SUMMARY: Herein, we present COCOMAPS 2.0, for the analysis, visualization, and comparison of the interface in protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid complexes. COCOMAPS 2.0 complements the residue-level and buried surface area analyses of the original COCOMAPS tool with a comprehensive and accurate atomic-level characterization of the interface, enabling detailed interpretation of molecular recognition. Furthermore, it provides a greatly enhanced flexibility, interactivity, and efficiency in graphical visualizations. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: COCOMAPS 2.0 is accessible as a public web tool at https://aocdweb.com/BioTools/cocomaps2 and as a standalone code at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17390665.

Storytelling is an effective way of communicating information and knowledge, and it is widely adopted in heterogeneous contexts, from education by improving critical thinking and enhancing learning practice, to journalism by encouraging coherent stories of news supported by graphical representations. However, storytelling platforms seem to be targeted to a specific audience without showing how they can be adapted to heterogeneous needs, from class support in education to mechanisms to overcome the syndrome of the white page. In this article, we propose Novelette, a digital storytelling environment, and we show how it can be applied in heterogeneous contexts and by the different target audience. We present Novelette operating mechanisms, its architecture, and we overview different use cases, from tales creation Rodari style to data- and media-stories. By use-cases, we desire to make evident that the same platform can generate stories engaging for any target audience.

Querying Linked (Open) Data (LOD) by directly using SPARQL could be a painful task for most potential users of semantic data. Several approaches have been proposed to help users in query formulation. They succeed in hiding the underlying complexity but exploit only the monological - individual - approach. Information seeking and retrieval is not merely an individual effort, but it inherently involves various collaborative activities. For this reason, our proposal is to facilitate the exploitation of LODs by wrapping the querying and visualization tool in a social platform environment. In this way, we enable the dialogical approach. Moreover, since the users can collaboratively create datasets and visualizations, and reuse them also out of the social platform, we reach the trialogical learning. In this paper, we present our design approach, our tool, and related tests.

SUMMARY: Herein, we present CONSRANK, a web tool for analyzing, comparing and ranking protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid docking models, based on the conservation of inter-residue contacts and its visualization in 2D and 3D interactive contact maps. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: CONSRANK is accessible as a public web tool at https://www.molnac.unisa.it/BioTools/consrank/. CONTACT: [email protected].

Software that is meant to support collaboration is mostly developed “ad hoc”, placing some additional overhead to users, that are required to integrate the common work practices, realized with the traditional software applications, with the new collaborative features offered by the new application.

In this paper we present a prototyped system to enable the virtual exploration of a complex virtual environment. Our approach exploits Quest3D as main rendering engine, its output is conveyed toward users PDAs to allow them to explore using the PDA as a (mobile) interface to the virtual environment. An important aspect of the system is that it relies on an off-the-shelf PC and low end wireless network. Some early results showed that the prototype is able to easily manage 5 PDAs. Suggested fields of use of our system are virtual cultural heritage, educational virtual environments, videogames.