VOLUME 2, ISSUE 0
VENICE PROJECT CENTER
JUNE 1, 2008
VENICE 2.0 — THE SECOND CHAPTER
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
The Venice Project Center
PRESERVING THE started in the Fall of 1988, with
NAUTICAL HERI- 2
TAGE OF VENICE
a pioneering group of six
“bootstrap” students. We plan
STRIVING FOR AN
ACCESSIBLE
to celebrate the twentieth anni-
2
VENICE versary of the VPC from now
until the end of 2009...
VENETIAN BOATS:
HARMFUL OR
HELPFUL TO THE 2 The people at Knowledge Reef
ENVIROMNMENT
introduced me to Dspace, which
SOCIO-
is a data repository system de-
ECONOMICS: THE 3 veloped at MIT, which abides by
PERSONAL VENICE
the Open Archive Initiative (OAI)
PRESERVENICE: standards. Dspace will organize
SAVING PUBLIC 3 hoping that this may be linkable
ART both documents and datasets
and will allow semantic systems,
A VENICE MQP 3 like Knowledge Reef to extract
metadata through the Protocol
HOW WELL DO YOU for Metadata Harvesting (PMH).
REMEMBER 4 to most of the Venice 2.0 re-
VENICE? We agreed that we should try to
store both the Venice Project
Archive documents as well as
SPECIAL POINTS the Venice Data Repository data-
OF INTEREST: sets in Dspace, so that Knowl-
 The 20th year anniver-
sary! What’s being
STAY 20 YEARS OLD FOREVER! THE VENICE ELIXIR...
done to celebrate
Even though 476 students
 See what this year’s
from WPI have visited Venice
groups are doing for
IQP’s in Venice since 1988, their median age
has always been 20. The aver-
 Read about the Venice age Venice student has not aged
experience from an a bit since we first started! . This
advisor’s point of view year marks a double alignment:
the students (as always) will be
 Check out the cross-
20 years old, thus they were born
word puzzle, and see
how much you remem- the same year as the Venice
ber about Venice! Project Center! For the first and
only time, the center and the
edge Reef could then harvest
our data with OAI-PMH and
make it available on the seman-
tic web... This would be really
really cool. And a very appropri-
ate way to celebrate our 20th
anniversary by moving beyond
"old school" systems and into
the 21st century. The Venice
Project Center knowledgebase
will be one of the first on the
semantic web!
We followed up on Dspace
after the Santa Fe meeting with
Knowledge Reef. Working quietly
behind the scenes, as is his
style, Ilan Shomorony -- a Fall
2007 graduate of the Venice
Project Center -- installed
Dspace on our Venice Server
and got it up and running -- no
small feat! Now, we are deciding
exactly how to organize the re-
students will be the same age…
Next year the center will be one
ports, datasets, presentations,
images, maps and other docu-
ments produced by WPI teams
and others. We are creating a
Venice Open Archive community
and plan be the first ones to
contribute to it. Meanwhile,
Marko at Knowledge Reef has
confirmed that they intend to
run our Venice Dspace archives
through their semantic engine to
turn our Venice City Knowledge
into a "reef"... Sounds wild! I am
to GeoNames whose Web Ser-
vices might even come in handy
for Ploppit and Plukkit. Could
Dspace and its URI's be the key
leases? It seems to me that it
may even play a key "backend"
role with LOUIS and uScript.
We shall see...
year older, but the students will
still be twenty—forever!
Just a few of the 2007
Venice IQP students.
From left to right, top:
Michael Morin, Jennifer
Richards, Kevin Black,
Sara Migdal. Middle:
Michelle Dubuke,
Amanda Kent, Nicholas
Vitello. Bottom: Marc
Balboa, Michelle Carbon-
neau, Kyle Feeley
 VENICE PROJECT CENTER Page 2

