In e-science, 'Big Data' is capturing the imagination of researchers, funders and entrepreneurs, but data is only as useful as the metadata attached to it. How we store and analyse the data is to a large extent governed by our current intended uses, but in the future, it is often uncertain how the data will be used. Humans have developed languages that are semantically rich and cope with extrapolations from philosophically different concepts with ease. The work of Henry and Peter is moving our field of chemistry significantly in that direction, enabling linguistically rich queries to interrogate large complex databases in a manner that often allows discovery of new ideas or concepts. We will explore ideas of how semantic data can change our view of chemistry, its importance in experimental and computational science and give some examples.

Language, semantics, and chemistry: Why computers need to say what we mean

244th National Meeting (2012)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.