WISDOM: Web Intelligent Search based on DOMain ontologies

The huge amount of data and services available on the Web requires the development of systems that, overcome the "information overloading" problem of traditional search engines. In particular, there is the need of developing novel tools for the integration, the localization and the customizable fruition of informative resources which allow the clients to "recharge" with interesting data. WISDOM goal is to develop intelligent techniques and tools, based on domain ontologies, to perform effective and efficient information search on the WEB. In particular, we aim at developing systems for retrieving information both from data-intensive and unstructured site/web pages, in an integrated and efficient way. The project will be articulated in three synergic and complementary themes and will define a reference methodological and functional architecture in order to ensure compatibility of the solutions offered by the three themes. The goal of Theme1(Creation and extension of a domain ontology) is the study and development of solutions to represent the semantics of the contents of Web sources. The goal of Theme2 (Emergent Semantics: Discovering semantic mappings among domain ontologies) is the study and development of techniques and tools to support identification, discovery and storage of semantic mappings among domain ontologies. The investigated semantic mappings will support the rewriting of a query with respect to more ontologies and will be based on language semantics, lexical chains and logic inferences. The goal of Theme3 (Query processing) is the development of techniques for searching information, exploiting the semantic infrastructure developed within Themes 2 and 3. Efficient and effective query processing mechanisms, considering data/sites hetereogeneity and constraints imposed by the distributed environment, will be developed. In particular, these techniques will rely on sources characterization to individuate useful sources, solve rewriting problems and integrate results from different sources.
The issues addressed in WISDOM are relevant with a high applicative and industrial impact able to effectively exploit the potentialities of the Web.
4 units coming from different universities participate to the project, with 18 professors and researchers (for a total of 137 man-months), 7 PhD (72 man-months) and external people under contract (86 man-months). The total cost of the project is 393500 Euro, with 135500 Euro set aside for external people. The units involved in the project have a long experience in collaborations in both national and international projects. The project management will be guaranteed by a coordinator for each theme, who will cooperate with the project leader, with the aim of monitoring relative progress. A collegiate meeting is expected at the end of each of the three phases in which the project is articulated. Project results will be both of scientific-methodological nature, documented through a series of technical reports, and implementative, in the form of prototype tools. Methods and tools proposed in the project will be validated through experimental activity.