Director's Report

May 2011

New Projects

Knowledge Unix: Sharing and Enrichment of (Digital) Data Project. P.I. Lewis Lancaster, working with Michael Buckland and Michael Frenklach (Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Berkeley). The purpose of the Knowledge Unix: Sharing and Enrichment of (Digital) Data Project is to study the sharing of digital data and the possibility of creating a system for interoperability of all knowledge resources. Supported by a gift of $200,000 from: the Coleman Fung Foundation. More at http://ecai.org/KnowledgeUnix/

Project Completed

Context and Relationships: Ireland and Irish Studies. This project demonstrated how auxiliary resources can be made more readily available in a demonstration project using Irish Studies literature. Partners included the Celtic Studies Program and The Emma Goldman Papers project at UC, Berkeley, and the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Funded in part by the Advancing Knowledge program of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Oct 2007 - Dec 2010. For details and Final report see http://ecai.org/neh2007/.

Future Meetings

ECAI / PNC 2011 Joint Meetings, October 19-21, 2011, will be held at the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. The theme for this year’s meeting is: “Managing Climate Change: From Science to Digital Humanities and Sustainability.”
Conference Website: http://www.pnclink.org/pnc2011/english/index.html

Past Meetings

ECAI / VSMM 2010, Oct 20-23, 2010, Seoul, Korea. ECAI met with the Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology and the Society for Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM) in October, 2010 at COEX Conference Center in Seoul. The theme of the conference was exploring the use of Virtual Systems with heritage and cultural data. Our plenary speaker will be Coleman Fung, Chairman and Founder of OpenLink Financial, Inc., a long time supporter of ECAI.
This was also the site for a ECAI workshop dealing with pattern recognition and 3-D displays as well as Transdisciplinary methodology. For more see http://ecai.org/activities/2010VSMM/vsmm2010.html

ECAI’s Joint Meeting with Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC) at their 2010 conference was at the City University of Hong Kong, Nov 30 – Dec 3, 2010. More at http://ecai.org/activities/2010PNC/pnc2010.html
One of the highlights was a demonstration of ECAI projects in the new immersive, 3-D theater in the laboratory in the Science Park in Hong Kong under the direction of the Centre of Creative Media, ALIVE, and the Department of Chinese Translations and Linguistics of City University of Hong Kong. Projects presented included: Prof Lancaster's Blue Dots version of the Buddhist Canon, the 3D reconstruction of a Han Dynasty tomb recorded by Maurizio Forte and his team from the University of California Merced campus; a social network of  Buddhist Monks developed by Dharma Drum Buddhist College in Taiwan; and  "Maya Skies" a presentation of a Major Mayan temple site by Kevin Cain from Insight developed for the Chabot Space Center in Oakland, California.

Visualizing the Buddhist Canon in 3D was a great success.  It was the first opportunity to be in an immersive environment with the 3D version of the Canon; to be able to view search results and work collaboratively.  A new proposal for further work on the Blue Dots is being developed.  For latest version of the ideas see: http://www.ecai.org/textpatternanalysis/Blue%20Dots%20AVIE%20slides.pdf

TELDAP 2011. About 25 people attended the successful day long ECAI Workshop: Visualization, Computation, and Analysis in Large Text Corpora and Cultural Collections which was held in collaboration with the TELDAP 2011 International Conference on March 16th at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. The proceedings of this TELDAP conference will  be published as special double-issue in the International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing (IJHAC) which is edited by David Bodenhamer and Paul Ell, supported by ECAI, and publishedby Edinburgh University Press. View the workshop schedule at: http://ecai.org/Activities/2011Teldap/Teldap2011-ECAI_Workshop.html.

The exhibit, Western Han Dynasty, Archaeology@Reality, Virtual Masterpieces From Ancient China was presented in April at the CITRIS Tech Museum at UC Berkeley. The exhibit, organized by the University of California, Merced, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, in collaboration with CITRIS-UC Berkeley, was combined with the international workshop titled “Chang’an 26 BCE” (organized by UC Berkeley). Both the initiatives aim to present an overview of one of the most important periods of the history of China through advanced digital methodologies for archaeological and historical research. For more see:
http://ecai.org/Activities/2011_WesternHanDynastyExhibit.html

Directors Activities

Korea Broadcasting Systems (KBS), the public broadcasting group for Korea, is making an hour long documentary of the life and work of  Lewis Lancaster, for airing in September. It is part of the celebration of the 1000th Anniversary of the Carving of the Buddhist canon printing blocks.

On May 12, the Director will give the keynote address to the United Nations Day of Vesak meeting in Thailand.  This is one of the largest meetings of Buddhists each year.

In April, the Director taught as a Visiting Professor at City University of Hong Kong where he is doing research at the ALIVE Laboratory located at the Hong Kong Science Center. The work deals with use of imagery for large data sets.

A new project is being planned under the title “Atlas of Maritime Buddhism.”  This involves mapping archaeological sites of Buddhism in India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia. Those interested in the research should contact ECAI Central.

Past ECAI Directors’ Reports
Past ECAI Directors’ Reports are available at http://ecai.org/about/directorsRpts.html