Kplus-Projects 2007

APA Labs

The Austria Presse Agentur (APA) provides a range of services in the area of news media. For example, the generic APA PowerSearch technology provides customers with manifold search facilities, and APA also offers individual information services like press reviews, media feedback and news diffusion analysis.

Although each of these media worlds provides different types of knowledge they are all interrelated by the articles they are based on. Efficient homogenised access possibilities have to be found to enable users of APA DeFacto to benefit from the whole potential of media worlds, with special regard to the specific needs of individual users.

The goal of the project is to create an environment which faciliates fast developing of new access methods and metaphors and where the reactions of the Early Adopter Community can be analyzed with regard to the new access possibilities. In addition to the develoment of prototypes to standardize the accesses it is also of great importance to establish a community including the necessary technical infrastructure in order to consider different groups of users.

The resultung technical infrastructure should provide an environment similar to a laboratory where the developed prototypes are made available to a selected number of users (Early Adopter) in forms of beta versions.

By analyzing how the users react to the different access possibilities the quality and the usability of the developed prototypes can be estimated and if applicable converted into a quality proof APA DeFacto service. Possible communication media for the community are blogs, forums and wikis.

In addition to the technical challenge of creating such a virtual laboratory, social aspects and group dynamics have to be considered.

Analysing semantic quality of collectivly created knowledge

A buzzword in the Web 2.0 community is collective intelligence. Folksonomies, i.e., collectively created descriptions of different resources, as well as Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia, owe their success a huge community that creates and maintains information and knowledge within these existing structures. Naturally, these communities possess a high potential regarding the amount of output in contrast to common editorial offices. However, after the recent emergence of misinformation, the quality of knowledge, that is mostly created by laymen, is questioned.

The objective of the project at hand is the qualitative analysis of collectively created knowledge.

Different approaches, e.g., methods of psychology, have been used to tackle the problem. This project, however, attemps to incorporate well-known algorithms of computer science. Various statistical and mining algorithms are used to analyse the quality of collectively created text passages. Additionally the application of genetic algorithms to simulate the community is conceivable. The idea behind genetic algorithms, i.e., use evolutional strategies to survive, could be advantageous when simulating communities. Thus consequences of collectively created knowledge and the misinformation that is contained in that knowlege might be estimated. The results of the analysis shall aid to point out alternatives to support and improve knowledge that has been collectively created.

AutoFX 2007

Brockhaus Planetarium 07

In 2006 a software component enabling visualisation of astronomical information was developed and integrated into the product ”Brockhaus Multimedial”. This component provides many functions for interactive navigation and exploration of diverse celestial objects. The goal of the project is to extend the existing functionality with with several new features while adressing a number of known issues. In the area of user-interaction new navigation concepts, as for example a scaled overview of objects in the solar system, should be should be designed and implemented. Based on feedback provided by users, positioning of observers at arbitrary locations on Earth, Moon and Mars will be integrated. Precision and capabilities of the underlying computational model will be enhanced to enable simulation of complex astronomical events like occultations and eclipses.

Competitive Intelligence

The management of property rights is highly important due to the significance of the research and development activities in industry.

The patent search returns information which is crucial for the innovation process, making it an integral part of the research and development activity. Patents contain strategic information concerning technology trends and emerging technologies. They represent sources of knowledge for topics surrounding the Competitive Intelligence and for positioning in the area of competition.

On the one hand wrong or incomplete search results are expensive (resulting in unnecessary innovation processes, submission of patents to already existing technologies, etc.), while on the other hand patent search and analysis are themselves time and resource consuming (due to reading time and iterative procedures). Special knowledge is required for assessment of the technical content which results in increased necessity for coordination between the specialized client department and the patent department (provider). There is always a risk of redundantly gathering and compiling knowledge and of not utilizing already acquired knowledge.

Graph Mining and visual analysis of graphs

Relations between information objects represent a valuable source of knowledge and information. Special algorithms taking these relations into account, are necessary to exploit this new knowledge.

The application areas are diverse, ranging from ranking of retrieval results to social network analysis, to name a few. The described project is a first step to Knowledge Relationship Discovery and is meant to analyse prospects in this application area.

The objective in this area of research is the developement of methods to explore information spaces that are respresented as graphs. A Ressource Description Framework (RDF) repository can be regarded as an example of an information space. The project sets work on the analysis of possible use cases in order to find potential application areas and to refine the research questions. In addition an overview of possible methods and techniques is developed. Besides mere mining algorithms representation and navigation possibilities in information spaces are to be examined as well. The main issue here is the visual deduction of knowledge carried out by user. For that purpose algorithms that stem from the area of visual analytics are applied. The accuracy, the useability and the application possibilities in dynamic environments serve as evaluation criteria for the implemented techniques.

iMarket 2007

Web 2.0, Social Software, Collective Intelligence and Service oriented Architectures are big trends in the "new" web's development. There are arising many new possibilities for the development, the application and utilization of content and services. The goal of this project is to apply some of these techniques to the field of Innovation Management and develop an Online Community Platform. Some results of the preceding years's projects Neurovation and iMarket 2006 such as an Online-Creativitytool and a first prototype of an Innovation-Marketplace will be used. The platform will be progressively enhanced; Other Methods (Knowledge Services and new Technologies) regarding Community aspects will further be implemented, systematically evaluated, and the community content will be analysed.

