Techniques for organizational memory information systems

The KnowMore project aims at providing active support to humans working on knowledge-intensive tasks. To this end the knowledge available in the modeled business processes or their incarnations in specific workflows shall be used to improve information handling. We present a representation formalism for knowledge-intensive tasks and the specification of its object-oriented realization. An operational semantics is sketched by specifying the basic functionality of the Knowledge Agent which works on the knowledge intensive task representation. The Knowledge Agent uses a meta-level description of all information sources available in the Organizational Memory. We discuss the main dimensions that such a description scheme must be designed along, namely information content, structure, and context. On top of relational database management systems, we basically realize deductive object- oriented modeling with a comfortable annotation facility. The concrete knowledge descriptions are obtained by configuring the generic formalism with ontologies which describe the required modeling dimensions. To support the access to documents, data, and formal knowledge in an Organizational Memory an integrated domain ontology and thesaurus is proposed which can be constructed semi-automatically by combining document-analysis and knowledge engineering methods. Thereby the costs for up-front knowledge engineering and the need to consult domain experts can be considerably reduced. We present an automatic thesaurus generation tool and show how it can be applied to build and enhance an integrated ontology /thesaurus. A first evaluation shows that the proposed method does indeed facilitate knowledge acquisition and maintenance of an organizational memory

New IR & Ranking Algorithm for Top-K Keyword Search on Relational Databases ‘Smart Search’

Database management systems are as old as computers, and the continuous research and development in databases is huge and an interest of many database venders and researchers, as many researchers work in solving and developing new modules and frameworks for more efficient and effective information retrieval based on free form search by users with no knowledge of the structure of the database. Our work as an extension to previous works, introduces new algorithms and components to existing databases to enable the user to search for keywords with high performance and effective top-k results. Work intervention aims at introducing new table structure for indexing of keywords, which would help algorithms to understand the semantics of keywords and generate only the correct CN‟s (Candidate Networks) for fast retrieval of information with ranking of results according to user‟s history, semantics of keywords, distance between keywords and match of keywords. In which a three modules where developed for this purpose. We implemented our three proposed modules and created the necessary tables, with the development of a web search interface called „Smart Search‟ to test our work with different users. The interface records all user interaction with our „Smart Search‟ for analyses, as the analyses of results shows improvements in performance and effective results returned to the user. We conducted hundreds of randomly generated search terms with different sizes and multiple users; all results recorded and analyzed by the system were based on different factors and parameters. We also compared our results with previous work done by other researchers on the DBLP database which we used in our research. Our final result analysis shows the importance of introducing new components to the database for top-k keywords search and the performance of our proposed system with high effective results.نظم إدارة قواعد البيانات قديمة مثل أجيزة الكمبيوتر، و البحث والتطوير المستمر في قواعد بيانات ضخم و ىنالك اىتمام من العديد من مطوري قواعد البيانات والباحثين، كما يعمل العديد من الباحثين في حل وتطوير وحدات جديدة و أطر السترجاع المعمومات بطرق أكثر كفاءة وفعالية عمى أساس نموذج البحث الغير مقيد من قبل المستخدمين الذين ليس لدييم معرفة في بنية قاعدة البيانات. ويأتي عممنا امتدادا لألعمال السابقة، ويدخل الخوارزميات و مكونات جديدة لقواعد البيانات الموجودة لتمكين المستخدم من البحث عن الكممات المفتاحية )search Keyword )مع األداء العالي و نتائج فعالة في الحصول عمى أعمى ترتيب لمبيانات .)Top-K( وييدف ىذا العمل إلى تقديم بنية جديدة لفيرسة الكممات المفتاحية )Table Keywords Index ،)والتي من شأنيا أن تساعد الخوارزميات المقدمة في ىذا البحث لفيم معاني الكممات المفتاحية المدخمة من قبل المستخدم وتوليد فقط الشبكات المرشحة (s’CN (الصحيحة السترجاع سريع لممعمومات مع ترتيب النتائج وفقا ألوزان مختمفة مثل تاريخ البحث لممستخدم، ترتيب الكمات المفتاحية في النتائج والبعد بين الكممات المفتاحية في النتائج بالنسبة لما قام المستخدم بأدخالو. قمنا بأقتراح ثالث مكونات جديدة )Modules )وتنفيذىا من خالل ىذه االطروحة، مع تطوير واجية البحث عمى شبكة اإلنترنت تسمى "البحث الذكي" الختبار عممنا مع المستخدمين. وتتضمن واجية البحث مكونات تسجل تفاعل المستخدمين وتجميع تمك التفاعالت لمتحميل والمقارنة، وتحميالت النتائج تظير تحسينات في أداء استرجاع البينات و النتائج ذات صمة ودقة أعمى. أجرينا مئات عمميات البحث بأستخدام جمل بحث تم أنشائيا بشكل عشوائي من مختمف األحجام، باالضافة الى االستعانة بعدد من المستخدمين ليذه الغاية. واستندت جميع النتائج المسجمة وتحميميا بواسطة واجية البحث عمى عوامل و معايير مختمفة .وقمنا بالنياية بعمل مقارنة لنتائجنا مع االعمال السابقة التي قام بيا باحثون آخرون عمى نفس قاعدة البيانات (DBLP (الشييرة التي استخدمناىا في أطروحتنا. وتظير نتائجنا النيائية مدى أىمية أدخال بنية جديدة لفيرسة الكممات المفتاحية الى قواعد البيانات العالئقية، وبناء خوارزميات استنادا الى تمك الفيرسة لمبحث بأستخدام كممات مفتاحية فقط والحصول عمى نتائج أفضل ودقة أعمى، أضافة الى التحسن في وقت البحث

