On the Role of Context and Subjectivity on Scientific Information Systems

The explicit representation of context and subjectivity enables an information system to support multiple interpretations of the data it records. This is a crucial aspect of learning and innovation within scientific information systems. We present an ontology-based framework for context and subjectivity that integrates two lines of research: data provenance and ontological foundations of the Semantic Web. Data provenance provides a set of constructs for representing data history. We extend the definition of these constructs in order to describe multiple viewpoints or interpretations held within a domain. The W7 model, the Toulmin model, and the Proof Markup Language (PML) provide the Interlingua for creating multiple viewpoints of data in a machine-readable and sharable form. Example use cases in space sciences are used to demonstrate the feasibility and value of our approach

Uncovering the structure of hypergraphs through tensor decomposition: an application to folksonomy analysis

Folksonomies - shared vocabularies generated by users through collective annotation (tagging) of web-based content, which are formally hypergraphs connecting users, tags and objects, are beginning to play an increasingly important role in social media. Effective use of folksonomies for organizing and locating web content, discovering and organizing user communities in order to facilitate the contact and collaboration between users who share parts of their interests and attitudes calls for effective methods for discovering coherent groupings of users, objects, and tags. We empirically compare the results of several folksonomy clustering methods using tensor decompositions such as PARAFAC, Tucker3 and HOSVD which are generalizations of principal component analysis and singular value decomposition with standard methods that use 2-dimensional projections of the original 3-way relationships. Our results suggest that the proposed methods overcome some of the limitations of 2-way decomposition methods in clustering folksonomies

An Approach for Intention-Driven, Dialogue-Based Web Search

Web search engines facilitate the achievement of Web-mediated tasks, including information retrieval, Web page navigation, and online transactions. These tasks often involve goals that pertain to multiple topics, or domains. Current search engines are not suitable for satisfying complex, multi-domain needs due to their lack of interactivity and knowledge. This thesis presents a novel intention-driven, dialogue-based Web search approach that uncovers and combines users\u27 multi-domain goals to provide helpful virtual assistance. The intention discovery procedure uses a hierarchy of Partially Observable Markov Decision Process-based dialogue managers and a backing knowledge base to systematically explore the dialogue\u27s information space, probabilistically refining the perception of user goals. The search approach has been implemented in IDS, a search engine for online gift shopping. A usability study comparing IDS-based searching with Google-based searching found that the IDS-based approach takes significantly less time and effort, and results in higher user confidence in the retrieved results

Towards Collaborative Environments for Ontology Construction and Sharing

Ontologies that explicitly identify objects, properties, and relationships of interest in specific domains of inquiry are essential for collaborations that involve sharing of data, knowledge, or resources (e.g., web services) among autonomous individuals or groups in open environments. In such a setting, there is a need for software that supports collaboration among groups with different expertise in developing complex ontologies, selective sharing of parts of existing ontologies, and construction of application or domain specific ontologies from a collection of available ontology modules. Against this background, this paper motivates the need for collaborative environments for ontology construction, sharing, and usage; identifies the desiderata of such environments; and proposes package based description logics (P-DL) that extend classic description logic (DL) based ontology languages to support modularity and (selective) knowledge hiding. In P-DL, each ontology consists of packages (or modules) with well-defined interfaces. Each package encapsulates a closely related set of terms and relations between terms. Together, these terms and relations represent the ontological commitments about a small, coherent part of the universe of discourse. Packages can be hierarchically nested, thereby imposing an organizational structure on the ontology. Package-based ontologies also allow creators of packages to exert control over the visibility of each term or relation within the package thereby allowing the selective sharing (or conversely, hiding) of ontological commitments captured by a package.</p

Towards collaborative environments for ontology construction and sharing

Abstract. Ontologies that explicitly identify objects, properties, and relationships of interest in specific domains of inquiry are essential for collaborations that involve sharing of data, knowledge, or resources (e.g., web services) among autonomous individuals or groups in open environments. In such a setting, there is a need for software that supports collaboration among groups with different expertise in developing complex ontologies, selective sharing of parts of existing ontologies, and construction of application or domain specific ontologies from a collection of available ontology modules. Against this background, this paper motivates the need for collaborative environments for ontology construction, sharing, and usage; identifies the desiderata of such environments; and proposes package based description logics (P-DL) that extend classic description logic (DL) based ontology languages to support modularity and (selective) knowledge hiding. In P-DL, each ontology consists of packages (or modules) with well-defined interfaces. Each package encapsulates a closely related set of terms and relations between terms. Together, these terms and relations represent the ontological commitments about a small, coherent part of the universe of discourse. Packages can be hierarchically nested, thereby imposing an organizational structure on the ontology. Package-based ontologies also allow creators of packages to exert control over the visibility of each term or relation within the package thereby allowing the selective sharing (or conversely, hiding) of ontological commitments captured by a package.

Towards Collaborative Environments for Ontology Construction and Sharing

relationships in specific domains are essential for collaborations that involve sharing of data, knowledge, or resources among autonomous individuals. Against this background, this paper motivates the need for collaborative environments for ontology construction, sharing, and usage; identifies the desiderata of such environments; and proposes package based description logics (P-DL) that extend classic description logic (DL) based ontology languages to support modularity and (selective) knowledge hiding. In P-DL, each ontology consists of packages (or modules) with well-defined interfaces. Each package encapsulates a closely related set of terms and relations between terms. Together, these terms and relations represent the ontological commitments about a small, coherent part of the universe of discourse. Packages can be hierarchically nested, thereby imposing an organizational structure on the ontology. Package-based ontologies also allow creators of packages to exert control over the visibility of each term or relation within the package thereby allowing the selective sharing (or conversely, hiding) of ontological commitments captured by a package