VENIPEDIA: WIKI VENICE

The beautiful city of Venice
depends on boats for everything,
including transportation, tour-
ism, and services required for
everyday life. However, tradi-
tional wooden rowed boats are
becoming extinct as motorized
boats become the standard.
These boats, which have been
the backbone of Venetian cul-
ture, are disappearing. Our
group is attempting to help solve
this problem by working with
Arzaná, an organization dedi-
cated to the preservation of the
traditions and heritage of nauti-
cal Venice.
Arzaná, named for the naval
base in Venice, the Arsenale, was
founded in 1992. In the past 15
years, the organization has accu-
mulated an extensive collection
of boats, equipment, and tools
used in the craft. However, Ar-
zaná has no efficient means of
communication with the public;
there is also no system to collect
donations for restoration. It is
our goal to help Arzaná more
effectively advertize their mis-
sion and to create a system of
raising funds for preservation.
We will use the Arzaná inven-
tory to plan and start a tradi-
tional boats museum, which
will be open to the public. As
another way to raise aware-
ness about this cause, we are
going to produce a website
that will promote Arzaná and
A decorative oarlock found on
allow for donations. one of Venice’s traditional boats—
just one of the many examples of
nautical heritage in Venice

THE VENICE OPEN ARCHIVE AND “DSPACE”

One of Venice’s hundreds of
bridges—one of the many obsta-
cles for handicapped travelers
The upkeep for the city of
Venice has been an important
topic in IQP projects ever since
the Venice Project Center has
been created. We are the
“Urban Maintenance” group,
and we originally started look-
ing at four different topics:
Canals, Bridges, Docks, and
Sewers. We soon realized that
because of the remarkable
effort of the past IQP students,
the majority of these topics
were complete and do not need
to be researched further.
Our group has decided to
look into the level of handicap
accessibility of many of the
bridges throughout the city,
especially those around tour-
istic areas of Venice. Handi-
capped accessibility is impor-
tant to the city because of the
amount of people who are
mobility impaired, including
the elderly, those with canes,
wheelchairs, carts, luggage,
baby strollers, and the in-
creased amount of people with
disabilities. We are taking traf-
fic counts of people moving
over bridges and determining
how many people are mobility
impaired, and what kind of
problems they have crossing
bridges. During our 7-week
stay, our group will attempt to
assess the possibility of adding
more permanent and useful
handicap accessible ramps in
the city of Venice.

