Information self-organization for knowledge discovery

We describe new graphical user interfaces, used to facilitate navigation in information spaces. Operational use, and usability studies, are described and/or referenced. We next examine burgeoning needs in linking together on the one hand information backends and information streams; and on the other hand user needs and information representation platforms. This leads to a discussion of future perspectives in regard to middleware. Finally we overview an innovative approach to information characterization or filtering. Information retrieval by means of “semantic road maps” was first detailed in Doyle (1961). The spatial metaphor is powerful one in human information processing. The spatial metaphor also lends itself well to modern distributed computing environment such as the web. The Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) method is an effective means towards this end of a visual information retrieval user interface. We will also provide below an illustration of web-based semantic maps based on hyperlink clustering