University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

[![](http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod08/images/stories/cardiffuni.jpg){style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;"
border="0"}](http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod08/images/stories/cardiffuni.jpg){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}  
The proceedings of the BNCOD 2008 Workshop on \"Biodiversity
Informatics: challenges in modelling and managing biodiversity
knowledge\" are
[online](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/proceedings2008.html).
This workshop was held in conjunction with the 25th British National
Conference on Databases (BNCOD 2008) at Cardiff, Wales. The papers make
interesting reading.  
  
[![](http://www.ipni.org/images/ipni_logo4_1.gif){style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 128px;"
border="0"}](http://www.ipni.org/images/ipni_logo4_1.gif){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}**Exploring
International Plant Names Index (IPNI) Data using Visualisation** by
Nicola Nicolson
\[[PDF](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/Nicolson.pdf)\]  

> This paper describes visualisation as a means to explore data from the
> [International Plant Names Index](http://www.ipni.org) (IPNI). Several
> visualisations are used to display large volumes of data and to help
> data standardisation efforts. These have potential uses in data mining
> and in the exploration of taxon concepts.

Nicky explores some visualisations of the [IPNI](http://www.ipni.org)
plant name database. Unfortunately only one of these (arguably the east
exciting one) is shown in the PDF. The visualisations of citation
history using [Timeline](http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/), and social
networks using [prefuse](%20http://prefuse.org/) are mentioned, but not
shown.  
  
**Scratchpads: getting biodiversity online, redefining publication** by
Vince Smith et al.
\[[PDF](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/SmithEtAl.pdf)\]  

> Taxonomists have been slow to adopt the web as a medium for building
> research communities. Yet, web-based communities hold great potential
> for accelerating the pace of taxonomic research. Here we describe a
> social networking application (Scratchpads) that enables communities
> of biodiversity researchers to manage and publish their data online.
> In the first year of operation 466 registered users comprising 53
> separate communities have collectively generated 110,000 pages within
> their Scratchpads. Our approach challenges the traditional model of
> scholarly communication and may serve as a model to other research
> disciplines beyond biodiversity science.

This is a short note describing [Scratchpads](http://scratchpads.eu/),
which are built using the [Drupal](http://drupal.org) content management
system (CMS). Scratchpads provide a simple way for taxonomists to get
their content online. Based in large measure on the success of
scratchpads, EOL will use Drupal as the [basis of their
\"Lifedesks\"](http://blog.eol.org/2008/07/17/code-sprint/). There are
numerous [scratchpads online](http://scratchpads.eu/siteslist), although
the amount and quality of content is, um, variable.  
  
**Managing Biodiversity Knowledge in the Encyclopedia of Life** by Jen
Schopf et al.
\[[PDF](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/SchopfEtAl.pdf)\]  

> The Encyclopedia of Life is currently working with hundreds of Content
> Providers to create 1.8 million aggregated species pages, consisting
> of tens of millions of data objects, in the next ten years. This
> article gives an overview of our current data management and Content
> Provider interactions.

This is a short note on EOL itself. I\'ve given my views on EOL\'s
progress (or, rather, lack thereof) elsewhere
([here](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2008/02/encyclopedia-of-life-first-impressions.html),
[here](http://blog.eol.org/2008/05/01/iag-review-of-big/) and
[here](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-isnt-eol-using-wikipedia.html)).
The first author on this paper has left the project, and at least one of
the other authors is leaving. It seems EOL has yet to find its feet (it
certainly has no idea of how to use blogs).  
  
[![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhrOWKKGL0TIUDakz6cdtVY1Vh0hdtu1YCYmc1sKjv-KEcZOAyAAk8Yr-m26-cZGMJagnBgQpQ7fhyphenhyphen37o7cX5F2NvlMPMgYzqk_NwBd5ARODW1rf_yqy6eyOjQss3OMyE8ERf/s200/menu_left.png){#BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234275720093117826
style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
border="0"}](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQhrOWKKGL0TIUDakz6cdtVY1Vh0hdtu1YCYmc1sKjv-KEcZOAyAAk8Yr-m26-cZGMJagnBgQpQ7fhyphenhyphen37o7cX5F2NvlMPMgYzqk_NwBd5ARODW1rf_yqy6eyOjQss3OMyE8ERf/s1600-h/menu_left.png){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}  
**Distributed Systems and Automated Biodiversity Informatics: Genomic
Analysis and Geographic Visualization of Disease Evolution** by Andrew
Hill and Robert Guralnick
\[[doi:10.1007/978-3-540-70504-8_28](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-70504-8_28)\]  