A DYNAMIC WEB PRESENCE FOR THE VPC

There have been studies
done that measure the social
and economic implications
that boat traffic has on Ven-
ice. As the Environment
group, we plan to explore traf-
fic’s effects on the environ-
ment by analyzing trends in
canal traffic over time. Most
noticeably, traffic is responsi-
ble for wake, water, and noise
pollution, which has become a
growing problem in Venice.
During our 7-weeks in Venice,
we will be taking boat traffic
data counts at intermediate
canal intersections. Existing
data is updated twice annually
at major intersections, but no
such information exists yet for
intermediate points. We will
be looking at boat type, the
number of passengers, origin,
and destination. Attempts are
also being made to record
license plates. This informa-
tion would be used to help
create a more accurate traffic
model for the city of Venice.
The Redfish Group of the
Santa Fe Institute is making
an autonomous agent traffic
model; with the addition of
A canal in Venice—of one
these data counts, their model many that are at a risk of
will improve greatly, allowing it higher pollution because of
heavy boat traffic.
to better reflect reality.
 VENICE PROJECT CENTER
EPHEMERA THAT MAKE YOU THINK...
Fruit and vegetable cargo boat making deliveries in the early morning—
an example of the cargo transportation system found in Venice
The Socioeconomics IQP
group is focusing on three
mini-projects: Cargo Trans-
portation, Tourism, and Re-
tail. We are gathering infor-
mation from past work done
in these areas and tying up
loose ends. We are also
adding to previous field work
by performing our own new
studies. We plan on writing
a chapter on each of the
A SONIFICATION REQUIEM: FROM DATA TO MUSIC
The winged lion of Venice—one of
the many examples of public art
in Venice
Page 3
A VENICE MQP:
MUNICIPAL
observe and photograph the
GEOSPATIAL WEB
loading of cargo at Scalo
WIDGETS
Fluviale! In addition, we have
met with Thierry Morel, a The canal walls in Venice, Italy
scholar from Cambridge, who are eroding, largely due to boat
is writing a book on the effect wake and the corrosive sea
of tourism on Venetian socio- water. Ideally, a protective bar-
economics; he will be collabo- rier would exist in front of the
rating with us, as well as ex- walls to shield them from ero-
changing data and ideas. Due sion. The primary focus of this
to the fact that it has been project is to determine the feasi-
five years since any tourism
bility of using microbial fuel cells
data has been updated, we to power the accretion of sea
three topics, which will be plan to add the missing infor- water minerals to form a protec-
added to the comprehensive mation. The group has also tive barrier for the canal walls.
book written by this year’s IQP set up meetings with the Ve- Accretion, or the accumulation
students. Since our arrival we netian Commerce Department of minerals on metallic objects
have explored the city, perform- to talk about the database submerged in seawater, is a
ing new research and interview- obtained by the previous Re- naturally occurring process
ing a number of prolific Ve- tail IQP group. If you have any which can be enhanced by an
netian figures such as Luigino questions or comments, or induced-current. Microbial fuel
Vianello (“Crazy Luigino”) to you would just like to see our cells generate current by har-
establish new developments in work, feel free to email us at nessing the electrons produced
our focus areas. Our group has ve07-soc@wpi.edu. by the microbial digestion of
even woken up at 3:30 a.m. to organic material. This project
will use the microbes present in
the sediment below the canal
waters to provide current to
drive accretion onto wire mesh.
To test this various experiments
There have been many projects over the years that have fo-
are being performed in the la-
cused on the widespread and beautiful public art in Venice. This
goon of Venice.
year, the Art group is adding to the databases created by past
IQP groups by surveying several lagoon islands, including Mu-
rano, Burano, and Torcello. In particular, we will be cataloging
any missing lunette, portali, and mascaroni. We will also gener-
ate a specific method for determining the cost and priority of
restoration; these methods will then be applied to the existing
catalogs to create a list of the most endangered pieces. We plan
to found a non-profit organization called “PreserVenice”: this
organization will be dedicated to the restoration and preserva-
tion of Venetian public art. Our group must determine funding Jessica Balesano and Jodi Lowell with
Fabio Carrera, constructing the appa-
sources and select a qualified individual to run the organization. ratus necessary for their MQP, enti-
Also, we will create promotional materials such as a website tled “Microbial Fuel Cells Powering an
Accretion Process in the Venetian
(www.preservenice.com), and a book about Venetian public art,
Canals”
in order to advance the cause of the endangered public art in
Venice.
 VENICE PROJECT CENTER
THE VENICE 2.0 BLOG
This story can fit 150-200
words.
One benefit of using your
newsletter as a promotional
tool is that you can reuse
content from other marketing
materials, such as press re-
leases, market studies, and
reports.
While your main goal of dis-
tributing a newsletter might
be to sell your product or
service, the key to a success-
PLOPPIT & PLUKKIT—GEO WEB SERVICES FOR VENICE
This story can fit 100-150
words.
The subject matter that ap-
pears in newsletters is virtu-
ally endless. You can include
stories that focus on current
technologies or innovations
in your field.
You may also want to note
business or economic trends,
or make predictions for your
customers or clients.
SECOND VENICE
This story can fit 75-125
words.
Selecting pictures or graphics
is an important part of adding
content to your newsletter.
Think about your article and
ask yourself if the picture
supports or enhances the
message you’re trying to con-
vey. Avoid selecting images
ful newsletter is making it
useful to your readers.
A great way to add useful
content to your newsletter is
to develop and write your
own articles, or include a
calendar of upcoming events
or a special offer that pro-
motes a new product.
You can also research arti-
cles or find “filler” articles by
accessing the World Wide
Web. You can write about a
If the newsletter is distrib-
uted internally, you might
comment upon new proce-
dures or improvements to the
business. Sales figures or
earnings will show how your
business is growing.
Some newsletters include a
column that is updated every
issue, for instance, an advice
column, a book review, a
letter from the president, or
an editorial. You can also
that appear to be out of con-
text.
Microsoft Publisher includes
thousands of clip art images
from which you can choose
and import into your newslet-
ter. There are also several
tools you can use to draw
shapes and symbols.
Once you have chosen an
Page 4
variety of topics but try to
keep your articles short.
Much of the content you put
in your newsletter can also
be used for your Web site.
Microsoft Publisher offers a
simple way to convert your
newsletter to a Web publica-
tion. So, when you’re finished
writing your newsletter, con-
vert it to a Web site and post Caption describing picture or
it. graphic.
profile new employees or top
customers or vendors.
“To catch the
reader's
attention, place
an interesting
sentence or
quote from the
story here.”
image, place it close to the
article. Be sure to place the
caption of the image near the
image.
Caption describing picture or
graphic.
 VOLUME 2, ISSUE 0 Page 5

USCRIPT—CUMULATING MANUSCRIPT TRANSCRIPTIONS

This story can fit 150-200 ful newsletter is making it variety of topics but try to
words. useful to your readers. keep your articles short.

