April 2015 - tdwg - lists.tdwg.org

In Memoriam Dr Richard Pankhurst
by Mergen Patricia 14 Dec '15

14 Dec '15

Dear Colleagues, On behalf of TDWG we are very sorry to inform you that Richard John Pankhurst passed away on Tuesday 26 March after fighting oesophageal cancer for many years. He was a very important contributer and friend of TDWG, as can be judged from his short CV from the BioCISE directory: Dr Richard Pankhurst began his career in computing in the computer section at CERN, Geneva in 1963, and moving back to Cambridge to work on Computer-Aided Design in 1966. In 1971 he moved to the Botany School, Cambridge to begin work on his PANKEY programs for identification and key construction. This was continued at the Botany department of the Natural History Museum from 1974 until 1991, where he was for many years curator of the British herbarium, and also worked on the Flora Meso-Americana. "Biological Identification", 1978, was the first textbook on computer methods in identification. A new version of this book was published by C.U.P in 1991. Also published in that year was the Flora of the Outer Hebrides. With over 50 publications of refereed papers and books in the fields of taxonomic computing he has made major contributions to these fields. Dr. Pankhurst has been very active recently in programming and managing botanical databases (Flora Europaea, BSBI database and PANDORA) and systems with images. He was appointed Principal Scientific Officer at the RGB Edinburgh in 1991. Dr. Pankhurst served on various committees of British and international organizations, among others. Botanical Society of the British Isles, Committee for Scotland and Database Committee. Botanical Society of Scotland, Council. Taxonomic Databases Working Group, convener of Descriptors Group. International Organisation for Plant Information, co-convener of Information Systems Committee, Checklist Committee. Dr. Pankhurst was the head of the Department of Taxonomic Computing at RGBE. After his official retirement, he compiled a large database of the Rose family. His work on recording the wild flowers of the Outer Hebrides took him frequently to these remote islands on behalf of the Botanical Society of the British Isles. His interest in Taraxacum (dandelions) was acknowledged when a species found only on St. Kilda was named *Taraxacum pankhurstianum*. In Richard, not only a very important scientist was lost to our community, but also a very pleasant collaborator and friend . <patricia.mergen(a)africamuseum.be> Dr. Patricia Mergen (General Secretary of TDWG, on behalf of the Executive Committee) Head of Biodiversity Information and Cybertaxonomy Royal Museum for Central Africa Leuvensesteenweg 13 B-3080 Tervuren Belgium + 32 2 769 5 *626* patricia.mergen(a)africamuseum.be

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DCMI/ASIS&T Webinar: "From 0 to 60 on SPARQL queries in 50 minutes"
by DCMI Announce 16 Apr '15

16 Apr '15

******************Please excuse the cross postings****************** *DCMI/ASIST Joint Webinar: * *From 0 to 60 on SPARQL queries in 50 minutes* ==================================================================== *:: Presenter:* Ethan Gruber *:: Date:* Wednesday, 13 May 2015 *:: Time:* 10:00am-11:15am EDT (UTC 14:00 - World Clock: http://bit.ly/Webinar-Ethan_Gruber) *:: Free Registration:* http://dublincore.org/resources/training/#2015gruber ==================================================================== *ABOUT THE WEBINAR:* This webinar provides an introduction to SPARQL, a query language for RDF. Users will gain hands on experience crafting queries, starting simply, but evolving in complexity. These queries will focus on coinage data in the SPARQL endpoint hosted by http://nomisma.org: numismatic concepts defined in a SKOS-based thesaurus and physical specimens from three major museum collections (American Numismatic Society <http://www.numismatics.org/>, British Museum <http://www.britishmuseum.org/>, and Münzkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin <http://www.smb.museum/en/museums-and-institutions/muenzkabinett/home.html>) linked to these concepts. Results generated from these queries in the form of CSV may be imported directly into Google Fusion Tables for immediate visualization in the form of charts and maps. *Redux:* This webinar was first presented as a training session in the LODLAM Training Day at SemTech2014. *SPEAKER:* *Ethan Gruber* is the Web and Database Developer for the American Numismatic Society (ANS). With almost ten years of experience in digital humanities and cultural heritage Web development projects, Ethan is responsible for developing a new public interface for the society's collections of objects and archives. He is the chief architect of Numishare <http://numishare.blogspot.com/>, an open-source framework for delivering coin collections online and various ANS projects which implement this software: Online Coins of the Roman Empire and Coin Hoards of the Roman Republic. For more information and to register FREE, visit the event webpage: http://dublincore.org/resources/training/#2015gruber

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GBIF job opportunities
by Tim Robertson 08 Apr '15

08 Apr '15

Hi all The GBIF Secretariat currently has three job openings within the informatics team based in Copenhagen. http://www.gbif.org/jobs The positions we are seeking to fill include a technical liaison, a software developer (data team) and a web developer. In particular the technical liaison role might be of interest to many subscribers on this list. The deadline for the technical liaison position is Monday, 4 May 2015; the deadline for the developer positions, Monday, 27 April 2015 Please help us in our recruitment by sharing these positions through your own networks and channels of communication. Many thanks, Tim