> A core mission in biodiversity informatics is to build a computing
> infrastructure for rapid, real-time analysis of biodiversity
> information. We have created the information technology to mine,
> analyze, interpret and visualize how diseases are evolving across the
> globe. The system rapidly collects the newest and most complete data
> on dangerous strains of viruses that are able to infect human and
> animal populations. Following completion, the system will also test
> whether positions in the genome are under positive selection or
> purifying selection, a useful feature to monitor functional genomic
> charac-teristics such as, drug resistance, host specificity, and
> transmissibility. Our system's persistent monitoring and reporting of
> the distribution of dangerous and novel viral strains will allow for
> better threat forecasting. This information system allows for greatly
> increased efficiency in tracking the evolution of disease threats.

This paper is was one of two contributions chosen to be proceedings
BNCOD 2008 (\"Sharing Data, Information and Knowledge\",
[doi:10.1007/978-3-540-70504-8](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-70504-8),
ISBN 978-3-540-70503-1). Rob Guralnick has put a [free version
online](http://robgur.googlepages.com/BNCOD.pdf) (see his comment
below). It describes the very cool [system being
developed](http://biodiversity.colorado.edu/) to provide near real time
visualisation of disease spread and evolution, and builds on some
earlier work published in [*Systematic
Biology*](http://systbio.org/?q=node/184)
([doi:10.1080/10635150701266848](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10635150701266848)).  
  
**LSID Deployment in the Catalogue of Life** by Ewen Orme et al.
\[[PDF](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/OrmeJonesAndWhite.pdf)\]  

> In this paper we describe a GBIF/TDWG-funded project in which LSIDs
> have been deployed in the Catalogue of Life's Annual and Dynamic
> Checklist products as a means of identifying species and higher taxa
> in these large species catalogues. We look at the technical infras-
> tructure requirements and topology for the LSID resolution process and
> characteristics of the RDF (Resource Description Framework) metadata
> returned by the resolver. Such characteristics include the use of
> concepts and relationships taken from the TDWG (Taxonomic Database
> Working Group) ontology and how a given taxon LSID relates to others
> includ- ing those issued by database providers and those above and
> below it in the taxonomic tree. Finally we evaluate the pro ject and
> LSID usage in general. We also look to the future when the CoL LSID
> infrastructure will have to deal changing taxonomic information,
> annually in the case of the Annual Checklist and possibly much more
> frequently in the case of the Dynamic Checklist.

  
Although I was an early adopter of LSIDs (in my now defunct Taxonomic
Search Engine
[doi:10.1186/1471-2105-6-48](http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-6-48)
and the very-much alive [LSID
Tester](http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/lsid/tester/),
[doi:10.1186/1751-0473-3-2](http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0473-3-2)), I
have
[some](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2007/06/rethinking-lsids-versus-http-uri.html)
[reservations](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2007/07/lsid-wars.html) about
them. The Catalogue of Life uses UUIDs to generate the LSID identifier,
which makes for rather ugly looking LSIDs, as [David Shorthouse has
complained](http://ispiders.blogspot.com/2008/05/life-science-identifiers-lsids-why.html).
For example, the LSID for *Pinnotheres pisum*
[urn:lsid:catalogueoflife.org:taxon:ef0ae064-29c1-102b-9a4a-00304854f820:ac2008](http://lsid.tdwg.org//summary/urn:lsid:catalogueoflife.org:taxon:ef0ae064-29c1-102b-9a4a-00304854f820:ac2008)
(gack). Why these ugly UUIDs? Well, one advantage is that they can be
generated in a distributed fashion and remain unique. This would make
sense for a project like the Catalogue of Life, which aggregates names
from a range of contributors, but in actual fact all the LSIDs at
present are of the form \"xxxxxxxx-29c1-102b-9a4a-00304854f820\",
indicating that they are being generated centrally (by MySQL\'s UUID
function, in this case).  
  
Ironically, when I was talking to Frank Bisby earlier this year, he
implied that LSIDs would change with each release if the information
about a name changed, thus failing to solve the existing, [fundamental
design flaw in the Catalogue of
Life](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2007/05/catalogue-of-life-design-flaw.html),
namely the lack of stable identifiers! So, at first glance we are stuck
with hideous-looking identifiers that may be unstable. Hmmm\...  
  