Lexical News Mash-up

The emergence of Web 2.0 and according applications, as for example Google News, has emphasized the trend to combine services in so-called mash-ups. Applications based on mash-ups make data and services originating from multiple providers available to users through a single point of access. The quality of the particular services increases via embedding of useful functions of other providers. Both APA DeFacto and Brockhaus Duden Neue Medien are providers of different but complementory services in the net. While APA DeFacto provides daily news and newspapers, Brockhaus offers detailed information, collected by experts beforehand. The scope of this project is devising, implementiung and evaluating mash-ups which provide users with services based on both partner's contents.

LexiScout 2007

LexiScout is an extension for Internet Explorer and Firefox that was developed in 2006. With LexiScout it is possible to search in selected Brockhaus data sources both - online (e.g. xipolis.net and Brockhaus online) and locally on the user's computer (e.g. Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, Brockhaus Multimedial, Office Bibliothek).

LexiScout leverages the popularity of the search engine Google. During a regular Google search LexiScout uses the search terms to perform a LexiScout-search and replaces the Google-ADs with LexiScout-results. The benefit for the user is that he gets encyclopaedical information beside the regular search results from Google.

MyEDB 2007

Searching within large data sets commonly leads to large result sets because of the large amount of matching documents. This is often exaggerated by fuzzy or imprecise queries and usually lead to a lower user acceptance level. By adding metadata to the scope of the information retrieval process the quality of a search result can be greatly improved.

Especially faceted metadata that provide different distinct views to the document base can be utilized to create results sets that better align with the users expectations. The information contained in these kind of metadata can then also be used as visual guidance for the user to quickly find the most relevant search hits.

Semantic analysis of social software environments with multimedia content (SASU)

Semantic orchestration of knowledge discovery services

The goal of service oriented architectures (SOA) is to provide loose coupled services for an easy usage within applications. The KnowMiner framework has been developed as such a service oriented architecture to provide knowledge discovery tasks as services. However, a problem of SOA’s is the orchestration of services. For complex tasks it is hard to find the correct services and in which order they need to be put together.

To avoid errors during the orchestration process and to provide automatically service chains for solving complex tasks, the usage of semantic technologies is examined. Our goal is to establish a technological infrastructure allowing an easy and efficient orchestration of services using semantic technologies, i.e. OWL-S. Complex user task should be decomposed into the correct processing steps and assigned to the correct services. This allows users to solve complex tasks without having detailed knowledge of internal system behaviour.

Storage & Retrieval Framework for semantic data

TDSP/I2F Linux

In the past TDSP/I2F and the Know-Center have successfully collaborated in designing learning resources for MOS (Microsoft Office Specialist) and MOSE (Microsoft Office Specialist Expert).

Target of this project is to adapt the results from former projects to the necessities of the Linux operating system. In parallel strategies for TDSP/ I2F are to be developed especially with respect to the future target group for TDSP/ I2F’s offerings. Know-Center’s results from research in the field of “Workplace Learning” shall be considered as well as concepts from the “Trainer Academy”, which has also been developed for TDSP/ I2F under the aegis of the Know-Center in 2004.

TDSP/I2F Vista IC3

TDSP/I2F and the Know-Center are planning to research into how to adapt existing learning material for Windows XP into material that fits for Windows Vista.

Several constraints need to be considered in order to come to didactical and technical concept for Windows Vista. First of all, it needs to be investigated how the certifications according to IC3 (Internet and Computing Core Certification), MOS (Microsoft Office Specialist) and MOSE (Microsoft Office Specialist Expert) have changed over the last years.

Then it needs to investigated how the operating Windows itself as well as the essential applications (Office and other components) have changed from Windows XP to Vista.

Target of this year’s project is to come to a sound and consistent course program, which is compliant with the IC3 certification. A didactical and technical concept shall be developed and prototypically designed. As always in the long-lasting collaboration between TDSP/I2F and the Know-Center, results from work executed in the last years will be incorporated into the current approaches. This includes (but is not limited to) Know-Center’s research results with respect to “Workplace Learning” and the “Trainer Academy”.

The Concept of a High Performance Workplace (HPW)

The goal of this project was to develop a concept of a portal solution for the business area “Business Solutions” of the Telekom Austria. The solution indented to provide a central access point to the required information in the “Sales Process” (Presales, Sales/Distribution, Fulfillment) for all the employees of the Business Solutions (>550 employees). Based on an outline of the “High Performance Workplace” (short HPW) the application areas and the spheres of action of the HPW were elaborated via 24 expert interviews. The requirements of the HPW were developed through a scenario based approach in several workshops. In cooperation with the core project team (8 members of the Telekom Austria Business Solutions) the scenarios were ranked and further particularized in a success oriented manner. The vision of the HPW resulted in an integrated portal solution that should cover amongst others the following areas: internal and external communication, document- and project management and workflow support. The round off the project consisted of the definition of a technical specification that includes the elaborated scenarios and the corresponding functional requirements. A comprehensive set of interactive mock-ups were developed to provide a visual simulation of the capability and functionality the HPW.