On June 8, I (Jens) visited the process control engineering research group (PLT) of Leon Urbas at the Dresden University of Technology. We first met on the Leipziger Semantic Web Day where Leon Urbas presented interactive Linked Data applications and decided to have a longer meeting later on. I first gave a talk on the Linked Data Lifecycle (slides as PDF), which is a central element of the vision behind the LOD2 project – a cycle of mutual refinement which can help to overcome some of the problems in using Linked Data. It extends on an earlier vision description by Sören and me.
After the initial presentation, we exchanged ideas for collaboration between our groups. The PLT group has a very strong record in large scale practical applications, mobile devices and usability testing. Since their background is automation engineering, they view semantic technologies as a way to connect large networks of knowledge in a flexible manner. They were particularly interested in some of our research and software tools like LIMES, SAIM and OntoWiki. I enjoyed staying at the group and I am looking forward to further meetings.
