You are using the RKB Explorer, the current primary human interface to the ReSIST Knowledge Base (RKB).
As part of the ReSIST Project, a Resilience Knowledge Base (RKB) has been built; it has gathered data from many bibliographic and other sources, and structure has been added to allow it to be queried by topic. Particular attention has been given to topics concerned with Dependable Computing and Resilient systems.
Index
Overview
The RKB Explorer is started by going to the URL: http://rkbexplorer.com/explorer/.
After loading the page and Java Applet, you may be asked if you trust the security certificate. A negative answer is perfectly acceptable: it will however mean that you will be unable to copy the graph pane to your clipboard.
It is intended that the certificate will be properly signed in due course.
The interface is now ready for use.
The user can focus on an item in one of four dimensions:
- People
- Individual people in the RKB. They may have multiple identities (B. Randell and Brian Randell), but the closer they are to Resilient Systems the better their identities will be curated.
- Resilience Mechanism
- The mechanisms that have been studied in the ReSIST project.
- Publications
- Data from a wide range of Computer Science resources, including all of CiteSeeer and DBLP
- Projects
- Projects that the RKB has discovered. In particular, the RKB is up to date on all projects funded by the European Union (EU) via the CORDIS database, and many of those funded by the US' NSF.
At any given time, the upper half of the display details information about a single resource, the current selection, which may be of any of the four types. To the upper right is a panel providing detailed information regarding the current resource, while the largest part of the interface to the upper left is a graph representation of the current resource, shown in the context of related resources of the same type (a so-called "Community of Practice" graph). The graph permits the user to change the current focus, and expands on double-click to show additional resources as required. These relationships are "calculated" dynamically from the heterogeneous large sets of information about people, publications, research topics and projects that have been integrated into the RKB.
The lower half of the RKB Explorer displays four columns detailing the people, research topics, publications and projects which are related to the currently selected resource. Selecting any of these items changes the focus of the entire display to reflect the new resource. If the newly selected resource is of the same type as the current resource, then it is added to the graph display, otherwise the graph is cleared and replaced with the new representation.
For example, if the item of focus is a Project, the graph view will show projects in similar areas, the People list will show people associated with the project, and Publications will show project-related and field-related publications.
If the system appears to be taking a long time (> 30 seconds) without populating the lists, the interface can be returned to its original state by pressing your browser's reload button.
Navigation
In normal use, focus is changed by choosing an object from one of the dimensions, either in the graph view, or in the list view. In addition, a major focus change can be made by clicking on one of the menus at the top.
Two actions can be taken: a single click simply changes the focus. A double click causes the RKB Explorer to add related items to the graphical view.
In the menu area there is a "Search" choice, which allows the user to search for words or names in the whole of the RKB. When used, the interface switches to show results in all these items.
There is also a "Recently Viewed" choice, which takes the user to a previously-selected item in the RKB.
With the exception of the controls for the Graphical view, the interface remains static as the focus changes.
User Controls
The interface window provides control components of four types:
Menu Bar
The Menu Bar has the following components:
- People
- Make the view of the Graph focus on people. Highlighted when the graphic is focused on people.
- Research Areas
- Make the view of the Graph focus on Research Areas. Highlighted when the graphic is focused on research areas.
- Publications
- Make the view of the Graph focus on Publications. Highlighted when the graphic is focused on publications.
- Projects
- Make the view of the Graph focus on Projects. Highlighted when the graphic is focused on projects.
- Search
- Brings up a text search box. The entered text is then used to search all fields, with the results being sorted by their type into the four panels below. Names within the RKB are in the form "given-name family-name". Note that the exact phrase entered is searched within the RKB. Regular expression matching can be used.
- Recently Viewed
- A list of recently viewed items can be seen. Selecting an item makes the item the focus and adds it to the existing graph.
- Help
- Brings up the help window.
Using the top menu to select one of the four types of view will change the display to show either the last person, research area, publication, or project that was viewed by the user, or a suitable ReSIST related default if no resources of the selected type have yet been shown. Similarly, selecting Search will present the last search results, if available.
Graph
The Graph display gives a visual presentation of the item of focus, and indicates those items of the same type to which the current item is related. Thus in the figure, "Ian Millard" is in focus, and the node is highlighted in red. The directly related people are attached by links, where the width of the link (weight of the line) indicates the strength of the connection. Directly connected people are shown in grey, and people who are not directly connected are left white. Those for whom the related items are shown are depicted by a dark black edge to the circle. (These relationships have been dynamically discovered, or "calculated", taking into such factors as co-membership of projects, and co-authorship of papers.)
The top left of the pane shows the name of the item in focus, and the top right has a link which makes the graphic pane use more of the screen. There are scroll bars to move around the graph.
There are a variety of ways of manipulating the view given by the graphic pane.
Clicking on a node has the effect of changing the focus to that item; double clicking changes the focus, but also brings up the related items in the graph window.
The buttons on the right function as follows (there are explanatory "tooltips", but at present they only function when the graph has the focus):
- Zooms in on the graph
- Zooms out from the graph
- Zooms to (1:1), a natural size
- Zooms to make the graph fit in the window
- Brings up the Help Page
- Brings up a scroll list from which any member of the ReSIST Project can be selected for the new focus. Only available when the graphic view is being used to view people.
- Remove selected nodes
- The number of nodes and number of links in the graph.
Finally, context menus and key modifiers are available:
- Control-click
- Control-clicking on a node causes that node to become the centre of the pane, otherwise does nothing.
- Right-click or Alt-click (Mac)
- Right- or Alt-clicking on a node brings up a context menu:
- Using the context menu on a node allows the user to Expand, Collapse or Remove the node and related items as appropriate. Can also bring up the scroll list from which any member of the ReSIST Project can be selected for the new focus.
- Various debug options may be available from this menu.
- Right-click or Alt-click (Mac)
- Right- or Alt-clicking on the graph anywhere other than on a node brings up a different context menu:
- Using the context menu when the mouse is off a node
allows the user to
bring up the scroll list from which any member of the ReSIST project can be selected for the new focus.
Various debug options may be available from this menu.
Detail
The detail pane gives appropriate information about the item that is the current focus.
Related lists
This part of the window seeks to provide information in the four categories that is related the item of focus, according to connections in the RKB. The ordering of the items in each list aims to be in decreasing order of level and strength of connection.
To identify related resources, a number of complex analyses are performed over the data held within the RKB. Queries are executed to discover other resources which are related to the currently selected resource, based on pre-defined relationships such as co-authorship, or affiliations to a common project or organisation. These relationships are weighted, with each result contributing to an overall measure of 'closeness' for potential candidate resources.
The items in these lists can be clicked or double clicked.
Clicking has the effect of changing the focus to that item; double clicking changes the focus, but also brings up the related items in the graph window.
System Requirements
The RKB Explorer is built to run on all modern operating systems and browsers.
It requires a standard installation of Java, version 1.4 or above.
You can check whether you have Java installed by going to http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml
If it is not installed, follow the instructions to install it.
In particular, it has been used with the following software
Windows XP: Internet Explorer (v6, v7) and Firefox (v1.5, v2)
Windows 2003 Server: Internet Explorer (v7) and Firefox (v2)
MacOS X: Safari (v2, v3.1.2), Firefox (v1.5, v2, v3), Camino (v1.0.3), Flock (v1.2.3)
Linux: Firefox (v1.5)
Internet Explorer on MacOS X has not been maintained by Microsoft for a long time, and so is no longer able to support applications such as this.
If you find there is a problem, please report it.