The Information Furnace is a basement-installed PC-type device that integrates existing consumer home-control, infotainment, security, and communication technologies to transparently provide user-friendly access and value-added services. A modern home contains a large number of sophisticated devices and technologies. Access to these devices is currently provided through a wide variety of dispar...

This article describes the architecture and design principles of IkeWiki, a Semantic Wiki we developed at Salzburg Research. Outstanding features of IkeWiki are its support for collaborative knowledge engineering, its ease of use, its support for different levels of formalisation ranging from informal texts to formal ontologies, and its sophisticated, interactive user interface.

Virtual endoscopy has recently arisen as a powerful diagnostic tool for examining the interior structures of bronchus, colon, and etc. In contrast to optical endoscopy that is invasive, virtual endoscopy is non-invasive and thus it is comfortable to patients. In addition, while the optical endoscopy enables observers to examine the hollow structures in the direction that the camera moves, the v...

Information Retrieval Systems normally deal with keyword-based technologies. Although those systems reach satisfactory results, they aren’t able to answer more complex queries done by users, especially those directly in natural language. To do that, there are the Knowledge-Based Systems, which use ontologies to represent the knowledge embedded in texts. Currently, the construction of ontologies...

The paper describes two methods for realizing a user-friendly access to distributed information ressources. The rst method (Method I) is based on a form-driven dialogue, which is used in the project named "MEDOC". It aims at an experienced user who is familiar with attribute value structures of the data base schemes of typical information retrieval systems (IRS) and who knows the de nition of b...

We sketch the HIPPOLYTOS and the KOIOS system prototypes for simple, keyword-based search in structured environmental data. Built on top of a commercial Spatial Data Warehouse software, the prototypes apply lightweight Semantic Web techniques to facilitate search in complex environmental information systems.

Recently the Ontology Mapping Problem (OMP) has been identified as a key factor towards the success of the Semantic Web and related applications. This problem arises since it is possible for different people to give, through ontologies, different conceptualizations of the same (or overlapping) knowledge domain. In order to tackle the OMP several algorithms have been designed. They aim at discov...

Jeanette Davis is a senior economist in the Branch of Research and Program Development, Division of Consumer Expenditure Surveys, Bureau of Labor Statistics. LINDA STINSON NHIEN TO JEANETTE DAVIS Interest in American expenditures has a long history dating back to the late 1800s, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) first looked at the economic welfare of our early immigrants. Today, BLS is...