A Nine Month Report on Progress Towards a Framework for Evaluating Advanced Search Interfaces considering Information Retrieval and Human Computer Interaction

This is a nine month progress report detailing my research into supporting users in their search for information, where the questions, results or even thei

Visualisation of semantic enrichment

Automatically creating semantic enrichments for text may lead to annotations that allow for excellent recall but poor precision. Manual enrichment is potentially more targeted, leading to greater precision. We aim to support nonexperts in manually enriching texts with semantic annotations. Neither the visualisation of semantic enrichment nor the process of manually enriching texts has been evaluated before. This paper presents the results of our user study on visualisation of text enrichment during the annotation process. We performed extensive analysis of work related to the visualisation of semantic annotations. In a prototype implementation, we then explored two layout alternatives for visualising semantic annotations and their linkage to the text atoms. Here we summarise and discuss our results and their design implications for tools creating semantic annotations

Identifying trends and flows in Communication and Information Processing by means of keyword network analysis

The purpose of this paper is to identify influential themes and knowledge flows in the area of communications and information processing and suggest trends that are likely to make (or continue making) an impact. We applied keyword network analysis on articles whose keywords match the themes of the International Conference on Communication and Information Processing, collected through the Thompson Reuters’ Web of Science and studied the articles’ thematic interconnections and their dynamics. The keyword network was found to be clustered around the themes cloud, data, mobile, security, semantic and social. Security and embeddedness are found to be the most dominant topics, common to all groups. Design and performance are key influencers of thematic flows and data mining/analysis are close to all nodes/keywords and therefore most popular. Big data, data fusion/integration and e-government are themes identified as potentially strong future influencers

Experiencing OptiqueVQS: A Multi-paradigm and Ontology-based Visual Query System for End Users

This is author's post-print version, published version available on http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10209-015-0404-5Data access in an enterprise setting is a determining factor for value creation processes, such as sense-making, decision-making, and intelligence analysis. Particularly, in an enterprise setting, intuitive data access tools that directly engage domain experts with data could substantially increase competitiveness and profitability. In this respect, the use of ontologies as a natural communication medium between end users and computers has emerged as a prominent approach. To this end, this article introduces a novel ontology-based visual query system, named OptiqueVQS, for end users. OptiqueVQS is built on a powerful and scalable data access platform and has a user-centric design supported by a widget-based flexible and extensible architecture allowing multiple coordinated representation and interaction paradigms to be employed. The results of a usability experiment performed with non-expert users suggest that OptiqueVQS provides a decent level of expressivity and high usability and hence is quite promising

From Keyword Search to Exploration: How Result Visualization Aids Discovery on the Web

A key to the Web's success is the power of search. The elegant way in which search results are returned is usually remarkably effective. However, for exploratory search in which users need to learn, discover, and understand novel or complex topics, there is substantial room for improvement. Human computer interaction researchers and web browser designers have developed novel strategies to improve Web search by enabling users to conveniently visualize, manipulate, and organize their Web search results. This monograph offers fresh ways to think about search-related cognitive processes and describes innovative design approaches to browsers and related tools. For instance, while key word search presents users with results for specific information (e.g., what is the capitol of Peru), other methods may let users see and explore the contexts of their requests for information (related or previous work, conflicting information), or the properties that associate groups of information assets (group legal decisions by lead attorney). We also consider the both traditional and novel ways in which these strategies have been evaluated. From our review of cognitive processes, browser design, and evaluations, we reflect on the future opportunities and new paradigms for exploring and interacting with Web search results

Design tools for ontology-based network communication protocols

Internet of Things has evolved quickly and reached to every aspect of our lives over the years. The number of new heterogeneous, distributed devices and applications connecting to the Internet is growing exponentially every day. As a result, data interoperability has become a prerequisite for IoT networks. However, the current infrastructures and communication protocols do not provide a convenient way for applications from different domains to interpret and process each other’s data, which is stored in vastly diversified, non-standardized formats. Due to this lack of common ground, in many cases, the integration overhead hinders organisations from exchanging their data to generate business values. Semantic technologies would be a promising solution for these issues, thanks to its ability to capture the high-level meaning of data. Asema is developing SmartAPI, a semantics-based API framework for sharing data between IoT systems. This thesis work is a part of SmartAPI project, focuses on designing and developing a data designer application. I build a single page web application with a modern graphical user interface, allowing users to create, organise and share data models