One benefit of using your
newsletter as a promotional
tool is that you can reuse
content from other marketing
materials, such as press re-
leases, market studies, and
reports.
While your main goal of dis-
tributing a newsletter might
be to sell your product or
service, the key to a success-
A great way to add useful
content to your newsletter is
to develop and write your
own articles, or include a
calendar of upcoming events
or a special offer that pro-
motes a new product.
You can also research arti-
cles or find “filler” articles by
accessing the World Wide
Web. You can write about a
Much of the content you put
in your newsletter can also
be used for your Web site.
Microsoft Publisher offers a
simple way to convert your
newsletter to a Web publica-
tion. So, when you’re finished
writing your newsletter, con-
vert it to a Web site and post Caption describing picture or
it. graphic.

SANTA FE + VENICE = SANTA VE...

This story can fit 100-150
words.
The subject matter that ap-
pears in newsletters is virtu-
ally endless. You can include
stories that focus on current
technologies or innovations
in your field.
You may also want to note
business or economic trends,
or make predictions for your
customers or clients.
If the newsletter is distrib- profile new employees or top
uted internally, you might customers or vendors.
comment upon new proce-
“To catch the
dures or improvements to the
business. Sales figures or reader's
earnings will show how your attention, place
business is growing.
an interesting
Some newsletters include a
column that is updated every
sentence or
issue, for instance, an advice quote from the
column, a book review, a
story here.”
letter from the president, or
an editorial. You can also

THE VENICE 3.0 FOUNDATION

This story can fit 75-125
words.
Selecting pictures or graphics
is an important part of adding
content to your newsletter.
Think about your article and
ask yourself if the picture
supports or enhances the
message you’re trying to con-
vey. Avoid selecting images
that appear to be out of con- image, place it close to the
text. article. Be sure to place the
caption of the image near the
Microsoft Publisher includes
image.
thousands of clip art images
from which you can choose
and import into your newslet-
ter. There are also several
tools you can use to draw
shapes and symbols. Caption describing picture or
graphic.
Once you have chosen an
 VOLUME 2, ISSUE 0 Page 6

A WORD TO THE ALUMNI OF VENICE

This year has been very spe-
cial because of the empha-
sis placed on the past work
of the Venice alumni. The
IQP students this year have
worked very hard to com-
plete book chapters on the
main focus of the past 19
years of work. This newslet-
ter has a dual purpose: we
are excited to re-open the
channels of communication
between the past and pre-
sent Venice IQP students,
and we would also like your
input. All of the book chap-
ters in the categories of Art,
Environment, Socio-
Economics, Urban Mainte-
nance, and Traditional Boats
are online and available to
anyone interested. Do you
remember something about
your IQP that you would like
to include in the book? Feel
free to email us at
carrera@wpi.edu if you
would like to read the book
chapters or contribute your
knowledge based on your
experience in Venice.
Venice Survey:
Venice Alumni! We would
love your feedback. Please
take our survey to answer
some questions about the
20th anniversary and the
publication of the book.
Any help would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks!
The Bridge of Sighs—one of many
sights that make Venice a priceless
experience

HOW WELL DO YOU REMEMBER VENICE?

Hello Venice Alumni! We all know that you worked very hard on your
IQP while in Venice, but we want to know: how much do you really
remember about Venice? We made this crossword to find out...Enjoy!

ACROSS
2 The most beautiful city in the
world
4 Comes in many flavors, and is
delicious!
5 The Venetian himself
9 “Thank you”
11 Italian word for “hi” and
“bye”
13 Fabio’s favorite drink
14 Think striped shirts and
straw hats
16 The best restaurant in Venice
17 San Marco gets wet when
this happens
DOWN
1 The second highest population
in Venice (hint: They live in St.
Mark’s Square)
2 IQP headquarters
3 The waterways of Venice
6 Our favorite supermarket
7 The Italian red and white
8 The Italian word for “pizza”
10 The actual reason for being in
Venice (hint: not the pizza)
12 The big bridge
13 The main attraction in Venice
14 Layers can be added
15 How Italians answer the phone