Collaborative software agents support for the texpros document management system

This dissertation investigates the use of active rules that are embedded in markup documents. Active rules are used in a markup representation by integrating Collaborative Software Agents with TEXPROS (abbreviation for TEXt PROcessing System) [Liu and Ng 1996] to create a powerful distributed document management system. Such markup documents with embedded active rules are called Active Documents. For fast retrieval purposes, when we need to generate a customized Internet folder organization, we first define the Folder Organization Query Language (FO-QL) to solve data categorization problems. FO-QL defines the folder organization query process that automatically retrieves links of documents deposited into folders and then constructs a folder organization in either a centralized document repository or multiple distributed document repositories. Traditional documents are stored as static data that do not provide any dynamic capabilities for accessing or interacting with the document environment. The dynamic and distributed nature of both markup data and markup rules do not merely respond to requests for information, but intelligently anticipate, adapt, and actively seek ways to support the computing processes. This outcome feature conquers the static nature of the traditional documents. An Office Automation Definition Language (OADL) with active rules is defined for constructing the TEXPROS \u27s dual modeling approach and workflow events representation. Active Documents are such agent-supported OADL documents. With embedded rules and self-describing data features, Active Documents provide capability of collaborative interactions with software agents. Data transformation and data integration are both data processing problems but little research has focused on the markup documents to generate a versatile folder organization. Some of the research merely provides manual browsing in a document repository to find the right document. This browsing is time consuming and unrealistic, especially in multiple document repositories. With FO-QL, one can create a customized folder organization on demand

SQL/XNF - processing composite objects as abstractions over relational data

An extension to SQL, called the SQL extended normal form (XNF), is discussed. It enhances relational technology by a composite object facility, which comprises not only extraction of composite objects from existing databases but also efficient navigation and manipulation facilities provided by an appropriate application programming interface. The language itself allows sharing of the database among normal form SQL applications and composite object applications. It provides proper subsetting of the database and subsequent structuring, exploiting subobject sharing and recursion, all based on its powerful composite object constructor concept, which is closed under the language operations. XNF is integrated into the relational framework, thus benefiting from the available technology such as relational engine and query optimization

Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications