The document proposes a model called "Science Bots" that uses autonomous software agents to integrate data and software for scientific computing and publishing in a decentralized and real-time manner. Science Bots could autonomously publish results under their own name while maintaining rich provenance information and being subject to quality control through reputation metrics and network analysis. They could perform a variety of functions like mining publications, integrating sensor data, and drawing inferences. The model may facilitate more open, reliable, and permanent scientific publishing and dissemination through the use of technologies like nanopublications with cryptographic identifiers.

1. S C I E N C E B O T S
A Model for the Future of Scientific
Computation?
Tobias Kuhn
http://www.tkuhn.ch
@txkuhn
ETH Zurich
SAVE-SD Workshop — Semantics, Analytics, Visualisation:
Enhancing Scholarly Data
Co-located with WWW 2015
Florence
19 May 2015

2. S C I E N C E B O T S
Changed landscape of scientific publishing:
• Datasets become increasingly important
• Data is increasingly produced and consumed by software
Could we use “Science Bots” to integrate data and software in a
system that is open, decentralized, and real-time manner?
• Software agents that autonomously publish results in their own
name
• All results can be traced back via rich provenance information
• Quality control via reputation mechanisms and network metrics
Tobias Kuhn, ETH Zurich Science Bots: A Model for the Future of Scientific Computation? 2 / 8

3. Nanopublications:
Provenance-Aware Semantic Publishing
Nanopublications are small pieces of scientific data with their
provenance information, represented in a machine-interpretable
language (RDF).
assertion
provenance
publication info
nanopublication
http://nanopub.org / @nanopub org
Tobias Kuhn, ETH Zurich Science Bots: A Model for the Future of Scientific Computation? 3 / 8

4. Science Bots:
a General Concept for Scientific Computation
Science bots could cover a wide variety of applications, for example:
nanopub
-lications
PubMed
abstracts
nanopub
-lications
sensor
data
nanopub
-lications
nanopub
-lications
text mining bot
inference bot
sensor bot
Tobias Kuhn, ETH Zurich Science Bots: A Model for the Future of Scientific Computation? 4 / 8

5. Quality Control with
Reputation Mechanisms and Network Metrics
Robust automatic calculation of reputation metrics in a decentralized
and open system:
gives positive
assessment for
is contributed by
Eigenvector
centrality (0-100)
77
Eigenvector
centrality with
bidirectional
contribution edges
77
100
71 1
0
85
4
0.0
0 0
50
50 0
0.4 0.4
0
98
78
31
100
69
1
31 31
71
71 28
42 1
0.7
1
Tobias Kuhn, ETH Zurich Science Bots: A Model for the Future of Scientific Computation? 5 / 8

6. Identifiers with Cryptographic Hash Values
Nanopublications with Trusty URIs are ...
Verifiable
+
Immutable
+
Permanent
.trighttp://example.org/r1. RA 5AbXdpz5DcaYXCh9l3eI9ruBosiL5XDU3rxBbBaUO70
http://trustyuri.net/
Kuhn, Dumontier. Making Digital Artifacts on the Web Verifiable and Reliable. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and
Data Engineering. To appear. / Kuhn, Dumontier. Trusty URIs: Verifiable, Immutable, and Permanent Digital Artifacts
for Linked Data. ESWC 2014.
Tobias Kuhn, ETH Zurich Science Bots: A Model for the Future of Scientific Computation? 6 / 8

7. Decentralized and Reliable Publishing with a
Nanopublication Server Network
Nanopublications
with Trusty URIs
Publication
Retrieval
Propagation /
Archiving
http://npmonitor.inn.ac
Kuhn et al. Publishing without Publishers: a Decentralized Approach to Dissemination, Retrieval, and Archiving of
Data. arXiv:1411.2749.
Tobias Kuhn, ETH Zurich Science Bots: A Model for the Future of Scientific Computation? 7 / 8

8. Thank you for your attention!
Questions? Comments?
Happy to discuss during the coffee break :)
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