSS feeds. Need an associated RDF document. Want to start aggregating feeds... this could be tricky to do well... Let's start with one thing aggregating into one place... Hmmm... Still need to shutdown this pc...

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) Home Page The future seems to be XHTML2.0. Are there any browsers that handle it?

XForms 1.0 (Second Edition) Recommendation now out. Had a look at the examples...

RSS Viewer Does it help? Need some way of aggregating and pushing data into files...
XML News Feeds in RSS 2.0 Format

Nice artical on the difference between Spacial and Spatial. 3D lets have it!!! One of those things I read a while back, but thought I'd link it in now as I have to restart my PC.

Geongrid Looks like it's taking off. Mark Birkin pointed me to this for MoSeS reckoning it will be useful. I am awaiting authorization to be a portal user...

Nice artical on the difference between Spacial and Spatial. 3D lets have it!!!

Let's look at the last NCeSS Service Deliver Board Minutes... Seems there not available yet, but the preparatory material gives me a good idea as to what it was all about.

foaf I've registered so to speek. Here is the RDF . Thanks Pete Edwards for pointing me to this and for being my friend.

Blimey, how time flies! It's not that I've been doing nothing (I've not being doing nothing), I've just been sufferring from a lack of organisation since returning from a weeks hoilday to Ireland. Ireland was a fantastic break I was ready for it so I though, but my return to work was chaotic and I did not know what to do first. This was as much a systems failure than anything else. More and more I find that while I do not implement Dublin Core Metadata Institute recommendations the more work I have. Eeek it could all grind to a halt!

So, I'm still trying to use this blog to drive my information management... Let me track back... What have I done since my last entry:

• 2006-03-28

  Introduction to e-Infrastructure: Enabling the research of the future

  The workshop was good.

  Mike Mineter went through a lot of important introductory stuff most of which I had seen before. I'm sure it was a great help for others there that were just getting into e-Science.

  I learned some useful background on Shibboleth. Our admin guys at Leeds University seem quite advanced on the implementation of it. It should enable much greater collaboration within academia especially for courses. Penn State and Leeds have set up a federation for developing joint degree programmes. They have a token guinea pig student taking a module. It was said that Swiss and some Scandinavian universities are well advanced in this area.

  The DAME guys have been successful in getting yet more funds, so they can keep going for time. This has to be a good thing :)

  There were various hints that e-Science money is running out and that traditional e-Scientists are looking for application areas outside the harder sciences. I think this is a good thing...

  Sorry I felt a little uncomfortable giving my presentation. It was partly the place being a little tight - not much room to wave arms and move around the screen. I was nervous, there were a number of important people there and I didn't manage to relax during my presentation and get into the swing of things. I don't think I presented well, but the practice should help me do better next time...

  It was hard to describe all of NCeSS, outline the future of e-Infrastructure for e-Social Science and go into any detail of Modelling and Simulation in 20 minutes. I refered to the notes that accompany the slides in the powerpoint presentation I prepared. I wanted the audience to be checking out the URLs and feeding back...

  I got on dodgy ground at one stage while I was covering a grey area regarding data (there are many of them). I don't recall my exact words, but I bolted upright in bed last night... I said something along the lines of: "sometimes it is best not to relax and not worry too much about usage/license agreements". I was trying to make several points, but this was a bit of a foot in mouth thing to say and I got a bit befuddled. I didn't mean it, it just came out wrong. It was not an attempt at a joke or anything, I was thinking out loud. No excuse... shoot me at dawn!

  Social science metadata for discovery is usually not available, most of the data is old and non-standard and for the most part non-XML. Making data securely available on the NGS requires something like shibboleth and encryption/decryption. For much social science data you are not to disclose some patterns you identify. The data and usage aggreements are complex, so it is often that the data providers want to see your outputs before allowing publication. This is an issue when there are a number of data providers involved. I'm not planning on worrying about what I said too much. I haven't done anything really bad I hope, but I feel like what I said could be interpreted that I was encouraging something I shouldn't... Can I offer a similar defence to Robert:

  "I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant..." Robert McCloskey, US State Department Spokesman. On the back cover of Eats Shites and Leaves: Crap English and how to use it A. Parody ISBN 1-84317-098-1

  I'm not going to loose any more sleep on it hopefully. I'll try to back up by putting more explanation on-line if you want...

  Thanks to everyone involved. I look forward to our on-going collaboration.

• 2006-03-13 - on-going

  Geomorphometrics in 2006

• NCeSS Node meeting
• WUN GIS seminar

I realise my blog has been way to formal (boring and not really conversational). Also it has not been nearly colourful enough or contained nearly enough interesting material.

I've just checked out Jody Garnett's Blog . He is a bit of a hero that develops cool stuff and keeps us informed about all sorts of goings on in open geospatial stuff. So, Jody pointed us to this OGC Web Services Demo . I'd like to iterate that if you have 15 minutes spare this is well worth consuming.

I think I'm going to drop standard English as it's too long winded...

Time to figure out RSS. Should probably use software once figured out how works. How to test if works...

NCeSS Node Jamboree

• My notes

NCeSS Training School

• Program and Tutorial Information
• My notes

Post Graduate Study Assistants Meeting With Victoria Robinson and Diane Collett

Meeting with Sarah Gawthorpe

WUN GIS Seminar

Derek Karssenberg presented on "Spatio-temporal modeling in GIS".

• http://siti.feem.it/mulino/dissem/intcon/karssen.pdf
• http://pcraster.geo.uu.nl/
• http://www.eoeo.org.uk/wun/threeD_cycles.html
• http://www.eoeo.org.uk/wun/mldd.html
• Tony Hartshorn
  http://crops.confex.com/crops/2005am/techprogram/P8887.HTM
  http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/

ASAP Research Cluster Meeting

Nanlin Jin RELU Interview

Had a look at Unidata NetCDF Java Library Home Page . - Well worth looking at integrating with Grids for GeoTools

Wrote a definition of e-Social Science : Social Science using Grid Computing . A subset of e-Science . - e-Social Science is also what I am trying to do albeit from a computational geography angle.

Browsed around the following Wikipedia pages: Social Science , Portal .

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