Miguel PdL

I really enjoyed this visualisation of a topic map of science, especially the apparent links between Computer Science and Social Science – so much so I ordered a print, and framed it.

So what is this … well it’s a map that shows the 800k papers that were most highly co-cited by papers published in 2003. In the paradigm map the clusters are the reference points in science upon which current science is being built.
I’ve read from the authors that “Maths” is not as prominent as might be expected because the culture in math is different than the culture in other sciences in that math papers have far fewer references, thus lower co-citation rates and is also spread throughout the CS and engineering regions, especially where algorithms are used to solve engineering problems.
While I understand and quickly see that the map is hard to read, there are too many overlaps & text paths that bump over each other and that certain paths are too choppy, this has to be taken as an “art/science” illustrations, a tool that evokes interest in the area more so than helping to explain the phenomena that are supposed to be the science subjects.
A large version of the map can be seen on this link
Related to this topic but not related with the orginal authors is this piece on the 6 Degrees of Computer Science. The connections to Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering and Math / Physics, I think are well thought out.

MORE is a European research project, which has been running since June 2006 but has only most recently moved closer to my resarch interests. With it focusing on the development of a Network-centric Middleware
for Group communication and resource sharing across heterogeneous embedded systems, the IST MORE project is:
* Implementing new technology to facilitate communication and distributed intelligence across groups of users using different wireless standards.
* Addressing the problem of how the interaction between humans and embedded systems can be efficiently supported by developing a system that can be tailored to the specific needs of diverse organisations.
* Designing a middleware platform that hides the complexity of the underlying heterogeneity of embedded systems through providing simplified APIs and management mechanisms for the future operators of these systems.
* Validating the MORE middleware with future operators will demonstrate the ease with which target organisations can put a usable and reliable system of networked embedded devices into operation using MORE middleware. Two use case scenarios are being implemented: Mitigation management (forestry and environment) and Medical environment (Diabetes).
For the Mitigation Management of environmental damage – e.g. critical value transgression for forest system stability (storm, biological stability), water quality, soil functionality – information must be transferred from automatic monitoring facilities (e.g. EU Level-I/II plots) to a heterogeneous group of (a) affected land owners and (b) persons in charge at different administration, research, and management organisations.
For the Chronic Care scenario which will allow diabetes patients, medical experts, patients relatives and family doctor to be grouped together and react to emergency situations in both static and mobile environments. With the help of the system patients can regularly check their status, analyse the monitored data, be informed on the actions they have to implement, get answers for their questions, and get external help if needed.
As you may tell the lines above are all forward looking “will” statements, there will be MORE concrete comments to follow once I get a chance to further participate in the project.
IST MORE is a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) supported by the European Union as part of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Program.