Towards a knowledge driven framework for bridging the gap between software and data engineering

In this paper we present a collection of ontologies specifically designed to model the information exchange needs of combined software and data engineering. Effective, collaborative integration of software and big data engineering forWeb-scale systems, is now a crucial technical and economic challenge. This requires new combined data and software engineering processes and tools. Our proposed models have been deployed to enable: tool-chain integration, such as the exchange of data quality reports; cross-domain communication, such as interlinked data and software unit testing; mediation of the system design process through the capture of design intents and as a source of context for model-driven software engineering processes. These ontologies are deployed in webscale, data-intensive, system development environments in both the commercial and academic domains. We exemplify the usage of the suite on case-studies emerging from two complex collaborative software and data engineering scenarios: one from the legal sector and the other from the Social sciences and Humanities domain

Challenges in the development of effective systems for Professional Legal Search

The key objective of an information retrieval (IR) system is to identify and return to the user content relevant or useful in addressing the information need which required them to use the system. The development and evaluation of IR systems relies on the availability of suitable datasets or test collections. These typically consist of a target document collection, example search queries representative of those that users of the system to be developed, are expected to enter, and relevance data indicating which documents in the collection are relevant to the information needed as expressed in each query. Public research in IR has focused on popular content, e.g. news corpora or web content, for which average users can pose queries expressing information needs and judge the relevance of retrieved documents. This is not the case for professional search applications, for example legal, medical, financial search where domain experts are required for these tasks. We describe our experiences from the development of a professional legal IR application employing semantic search technologies. Our activities indicate the vital need for close interaction between the professionals for which the application is being developed and the IR researchers throughout the development life cycle of the search system. Such engagement is vital in order for the IR researchers to understand the working practices of the professional searchers, the specifications of their information needs and the domain in which they are searching, and to study how they engage and interact with information. A key reason to seek to understand these topics so deeply is to facilitate meaningful evaluation of the effectiveness of IR technologies as components in the system being developed

Enabling combined software and data engineering: the ALIGNED suite of ontologies

Abstract. Effective, collaborative integration of software and big data engineering for Web-scale systems, is now a crucial technical and economic challenge. This requires new combined data and software engineering processes and tools. Semantic metadata standards and linked data principles, provide a technical grounding for such integrated systems given an appropriate model of the domain. In this paper we introduce the ALIGNED suite of ontologies specifically designed to model the information exchange needs of combined software and data engineering. The models have been deployed to enable: tool-chain integration, such as the exchange of data quality reports; cross-domain communication, such as interlinked data and software unit testing; mediation of the system design process through the capture of design intents and as a source of context for model-driven software engineering processes. These ontologies are deployed in web-scale, data-intensive, system development environments in both the commercial and academic domains. We exemplify the usage of the suite on a complex collaborative software and data engineering scenario from the legal information system domain

The connected user interface: Realizing a personal situated navigation service

Navigation services can be found in different situations and contexts: while connected to the web through a desktop PC, in cars, and more recently on PDAs while on foot. These services are usually well designed for their specific purpose, but fail to work in other situations. In this paper we present an approach that connects a variety of specialized user interfaces to achieve a personal navigation service spanning different situations. We describe the concepts behind the BPN (BMW Personal Navigator), an entirely implemented system that combines a desktop event and route planner, a car navigation system, and a multi-modal, in- and outdoor pedestrian navigation system for a PDA. Rather than designing for one unified UI, we focus on connecting specialized UIs for desktop, in-car and on-foot use

Challenges in the development of effective systems for Professional Legal Search

The key objective of an information retrieval (IR) system is to identify and return to the user content relevant or useful in addressing the information need which required them to use the system. The development and evaluation of IR systems relies on the availability of suitable datasets or test collections. These typically consist of a target document collection, example search queries representative of those that users of the system to be developed, are expected to enter, and relevance data indicating which documents in the collection are relevant to the information needed as expressed in each query. Public research in IR has focused on popular content, e.g. news corpora or web content, for which average users can pose queries expressing information needs and judge the relevance of retrieved documents. This is not the case for professional search applications, for example legal, medical, financial search where domain experts are required for these tasks. We describe our experiences from the development of a professional legal IR application employing semantic search technologies. Our activities indicate the vital need for close interaction between the professionals for which the application is being developed and the IR researchers throughout the development life cycle of the search system. Such engagement is vital in order for the IR researchers to understand the working practices of the professional searchers, the specifications of their information needs and the domain in which they are searching, and to study how they engage and interact with information. A key reason to seek to understand these topics so deeply is to facilitate meaningful evaluation of the effectiveness of IR technologies as components in the system being developed