Intelligentes Faktenretrieval am Beispiel der Werkstoffinformation

In this paper, we describe the need for intelligent retrieval components in materials information systems. Starting from an object-oriented tool-based retrieval interface, three modules for intelligent query support are presented: WING-GRAPH, a facility allowing for direct manipulation based graphical retrieval exploiting the cognitive abilities involved in graphical thinking and interpretation of numerical information, fuzzy-WING, a module for representing vague knowledge about materials properties used for query interpretation and a user model designed for reducing the complexity of the user interface by utilizing knowledge about user interests in data. These components are justified by an empirical analysis of the application domain based on different user tests carried out with research prototypes in the WING-IIR project. They all exploit application specific knowledge in addition to the underlying database itself.