Enhancing engineering information retrieval using semantics-encoding technologies

This proposal concerns the practical application of emerging semantics-encoding technologies to enhance the retrieval of electronic information, from an engineering context. Semantics-encoding involves the linguistic content and the structural content of documents. Linguistic content is the principal means by which meaning is conveyed. It includes the subject content but also information that places the subject contents into meaningful context (an example of this might be the grammatical style and the authority of the author). The structural content of the document includes its layout and typography. Implicit in these two elements of a document are 'cues' which help a human reader identify document type intuitively. In practice this might, for example, signify the fact that the document is a product design specification. Within each of these classes are elements or components that provide meaning which are used as semantic cues. Once identified, these can be used as a basis for semantics-encoding. The research will combine methods established in library science and classification with web-based developments in semantic mark-up and meta-data standards, with the purpose of supporting the practising engineer by enhancing active information searching and passive information delivery.