Search Enhancement with Adaptive Thesaurus and Ontology Resources

The lack of suitable data structures and ranking mechanisms hinder the effective utilization of semantic repositories in operational scientific and technical retrieval systems. Such systems could greatly benefit from semantic knowledge to improve the recall and precision of search queries. This project will create rich semantic networks that can be interfaced with search engines to enhance query formulation and increase the precision and recall of better organized search results. In Phase I, a prototype Energy Semantic Network was developed and integrated with a state-of-the-art meta-search and discovery engine that organizes the search results into meaningful semantic clusters to facilitate exploration and new discoveries. Phase II will create a capability to adaptively augment the Energy Semantic Network with new concepts and relationships. Then, the Energy Semantic Network will be tested, evaluated, and interfaced with DOE retrieval systems. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The new semantic network technology should improve the quality and usefulness of search results from scientific and technical databases. In addition to the DOE application, the semantic network technology could be adapted to other scientific domains and technology applications