**Workflow Systems for Biodiversity Researchers: Existing Problems and
Potential Solutions** by Russel McIver et al.
\[[PDF](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/McIverJonesAndWhite.pdf)\]  

> In this paper we discuss the potential that scientiﬁc work- ﬂow
> systems have to support biodiversity researchers in achieving their
> goals. This potential comes through their ability to harness
> distributed resources and set up complex, multi-stage experiments.
> However, there remain concerns over the usability of existing workﬂow
> systems and re- search still needs to be done to help match the
> functionality of the soft- ware to the needs of its users. We discuss
> some of the existing concerns regarding workﬂow systems and propose
> three potential interfaces in- tended to improve workﬂow usability. We
> also outline the software ar- chitecture that we have adopted, which
> is designed to make our proposed workﬂow interface software
> interoperable across key workﬂow systems.

Not sure what to make of this paper. Workflows seem to generate an awful
lot of publications, and few tools that people actually use.  
  
[![](http://www.taxvis.org.uk/logos/taxvis.gif){style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;"
border="0"}](http://www.taxvis.org.uk/logos/taxvis.gif){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}  
**Visualisation to Aid Biodiversity Studies through Accurate Taxonomic
Reconciliation** by Martin Graham et al.
\[[doi:10.1007/978-3-540-70504-8_29](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-70504-8_29)\]  

> All aspects of organismal biology rely on the accurate identification
> of specimens described and observed. This is particularly important
> for ecological surveys of biodiversity, where organisms must be
> identified and labelled, both for the purposes of the original
> research, but also to allow reinterpretation or reuse of collected
> data by subsequent research projects. Yet it is now clear that
> biological names in isolation are unsuitable as unique identifiers for
> organisms. Much modern research in ecology is based on the integration
> (and re-use) of multiple datasets which are inherently complex,
> reflecting any of the many spatial and temporal environmental factors
> and organismal interactions that contribute to a given ecosystem. We
> describe visualization tools that aid in the process of building
> concept relations between related classifications and then in
> understanding the effects of using these relations to match across
> sets of classifications.

The second contribution published in the conference proceedings, but
there is also free version available
[here](http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~marting/TaxVis/GrahamCKBioVis.pdf)
from the project\'s
[blog](http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~marting/projectBlog2/index.php). The
paper describes [TaxVis](http://www.taxvis.org.uk/), a project
developing visualisation techniques for comparing multiple taxonomic
hierarchies.  
[![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJS_Mw9xOa4NSDZPW145QX2LoIzzdLAbkMeLY2o2NeUtpw1ObcEXOgPngbB09aeEqQLBy-vMyK9Dkh9TwVPtKj-Qok7LpCKuZABF1-W8NPU-VHfXn3SqBX4S2uy10T_UTLEgfN/s400/gorilla.png){#BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5234288301776170850
style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
border="0"}](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJS_Mw9xOa4NSDZPW145QX2LoIzzdLAbkMeLY2o2NeUtpw1ObcEXOgPngbB09aeEqQLBy-vMyK9Dkh9TwVPtKj-Qok7LpCKuZABF1-W8NPU-VHfXn3SqBX4S2uy10T_UTLEgfN/s1600-h/gorilla.png){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}  
The paper discusses taxonomic concepts and the difficulty of
establishing what a taxonomist meant when they used a particular name.
As much as I understand the argument, I can\'t shake the feeling that
obsessing about taxonomic concepts is ultimately a dead end. It won\'t
scale, and in an age of DNA barcoding, it becomes less and less
relevant.  
  
**Releasing the content of taxonomic papers: solutions to access and
data mining** by Chris Lyal and Anna Weitzman
\[[PDF](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/LyalAndWeitzman.pdf)\]  

> Taxonomic information is key to all studies of biodiversity. Taxonomic
> literature contains vast quantities of that information, but it is
> under-utilised because it is difficult to access, especially by those
> in biodiverse countries and non-taxonomists. A number of initiatives
> are making this literature available on the Web as images or even as
> unstructured text, but while that improves accessibility, there is
> more that needs to be done to assist users in locating the
> publication; locating the relevant part of the publication (article,
> chapter etc) and locating the text or data required within the
> relevant part of the publication. Taxonomic information is highly
> structured and automated scripts can be used to mark-up or parse data
> from it into atomised pieces that may be searched and repurposed as
> needed. We have developed a schema, taXMLit that allows for mark-up of
> taxonomic literature in this way. We have also developed a prototype
> system, INOTAXA that uses literature marked up in taXMLit for
> sophisticated data discovery.

This is a nice overview of the challenge of extracting information from
legacy literature. There are numerous challenges facing this work,
including taks that are trivial for people, such as determining when an
article starts and ends, but which are challenging for computers (see Lu
et al.
[doi:10.1145/1378889.1378918](http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1378889.1378918),
free copy [here](http://www.cse.psu.edu/~xlu/publications/jcdl08-lu.pdf)
\-- there is a [job related to this question available
now](http://editwebrevisions.info/content/jobs)). Related efforts are
the TaxonX markup being used by [Plazi](http://plazi.org/?q=node/10). My
own view is that for legacy literature heavy markup is probably
overkill, decent text mining will be enough. The real challenge is to
stop the rot at source, and enable new taxonomic publications to be
marked up as part of the authoring and publishing process.  
  
**An architecture to approach distributed biodiversity pollinators
relational information into centralized portals based on biodiversity
protocols** by Pablo Salvanha et a. \[[PDF]()\]  

> The present biodiversity distributed solution using DiGIR / TAPIR
> protocols and the Darwincore2 schema has been very valuable in the
> centralized portals, which that can provide distributed information in
> a very quickly way. Using the same concept this paper presents an
> architecture based on the case study of pollinators to bring the
> centralization of the relational information to those portals. This
> architecture is based on a technological structure to facilitate the
> implementation and extraction from the providers of that relational
> information, and proposes a model to make this information reliable to
> be used with the present specimens information on the portal database.

This is a short note on extending DarwinCore to include information
about pollination relationships. The wisdom of doing this has been
question (see Roger Hyam\'s [comment on the
proposal](http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/DarwinCore/PollinationExtension)).  
  
**A Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI)** by Charles
Hussey and Yde de Jong
\[[PDF](http://biodiversity.cs.cf.ac.uk/bncod/HusseyAndDeJong.pdf)\]  

> This communication introduces the rationale and aims of a new
> Europe-wide biodiversity informatics project. PESI defines and
> coordinates strategies to enhance the quality and reliability of
> European biodiversity information by integrating the infrastructural
> components of four major community networks on taxonomic indexing,
> namely those of marine life, terrestrial plants, fungi and animals,
> into a joint work programme. This will include functional knowledge
> networks of both taxonomic experts and regional focal points, which
> will collaborate on the establishment of standardised and
> authoritative taxonomic (meta-) data. In addition PESI will coordinate
> the integration and synchronisation of the European taxonomic
> information systems into a joint e-infrastructure and the creation of
> a common user-interface disseminating the pan- European checklists and
> associated user-services results.

This paper describes [PESI](http://www.eu-nomen.eu/pesi/), yet another
mega-science project in biodiversity, complete with acronyms, work
packages, and vacuous, buzzword-compliant statements. Just what the
discipline needs\...  
  
[![](http://www.eu-nomen.eu/pesi/images/stories/clipboard03.jpg){style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;"
border="0"}](http://www.eu-nomen.eu/pesi/images/stories/clipboard03.jpg){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}


The proceedings of the BNCOD 2008 Workshop on "Biodiversity Informatics: challenges in modelling and managing biodiversity knowledge" are online. This workshop was held in conjunction with the 25th British National Conference on Databases (BNCOD 2008) at Cardiff, Wales. The papers make interesting reading.

BNCOD 2008 Workshop

[![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisdfg4DCjA59WeKxjUVYq_EaeTcTceIHZtykUW75l79yPl3g858qBkrkyCdKZntJYpZshZTULweHegcjGtxnl_1XH8mlgs3Ix5p9E3_w29Ey7O6WfwwWS19oWcRsBcC9qFbAZW/s200/script.png){#BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221349306663942690
style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
border="0"}](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisdfg4DCjA59WeKxjUVYq_EaeTcTceIHZtykUW75l79yPl3g858qBkrkyCdKZntJYpZshZTULweHegcjGtxnl_1XH8mlgs3Ix5p9E3_w29Ey7O6WfwwWS19oWcRsBcC9qFbAZW/s1600-h/script.png){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}  
Brian de Alwis has written a cool Apple Script called
[OpenDOI](http://www.cs.usask.ca/~bsd178/OpenDOI/) that adds support for
resolving doi: and hdl: URLs using Safari on a Mac. With it installed,
links such as [hdl:10101/npre.2008.1760.1](hdl:10101/npre.2008.1760.1)
and <doi:10.1093/bib/bbn022> become clickable, without having to stick a
HTTP proxy in front of them.  
  
Seems that an obvious extension to this would be to add support for
LSIDs. Firefox can support LSIDs through the [LSID Browser for
Firefox](http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=198923),
but this won\'t work with Safari. Something for the to do list.


