It was presented at IASLOD2012(International Asian Summer School on Linked Data ) http://semanticweb.kaist.ac.kr/2012lodsummer/

1. IASLOD 2012 -International Asian Summer
School on Linked Data
13-17 Aug. 2012, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea
Current Trends of Japanese
LOD
-through LOD Challenge Japan
Kouji Kozaki
The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research (I.S.I.R),
Osaka University, Japan
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 1

2. Agenda
 Main topic
 Linked Open Data Challenge 2011 Japan
 Current Trends of Activities on Linked Open Data
 Outline
 Research Activities on Semantic Web Technology in Japan
 A Summary of LOD Challenge 2011 Japan
 Motivation
 Awards Winners
 Discussions – Trends of submitted works
(The latest news on LOD in Japan)
 Demo
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 2

3. Semantic Web Technology in
Japan
 Semantic Web Committee 2001-
 It aims to survey trends on Semantic Web Technologies and promote
broad uses of them.
 It organizes annual (Japanese) Semantic Web Conferences which
show the latest trends of SW technologies every year.
 In 2011 and 2012, the theme of the conference focused on LOD.
 Its members are mainly industrial people.
 Special Interested Group on Semantic Web and
Ontology (SIG-SWO) in JSAI (the Japanese Society for
Artificial Intelligence) 2002-
 It organizes domestic workshops 2 or 3 a year. (Total:27)
 The state of recent workshops:
 Presentations: 7-10
 Participants: 30-60 (Academic : Industrial = 7 : 3 )
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 3

4. International Workshop on Semantic Web Foundations and
Application Technologies (SWFAT), 12th March 2003, Nara, Japan
- The first international workshop on SW in Japan.
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 4

5. ISWC 2004, 7-11Nov. 2004,
Hioshima, Japan
- The first international
conference on SW in Japan.
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 5

6. JIST 2012, 2-4 Dec. 2012, Nara, Japan
- Submission due : 24 Aug. 2012.
- It has a Special Track on Linked Data
http://www.ei.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp/jist2012/
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 6

7. Venues of International
Semantic Web Conferences
ISWC ESWC ASWC
SWWS＠California, USA
ISWC2002＠Sardinia, Italy
ISWC2003＠Sanibel Island,FL,USA Symposium@Osaka, WS@Nara
ISWC2004＠Hiroshima, Japan ESWS＠Heraklion, Greece
ISWC2005＠Galway, Ireland ESWC2005＠Heraklion, Greece
ISWC2006＠Athens, GA, USA ESWC2006＠Budva,Montenegro ASWC2006@Beijing,China
ISWC2007&ASWC2007＠Busan,Korea ESWC2007＠Innsbruck, Austria
ISWC2008＠Karlsruhe, Germany ESWC2008＠Tenerife, Spain ASWC2008@Bangkok, Thailand
ISWC2009＠Washington D.C.Area,USA ESWC2009＠Heraklion, Greece ASWC2009@Shanghai, China
ISWC2010＠Shanghai, China ESWC2010＠Heraklion, Greece
ISWC2011＠Bonn.Germany ESWC2011＠Heraklion, Greece JIST2011@Hangzhou, China
ISWC2012＠Boston, USA ESWC2012＠Heraklion, Greece JIST2012@Nara, Japan
ISWC2013＠Sydney, Australia
ISWC：International Semantic Web Conference
ESWC：European/Extended Semantic Web Conference
ASWC：Asian Semantic Web Conference → JIST
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 7

8. Open = Tsunagaru
(Connected / linked)
Linked Open Data Challenge Japan
http://lod.sfc.keio.ac.jp/challenge2011/
http://lod.sfc.keio.ac.jp/challenge2012/
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 8

9. for Linked Data Challenge
Japan
 2006-
 Linked (Open) Data Activity were started and becoming very active in
Western countries.
 e.g. DBPedia was presented at ISWC2007 and WWW2007
 2009-2010
 Trend repot about Linked Data Activity in overseas as by Semantic
Web Committee (of Japan).
The committee members were aware of the need to catch

up the activity in Japan.
 2011 Mar.
 The first announcement about Linked Open Data Challenge Japan
2011 and recruitment of Executive Committee members in
(Japanese) Semantic Web Conference 2011.
 2011 June
 The first Executive Committee Meeting.
 2011 Oct.
 The submission site was opened!
 2012 Mar.
 The awards ceremony for Linked Open Data Challenge Japan 2011.
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 9

10. Goal and Methods
 Goal
 To promote Linked Open Data, that is, publishing open data and
linking them across domains.
 As the multiplier effect of them, to create new valuable
technologies and services.
 Methods – Sub goals
 Organizing a contest as an opportunity in which people who work on
LOD can present their activities and results.
 Designing of schema (Rules) for the LOD Challenge.
 To provide technical information about LOD.
 Making and publishing materials about basic techniques of LOD.
 Cultivating new communities of people from a variety of different
fields to work on.
 Organizing events/seminars named LOD Challenge Day.
Linking Data, Linking People
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 10

11. Problems
 No project
 We had to recruit committee members.
 All members are volunteers.
 No Founding
 We had to find sponsors.
 No Data
 We had no published open data participant can use.
 Cf. Open Data Challenge in EU, Challenge.gov in US.
 No (explicit) community
 We were very concerned about how many
submissions we could have.
 What we have…
 High ambition that we have to do it NOW!
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 11

12. Executive Committee of
LOD Challenge Japan 2011
 The chair Distribution of members
 T. Hagino / 萩野達也 (慶応義塾大学)
 The vice-chair
 S. Nagano / 長野伸一 (（株）東芝) 9 Academic
 Director of the Executive Office
Industrial
 N. Otomori / 乙守信行 (（株）MetaMoJi)
26
 Committee Members
 飯塚京士 (日本電信電話（株）)
 生島高裕 (（株）数理先端技術研究所)  鈴木孝幸 (神奈川工科大学)
 大沼宏行 (沖電気工業（株）)  其田譲治 (（株）博報堂プロダクツ)
 荻島創一 (東京医科歯科大学)  高橋陽一(インディゴ株式会社)
 F. Kato / 加藤文彦 (国立情報学研究所)  高梨益樹 (富士通（株）)
 亀廼井千鶴子 (（株）富士通総研)  田崎裕二 (富士通（株）)
 粂照宣 (（株）富士通研究所)  年岡晃一 (中部大学)
 K. Kozaki / 古崎晃司 (大阪大学)  豊田哲郎 (（独）理化学研究所)
 小林巌生 (（有）スコレックス)  中野圭 (（株）数理先端技術研究所)
 齊藤孝広 (（株）富士通研究所)  細見格 (日本電気（株）)
 斎藤博昭 (慶応義塾大学)  本多裕美
 佐藤宏之 (NTTレゾナント（株）)  光石豊 (（株）富士通研究所)
 澤村正樹 (NTTレゾナント（株）)  森田大翼 (日本電信電話（株）)
 渋谷健 (（株）ゼンリン)  湯本正典 (東京大学)
 清水昇（株式会社サイバーエッヂ/慶應義  和田康宏
塾大学SFC研究所)
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 12

13. Sponsors/Partners/Supporters
Supporters
- Information Processing Society of Japan
- The Japanese Society for Artificial
Intelligence
- Semantic Web Committee
- The Japan Electronics and Information
Technology Industries Association
- Linked Data Study Group (Linkeddata.jp)
Data Providing Partners Media Partner
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 13

14. News on LOD in Japan
DERI and Fujitsu
http://semanticweb.com/deri-and-fujitsu-team-on-research-program_b30871
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 14

15. Data sets for LOD challenge
Data sets from Data Providing Partners
CiNii (Scholarly and Academic Information
Navigator, pronounced like "sigh-knee") is the largest database
for Japanese academic information of articles, Books &
Journals. (by NII)
http://ci.nii.ac.jp/en
KAKEN is the database of Grants-in-Aid for Scientific
Research supported by the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
(MEXT) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science (JSPS). (by NII)
http://kaken.nii.ac.jp/
Riken is the largest research institute in Japan.
They provide biological information on
BioLOD (Biological Linked Open Databases).
http://biolod.org/
We encouraged data sets submitted by others
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 15

16. Linking three tracks
Dataset track Idea track Application track
 We encouraged linking between submissions.
 Developing application using submitted datasets.
 Developing dataset and application based on submitted
idea.
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 16

17. LOD Challenge Day
 We organized 4 events (3 in Tokyo, 1 in Osaka)
 Ｈａｌｆ day events.
 Participants : 130 in the total (25-40 / event)
 Contents
 Introducing talks on LOD.
 Short tutorials about basic technologies on LOD.
 Hans-on sessions to make LOD.
 World cafe (group discussion on how to use LOD)
Tokyo
Osaka
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 17

18. Solutions
 No project
 34 volunteer members
We had to recruit committee members.
 All members are volunteers.
 No Founding 7 sponsors
 We had to find sponsors.
 No Data 3 data providing partners
 We had no published open data participant can use.
& submitted datasets.
Cf. Open Data Challenge in EU, Challenge.gov in US.

 No (explicit) community
 We were very concerned about how many
submissions we could have.
 What we have…
 High ambition that we have to do NOW!
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 18

19. Numbers of Submissions
Dataset track Idea track Application track
31 34 18
 Total 73 submissions by 84 persons/groups
 Cf. Open Data Challenge 2011 in Europe
 430 submissions from 24 countries = 20 / country
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 19

20. Awards for each tracks
 Dataset Track Awards
 The Best Prize: saveMLAK
 by F. Kato (NII)
 2nd Prize: Location Site of Japanimation
 by Hoe-Hoe (cheese-factory.net)
 Idea Track Awards
 The Best Prize: Linkable Textbook (つながる教科書)
 by K. Nagumo
 2nd Prize: Local Service LOD (地域サービスLOD)
 by Y. Yamamoto
 2nd Prize: LOD-based Politics (LODな政治)
 by N. Akechi and S.Nishi
 Application Track Awards
 The Best Prize: LinkData.jp
 by S. Simoyama, Y. Yoshida and T. Toyoda (RIKEN)
 2nd Prize: go2Museum (ミュージアムへ行こう！)
 by Y. Ueda
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 20

21. Dataset Track: The best Prize
saveMLAK
Information of rescue and support for the
Museums, Libraries, Archives and Kominkans
(MLAK) in Japan
saveMLAK is a website about the
Museums (including art
galleries, science
centers, aquariums, zoos, botanical
gardens, etc.), Libraries, Archives and
Kouminkans(community centers)
(MLAK) in Japan stricken by 2011
Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
We are gathering the information on the
damages of those facilities in the
disaster area and publishing the
requests for assistance from the victims.
（http://savemlak.jp/）
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 21

22. Location Site of
Japanimation
 Contents
 LOD about Location Site of Japanese animations,
games, light-novels ..etc.
 Titles of each works and cities form the setting of them
are represented as LOD using DBpedia.
 http://cheese-factory.net/lod.html
Visualizations of location sites
linked to Tokyo in this data set
: 2168 locations
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 22

23. Awards for each tracks
 Dataset Track Awards
 The Best Prize: saveMLAK
 by F. Kato (NII)
 2nd Prize: Location Site of Japanimation
 by Hoe-Hoe (cheese-factory.net)
 Idea Track Awards
 The Best Prize: Linkable Textbook (つながる教科書)
 by K. Nagumo
 2nd Prize: Local Service LOD (地域サービスLOD)
 by Y. Yamamoto
 2nd Prize: LOD-based Politics (LODな政治)
 by N. Akechi and S.Nishi
 Application Track Awards
 The Best Prize: LinkData.jp
 by S. Simoyama, Y. Yoshida and T. Toyoda (RIKEN)
 2nd Prize: go2Museum (ミュージアムへ行こう！)
 by Y. Ueda
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 23

24. Idea Track: The best Prize
Linkable Textbook (つながる教科書)
Basic Idea: Learn as linked information.
Textbook which provides links with all related
information based on geographical information.
Food
Plant History
News
Technology
Transportation Event
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 24