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DCMI Webinar: Andreas Rauber on making dynamic data citable--recommendations of the RDA Working Group
by DCMI Announce 05 Apr '15

05 Apr '15

*** Apologies for cross-posting *** *DCMI/ASIS&T Joint Webinar:* *Approaches to Making Dynamic Data Citable: Recommendations of the RDA Working Group* ================== *DAY:* 8 April 2015 *TIME:* 10:00am-11:15am EDT (UTC 14:00 - World Clock: http://bit.ly/Webinar-Andreas_Rauber) *REGISTRATION:* http://dublincore.org/resources/training/#2015rauber ================== *Webinar Abstract: * Being able to reliably and efficiently identify entire or subsets of data in large and dynamically growing or changing datasets constitutes a significant challenge for a range of research domains. In order to repeat an earlier study, to apply data from an earlier study to a new model, we need to be able to precisely identify the very subset of data used. While verbal descriptions of how the subset was created (e.g. by providing selected attribute ranges and time intervals) are hardly precise enough and do not support automated handling, keeping redundant copies of the data in question does not scale up to the big data settings encountered in many disciplines today. Furthermore, we need to be able to handle situations where new data gets added or existing data gets corrected or otherwise modified over time. Conventional approaches, such as assigning persistent identifiers to entire data sets or individual subsets or data items, are thus not sufficient. In this webinar, Andreas Rauber will review the challenges identified above and discuss solutions that are currently elaborated within the context of the working group of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) on Data Citation: Making Dynamic Data Citeable. The approach is based on versioned and time-stamped data sources, with persistent identifiers being assigned to the time-stamped queries/expressions that are used for creating the subset of data. We will further review results from the first pilots evaluating the approach. *Presenter:* *Andreas Rauber* is Associate Professor at the Department of Software Technology and Interactive Systems (IFS) at the Vienna University of Technology (TU-Wien). He furthermore is president of AARIT, the Austrian Association for Research in IT and a Key Researcher at Secure Business Austria (SBA-Research). He is co-chairing the RDA Working Group on Data Citation together with Ari Asmi and Dieter van Uytvanck. He received his MSc and PhD in Computer Science from the Vienna University of Technology in 1997 and 2000, respectively. In 2001 he joined the National Research Council of Italy ([http://www.cnr.it/sitocnr/home.html CNR]) in Pisa as an ERCIM Research Fellow, followed by an ERCIM Research position at the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA), at Rocquencourt, France, in 2002. From 2004-2008 he was also head of the iSpaces] research group at the eCommerce Competence Center (ec3).

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Deadline: 11 April - Call for Participation, DC-2015 in São Paulo, Brazil
by DCMI Announce 04 Apr '15

04 Apr '15

*Apologies for cross-posting* *DCMI 20th Anniversary International Conference & Annual Meeting* *September 1-4, 2015 — São Paulo, Brazil* *"Metadata and Ubiquitous Access to Culture, Science and Digital Humanities"* *Technical Program Deadlines: * *Peer-Reviewed Papers, Project Reports & Posters* --EXTENDED Submission Deadline: 11 April 2015 --Author Notification: 23 June 2015 --Final Copy: 28 July 2015 *Professional Program Deadlines* *Special & Panel Sessions* --EXTENDED Proposal Deadline: 11 April 2015 --Author Notification: 25 April 2015 *Best Practice Posters & Demonstrations* --Submission Deadline: 14 July 2015 --Author Notification: Ongoing ================= *Conference Website:* http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2015 *Call for Participation:* http://purl.org/dcevents/dc-2015/cfp *Track Policies:* http://dcevents.dublincore.org/index.php/IntConf/dc-2015/schedConf/trackPol… ================= Join us in São Paulo, Brazil Each of the past 20 years, the metadata community has gathered for DCMI's conference and annual meeting. The work agenda of the DCMI community is broad and inclusive of all aspects of innovation in metadata design, implementation and best practices. While the work of the Initiative progresses throughout the year, the annual meeting and conference provide the opportunity for DCMI "citizens" as well as newcomers, students, apprentices, and early career professionals to gather face-to-face to share experiences and knowledge. In addition, the gathering provides public- and private-sector initiatives beyond DCMI that are doing significant metadata work to come together to compare notes and cast a broader light into their particular metadata work silos. Through such a gathering of the metadata communities, DCMI advances its "first goal" of promoting metadata interoperability and harmonization. This year, the annual meeting and conference are being hosted by the Universidade Estadual Paulista--São Paulo State University (UNESP) and held in São Paulo, Brazil. ================= *CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS:* --Universidade Estadual Paulista <http://www.unesp.br/portal#!/eng>--São Paulo State University (UNESP) --Dublin Core Metadata Initiative <http://dublincore.org/> (DCMI) ================= *CONFERENCE CHAIRS:* --Silvana Borsetti Gregorio Vidotti, Professor Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Plácida Santos, Professor & Conference Chair Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Flávia Maria Bastos, CGB Coordinator General Coordination of Libraries Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil --Mariana Curado Malta, Chair, Program Committee CEISE/ISCAP - Polytechnic of Oporto, Portugal Algoritmi Center - University of Minho, Portugal

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