Daily Archives: April 6, 2009

Wikipedia has won – how can we convince you?

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

The UK’s Sunday Observer newspaper yesterday had an article (Face facts: where Britannica ruled, Wikipedia has conquered) where John Naughton writes: Unwillingness to entertain the notion that Wikipedia might fly is a symptom of what the legal scholar James Boyle … Continue reading →

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ChemAxiom – an ontology for chemistry

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

As I said earlier, Nico Adams would be blogging about his (impressive) chemical ontology ChemAxiom. All ontologies are hard. It is difficult to reach a consensus in any domain, and no single person’s or organization’s ontology is likely to carry … Continue reading →

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Talis platform – triple strength

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

Talis have been one of the great supporters of Open Data and also have an impressive triple store. They’ve helped us – especially Andrew Walkingshaw – to load largish sets of triples into a queriable base. They’ve also done fantastic … Continue reading →

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Software patents again… Oh dear

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and the hydras have many heads. Just when you think PRISM is decapitated up pops Conyers and now the good old European Patents directive is still alive. Please kill it… The great thing … Continue reading →

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CML – semantics for pi-bonds

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

Rich Apodaca has asked how CML represents ferrocene. As there is no communal agreement on how to do this, CML has to support all possible current mainstream representations (the resolution of these is not a semantic, but ontological task). The … Continue reading →

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CML – semantic representation of molecular structure

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

I have been asked by Rich Apodaca to show how the various styles of representing ferrocene are possible within CML. Let me stress that these are different connection tables which the community variously uses to represent a single compound. There … Continue reading →

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Why we need chemistry ontologies

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

Mat Todd is an example of the new generation of organic chemists who is concerned about the broader picture of information. Here’s a recent comment, which I address: Mat Todd says: April 5, 2009 at 11:09 pm (Edit) Peter, I … Continue reading →

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Chem4Word – why semantics are necessary

Posted on April 6, 2009 by pm286

I was asked to explain how Chem4Word and CML could encode ferrocene. I’ll start by using Wikipedia to give a clear and accurate picture. Sorry for the cut-and-paste mess. WP: Ferrocene is the organometallic compound with the formula Fe(C5H5)2. It … Continue reading →

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