A paper by Clare Hooper, Brian Bailey, Hugh Glaser and James Hendler on social machines (systems where people and technology interact). The authors suggest a framework for thinking about social machines and discuss factors that might be considered when constructing them.
A chapter on the World Wide Web by Paul Smart and Nigel Shadbolt in the Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology, reviewing existing epistemological (of the study of knowledge) analyses of the Web and suggesting improvements in the application of epistemology to the study of the Web.
Seme4’s collaboration between central government, local councils, universities, contractors, suppliers, industry bodies, training providers and Ethos (a network of social entrepreneurs who find innovative and sustainable solutions to complex problems), SkillsPlanner, has been formally launched.
Stage 1 of the project will last 2 years and will focus on the skills gap in the construction industry in London and South-East England and includes large-scale projects such as HS2, the Thames Tideway Tunnel and Crossrail.
Seme4 is providing the software infrastructure for the project, which will allow current and future employment needs to be shared widely. This will enable better planning and delivery of training and skills provision and reduce costs for both government and industry.
£827k of the £1.3m was secured by successfully bidding for funding from Innovate UK‘s Collaborative Research and Development Programme, which provides investment for innovative and collaborative research and development projects that increase the resilience, quality of life or economic performance of urban areas.
Slides from the presentation given by Seme4 founding partner and founder of the Open Data Institute Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt at the launch event can be found here.
A video of SkillsPlanner partners and customers discussing the project can be found here.
Professor Dame Wendy Hall has been made a Distinguished Fellow by the British Computer Society, the British Chartered Institute for Information Technology.
She was recognised for her work in science and engineering policy and education, being one of the first computer scientists to carry out research in multimedia and hypermedia and her role in championing women in Information Technology.
Other notable Distinguished Fellows include Bill Gates, Sir Tim Berners Lee, Martha Lane-Fox and Vint Cerf.
The Debrett top 500 is a list of the most influential people in the UK who “inspire, influence and instigate change beyond expectation.”
Professor Dame Wendy Hall was named in the Engineering and Technology category. The list is compiled by independent experts in each category.
More details can be found by clicking on the following link:
A paper by Paul Smart, Tom Scutt, Katia Sycara and Nigel Shadbolt on using a system for modelling human cognitive processes (ACT-R) to control a virtual character in the video game Unity.
A paper by Ian Brown, Lisa Harris and Wendy Hall, describing the extension of a model to describe Social Machines. The new model includes external and non-linear factors and grouping and sequencing of processes.
A paper by Ramine Tinati, Xin Wang, Thanassis Tiropanis and Wendy Hall, presenting the Web Observatory: a platform for gathering, querying and analysing heterogeneous real-time and historic data. The Web Observatory’s potential uses and the possible challenges are also discussed.
A paper by Markus Luczak-Roesch, Ramine Tinati, Kieron O’Hara and Nigel Shadbolt on collaborative problem solving activities on the Web. The authors ask whether the Web can be conceived of as one giant machine. A thesis of information sharing activities is proposed, with the aim of developing a generic model of the computational capability of the Web.
New Seme4 Sales and Marketing Director Robert Pye’s blog on reframing how society thinks about linked data.