“A robot with this ability will be able to interact semantically with the world. It will then also be able to interact better with us because it is able to have a common semantic model of the world with us,” said Siddhartha Srinivasa, director of the lab. Many hurdles have been successfully handled, but there are always more. Srinivasa and colleagues found that adding domain knowledge to the video input nearly tripled the number of objects the robot could discover, and reduced computer processing time by a factor of 190. Next up is labeling those objects.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.

This interesting topic was found on 7th Space Interactive in their article, ”Communicate to vaccinate”: the development of a taxonomy of communication interventions to improve routine childhood vaccination.”

How the content is classified impacts the findability of your data. Professionals should look for an experienced builder of solid standards-based taxonomies to associate content for appropriate machine-assisted indexing. Access Innovations can provide solutions that are ANSI compliant.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

Andrew Olney, a programmer at the University of Memphis, and David Hanson, an independent roboticist, are the architects of this challenge. They are using the “Facial Action Coding System” to give the head lifelike expressions; using “Latent Semantic Analysis” to allow it to respond to questions by drawing on a vast bank of Dick’s writings and interviews; and creating polymer “Frubber” to look like skin. It is exciting and just a little frightening to see how advanced this project has become.

This very interesting information was found on The Wall Street Journal in their article, “We Can Build You.”

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.

Reportedly, the Amarakosha was almost lost to posterity. As the story goes, Amara heard of a highly respected philosopher who was traveling and wanted to engage in debate with him. Amara freaked out and burned his manuscripts to avoid the other philosopher’s scrutiny. Fortunately, the visiting philosopher snatched the thesaurus from the flames. So now, Indian schoolchildren learn to recite the verses of the Amarakosha from memory. And Sanskrit scholars still study the text.

Jumping way ahead, we inevitably encounter Roget’s Thesaurus written in 1805 and first published in 1852 as the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. (The full title was actually Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition.) The Roget behind the thesaurus was Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), a British physician who battled depression by making lists, including the thesaurus.

As most of you know, Roget’s Thesaurus is still being updated and published on a frequent basis, and is widely used by writers. What you might not realize is that it is hierarchical to several levels, and so may be regarded as a classification system. In fact, according to the Wikipedia webpage on Roget’s Thesaurus, “The Wikipedia “category schemes” … are based on the classification system of Roget’s Thesaurus, as evidenced by the outline from the 1911 US edition.” This puts Roget’s in the tradition of hierarchical classification systems that are also thesauri. The practice is so predominant that “thesaurus” now generally means a taxonomy with synonyms (along with other annotations and relationships).

The computer age brought further developments, many of which we’ve covered elsewhere in this series. One area of development was that of guidelines and standards to promote successful information retrieval. And one major landmark in that area was the set of guidelines created by the Committee on Scientific and Technical Information (COSATI) of the Federal Council on Science and Technology (which evolved into CENDI). COSATI developed the guidelines in conjunction with creation of the Thesaurus of Engineering and Scientific Terms (TEST), published in 1967. Except for a DuPont thesaurus from the 1950s that was not widely disseminated, TEST may have been the first thesaurus created with the goal of computer-based information retrieval.

Since TEST, numerous thesauri, large and small, have been developed for information retrieval. National and international guidelines and standards have emerged. And new technologies, formats, and methodologies for creating connections among terms have appeared. It’s a brave new world.

Marjorie M.K. Hlava, President Access Innovations

Note: The above posting is one of a series based on a presentation, The Theory of Knowledge, given at the Data Harmony Users Group meeting in February of 2011. The presentation covered the theory of knowledge as it relates to search and taxonomies.

By using humans instead of semantic analysis for this research, the researchers were able to ensure a higher level of quality and preciseness. This approach was interesting and the results equally so. Take time to look at the map. It is somewhat sobering.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

This different approach not only makes it seem less mechanical, it allows for a more symbiotic and flexible search. There are also plans to provide a voice search option.

An important part of any search strategy, whether it be enterprise, intranet, or Internet, is to index the content against a strong taxonomy. Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ISO/ANSI/NISO compliant taxonomies to produce comprehensive results.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

This digital platform is accessible to the public, with over 9,000 health, environment, and climate science sources of data to search and find.

MATCH can aid in making information available to researchers, scientists, and the public alike, to aid in research, inform, and educate.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.

There is no limit as to the criteria by which we organize data. Your descriptors can include genre, subject, identify visual clues, geographic and time spatial clues, as well as synonyms. Search results can be enhanced by the clues we leave on the data.

Another tool that enhances your search experience is a taxonomy. A strong standards-based taxonomy is one with true integrity. Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ANSI/ISO/W3C-compliant taxonomies.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.

State archivist Janet Prowse told the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee that the metadata – an online index containing detailed descriptions of the inquiry documents, including surveillance reports and operation targets – was easily found. “A researcher with basic web searching skills would be able to find and locate metadata,” Ms. Prowse said.

This intriguing information was brought to our attention by The Australian News in their article, “Sensitive information from Fitzgerald Inquiry available to anyone with basic web skills, hearing told.”

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.

Colectica 4.1 is available now for both software evaluation and to current customers. Colectica offers several software tools: Colectica Designer, Colectica Repository, and Colectica Portal. All of these use open standards to allow for interoperability with other tools.

One of the greatest advantages in contributing to open source is the ability to collaborate with a diverse, enthusiastic community.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.