Brian de Alwis has written a cool Apple Script called OpenDOI that adds support for resolving doi: and hdl: URLs using Safari on a Mac. With it installed, links such as hdl:10101/npre.2008.1760.1 and doi:10.1093/bib/bbn022 become clickable, without having to stick a HTTP proxy in front of them. Seems that an obvious extension to this would be to add support for LSIDs.

OpenDOI

[![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQfJ_qKaHDWCGypQzExFiLbOVthnC52tNrhgFKsVo-JODIOLgTcX_FAKqzIvRhMF1ogifeWRzHsGCDst0gurnqWfWShyphenhypheneXrz9hsanY6IPWEi35CcIrIuEjOhTpwB0gTdoCLr7/s320/cover.gif){#BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5194920985396578738
style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
border="0"}](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfQfJ_qKaHDWCGypQzExFiLbOVthnC52tNrhgFKsVo-JODIOLgTcX_FAKqzIvRhMF1ogifeWRzHsGCDst0gurnqWfWShyphenhypheneXrz9hsanY6IPWEi35CcIrIuEjOhTpwB0gTdoCLr7/s1600-h/cover.gif){onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"}  
Bit of a rarity these days. My paper on identifiers in biodiversity
informatics, which I mentioned
[earlier](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2008/04/biodiversity-informatics-challenge-of.html)
when I deposited the preprint at [Nature
Precedings](http://precedings.nature.com/), has been published in
*Briefings in Bioinformatics*
([doi:10.1093/bib/bbn022](http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bib/bbn022)).  
  
Here\'s the abstract:  

> A major challenge facing biodiversity informatics is integrating data
> stored in widely distributed databases. Initial efforts have relied on
> taxonomic names as the shared identifier linking records in different
> databases. However, taxonomic names have limitations as identifiers,
> being neither stable nor globally unique, and the pace of molecular
> taxonomic and phylogenetic research means that a lot of information in
> public sequence databases is not linked to formal taxonomic names.
> This review explores the use of other identifiers, such as specimen
> codes and GenBank accession numbers, to link otherwise disconnected
> facts in different databases. The structure of these links can also be
> exploited using the PageRank algorithm to rank the results of searches
> on biodiversity databases. The key to rich integration is a commitment
> to deploy and reuse globally unique, shared identifiers \[such as
> Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and Life Science Identifiers
> (LSIDs)\], and the implementation of services that link those
> identifiers.


Paper published

[![](http://www.scfbm.org/graphics/interface/header/10118/headsquare.gif){style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
border="0"}](http://www.scfbm.org/graphics/interface/header/10118/headsquare.gif)  
My short note on the [LSID Tester
tool](http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/lsid/tester/) has been
published in the Open Access journal [Source Code for Biology and
Medicine](http://www.scfbm.org/). The article has just come out so the
DOI
([doi:10.1186/1751-0473-3-2](http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0473-3-2))
isn\'t live yet, the direct link is
<http://www.scfbm.org/content/3/1/2/>. Source code for the tester is
available from [Google Code](http://code.google.com/p/lsid-php/).


My short note on the LSID Tester tool has been published in the Open Access journal Source Code for Biology and Medicine. The article has just come out so the DOI (doi:10.1186/1751-0473-3-2) isn't live yet, the direct link is http://www.scfbm.org/content/3/1/2/. Source code for the tester is available from Google Code.

LSID Tester, a tool for testing Life Science Identifier resolution services

Well, the LSID discussion has just exploded in the last few weeks. I
touched on this in my earlier post [Rethinking LSIDs versus HTTP
URI](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2007/06/rethinking-lsids-versus-http-uri.html),
but since then the [TDWG
discussion](http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-guid/2007-July/thread.html)
has become more vigourous (albeit mainly focussed on technical issues,
although I suspect that these are symptoms of a larger problem), while
**public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org** list [for
July](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-semweb-lifesci/2007Jul/)
has mushroomed into a near slugfest of discussion about URIs, LSIDs,
OWL, the goals of the Semantic Web, etc. There are also blog posts, such
as Benjamin Good\'s [The main problem with
LSIDs](http://i9606.blogspot.com/2007/06/main-problem-with-lsids.html),
Mark Wilkinson\'s numerous posts on [his
blog](http://semanticmusings.blogspot.com/), and Pierre Lindebaum\'s
[commentary](http://plindenbaum.blogspot.com/2007/07/url-1-lsid-1.html).  
  
I have no comment to make on this, I\'m merely bookmarking them for when
I find the time to wade through all this\...


Well, the LSID discussion has just exploded in the last few weeks.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

BNCOD 2008 Workshop

OpenDOI

Paper published

LSID Tester, a tool for testing Life Science Identifier resolution services

LSID wars