25. Awards for each tracks
 Dataset Track Awards
 The Best Prize: saveMLAK
 by F. Kato (NII)
 2nd Prize: Location Site of Japanimation
 by Hoe-Hoe (cheese-factory.net)
 Idea Track Awards
 The Best Prize: Linkable Textbook (つながる教科書)
 by K. Nagumo
 2nd Prize: Local Service LOD (地域サービスLOD)
 by Y. Yamamoto
 2nd Prize: LOD-based Politics (LODな政治)
 by N. Akechi and S.Nishi
 Application Track Awards
 The Best Prize: LinkData.jp
 by S. Simoyama, Y. Yoshida and T. Toyoda (RIKEN)
 2nd Prize: go2Museum (ミュージアムへ行こう！)
 by Y. Ueda
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 25

26. Application Track: The best Prize
LinkData.jp
A support site for publishing LOD.
The users can convert Table
format data into RDF and
publish them.
http://linkdata.org/
It is used for Hands-on sessions
in LOD Challenge Days.
- Several dataset are submitted
using this site (tool).
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 26

27. Application Track: The best Prize
go2Museum! (ミュージアムへ行こう！)
Museum Search site based on LOD.
3000+ museums are registered
through some LODs such as
DBpedia, LODAC, saveMLAK.
http://goo.gl/owcOJ
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 27

28. Sponsor/Data Providing Partner
Awards
/Special Awards
 Sponsor Awards
 goo Prize: Yokohama Art Spot by F. Matsumura
 BioLOD Prize: BRC mouse strain by H. Masuya
 Human Centric Prize (Fujitsu): Knowing how hard the going way is
(行く道のしんどさを知る) by N. Ashida et al.
 Data Providing Partner Awards
 CiNii Prize（NII): Biomasspedia by Y. Komiyama
 Special Awards
 World Cafe Prize: History-link (ヒストリンク)
 Challenge Day Prize: SOCIA (Social Opinions and Concerns for Ideal
Argumentation) / citispe@k
 Open Government Prize: Yokohama Art LOD / Yokohama Art Search
 Public LOD Prize: findwc (モバイルトイレナビ)/Park WC Information
 Mobile Prize: Blooming Camera (花咲かめら：フィールドでのLOD活用)
 Visualization Prize: DashSearch for SPARQL
 Media Innovation Prize: Historical Drama LOD (歴史ドラマLOD)
 Life Science Prize: MEO (Metagenome/Microbes Environment Ontology)
 Culture Prize: Traveling around Locales (登場地を巡る)
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 28

29. Mobile Prize Blooming Camera
(花咲かめら) By T. Kawamura and A. Ohsuga
 An Android application to query a plant from the LOD Cloud to fit an
environmental condition using sensors on smart phone, and overlay its
grown form in the space using AR [Kawamura 2011].
[Kawamura 2011] T. Kawamura and A. Ohsuga:Green-Thumb Camera: LOD
Application for Field IT, SIG-SWO-A1103-04
It will be presented in In-use track of ISWC2012 “Toward an ecosystem of LOD in
the field: LOD content generation and its consuming service, Takahiro Kawamura”
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 29

30. LOD through entries to the
Challenge
※Parts of these slides are summary of the presentation by N. Otomori at
the 27th SIG-SWO workshop (http://sigswo.org/A1201_program.html).
 The “NOW” of Japan we could see through the datasets.
 Japanese Cultures spreading through LOD.
 LOD for/by Local Governments/Residents
 Towards Japanese LOD Foundations
Distributions of entries
Cross-
Basic Media
domain
16% Publishin
１８ ２１ Technolo 10%
g, Library,
gy
13%
３４ Education
14%
Geograph Governm Life
Dataset Idea Application ic Info. ent Science
22% 12% 13%
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 30

31. we can see through the
datasets.
 Differences between LOD Challenge Japan and other LOD contests
appears in differences of the datasets.
 We can see which domains are advanced in LOD, which datasets are
required now, etc.
 It reflects the “NOW” of Japan every years.
 This is one of meaningful reason to continue the LOD Challenge!
Distributions of entries for dataset track
Local Foundation,
information, 1
3
Medicine, Lif
Politics, SNS, e science, 8
The best Prize 4
saveMLAK Subculture
(Animation), The 2nd Prize
Support Information for 5
2011 Tōhoku earthquake Location Site of
and tsunami Japanimation
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 31

32. Japanese Cultures
spreading through LOD.
 In idea track, there are many entries related to
Japanese Culture such as subculture,
education, history, sightseeing etc.
 Basic idea: fundamental information (Geographic Info.,
Person, etc.) + characteristic information of Japanese
Idea track culture Dataset track
,8 subcult
ure(ani
mation)
,5
other, other, 1
26 6
The 2nd Prize
The Best Prize Location Site of
Linkable Textbook Japanimation
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 32

33. LOD for/by
Local Governments/Residents
 Datasets, Ideas and Applications which use Local information about
such as museums, local governments etc. were submitted and got
prizes.
 Although Japanese does not provide open data in LOD, two local
city government, Sabae and Yokohama, publish their local
information as LOD and got prizes!
 We hope other local and governments and the Japanese
Government follow their LOD-Activities.
Dataset track Idea track Application track
Local Local
Info., Info., Local
4 6 Info.,
6
other,
other, other, 12
21 28
The 2nd Prize The 2nd Prize
Local Service LOD Let’s Go Museum!
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 33

34. News on LOD in Japan
Japanese Public Open Data
 2012.7. 4
 IT Strategic Headquarters in Japan published “e-government
open data strategies” .
 Basic principles
 ① The governments themselves publish public data positively.
 ② Publish data in machine readable formats.
 ③ Promote to use for no matter commercial or not
 ④ Quickly start to open data form public ones. And the results step
by step.
 2012. 7. 27
 Open Data Promotion Consortium was established.
 CKAN in Japanese was stated.
 http://data.linkedopendata.jp/
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 34

35. Towards Japanese
LOD Foundations
 Some of the submitted applications aim to provide
basic technologies independent of domains.
 Kinds of basic technologies which they provide.
 Developing LOD (3)
 Convert Table data / bibTex to RDF.
 Searching and Visualizing LOD (4)
 Finding link between resources in different LOD.
 They could be foundations for Japanese LOD.
Basic
Techno
logy, 7
other, The Best Prize
18
Linkdata.jp
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 35

36. Demo
 The Best Prize: LinkData.jp
 by S. Simoyama, Y. Yoshida and T. Toyoda (RIKEN)
 http://linkdata.org/
 Visualization Prize: DashSearch for SPARQL
 by T. Goto (NII)
 http://www.ahirulab.com/DashSearchSparql/
 (The latest version) http://gilbert.lodac.nii.ac.jp/DashSearch/001/
 Hozo:LOD Viewer
 by K. Kozaki and N. Kato (Osaka University)
 A prototype version for LOD support of Hozo-ontology exploration
tool (see. my presentation 15 Aug.).
 http://hozoviewer.ei.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp/HozoWebXML/
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 36

37. Summary
 What we did
 Total 73 submissions by 84 persons/groups.
 There are many high quality submissions.
 It was very successful!
 The participants could be a LOD community in Japan.
 We could one of our purposes.
 What we learn
 Linking people is very important for linking data.
 Future works
 Linking between submissions. (There is a few example in 2011)
 Creating LOD communities in Local (not Tokyo) areas.
 Increasing participants from other domains (including general
computer sciences) and ordinary people (non-experts).
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 37

38. Future plans
 Future plans
 Linked Open Data Challenge Japan 2012
 Committee member are working very actively!
 New track: Visualization track.
 New sponsors and data provide partners will be confirmed.
 Now, we can use datasets and ideas submitted in 2011!
 Planed events
 LOD Challenge Day in Tokyo and Nagoya.
 Open data Hackathon in Sabae.
 Joint event with JIST 2012, Nara.
 LOD Challenge Asia?
 We need your help!
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 38

39. Acknowledgements
 I am deeply grateful to Executive Committee
members of LOD Challenge Japan.
Thank you for your attentions!
Linked Open Data Challenge Japan
http://lod.sfc.keio.ac.jp/challenge2011/
http://lod.sfc.keio.ac.jp/challenge2012/
2012/08/16 IASLOD 2012 39