Dez 23 2009

KiWi Prototype Release 0.7 (Milestone 3)

Published by wastl at 13:24 under KIWI, Semantic Web, Social Software

Development activity in the last months has been so active that we didn’t manage to issue a KiWi release of acceptable stability. Now we are very proud to announce the availability of the next prototype prerelease! The changes and new features are too abundant to name them all (you can get a list of fixed issues in the Jira Changelog for version 0.7). Here are the highlights:

  • Reasoning. This is the first release to include KiWi’s rule-based reasoner. The reasoner applies rules to triples in the triple store and allows to infer new triples based on this information. Rules can currently only be specified by developers (in a file called rules.txt), but we intend to open this to advanced users of the KiWi system. Evaluation is currently forward chaining with reason maintenance. Reason maintenance can also be used to “explain” to the user why certain triples have been inferred. This is for example visible in the “References” widget of the wiki when hovering the mouse over an inferred relation. The reasoning component has been implemented by Jakub Kotowski at the University of Munich.
  • Querying. The 0.7 KiWi release also for the first time features the new and innovative querying component called “KWQL”. KWQL is an advanced query language that can be used as a replacement for the normal KiWi semantic search. It allows advanced query constructs for querying the structure of KiWi content in a simple-to-use language. KWQL also offers a visual query editor for composing queries. KWQL can be accessed by issuing an ordinary search and then clicking on “KWQL” besides the search input field. KWQL has been implemented by Klara Weiand and Steffen Hausmann at the University of Munich.
  • Information Extraction. The 0.7 release of KiWi has also included a variety of different information extraction technologies (and more to come!) based on GATE and Semantic Vectors. For the moment, information extraction can be used for tag recommendation and recommendation of related articles. Using GATE, English or German texts can be analyzed and more precise tag recommendations can be made. Information extraction has been integrated by Marek Schmidt at the Technical University of Brno.
  • Personalized Search. KiWi also now includes an option to personalize the search results based on the previous tagging activity of the user and the tags associated with the search results. To access personalized search, simply click on the “personalized search” checkbox in the search interface. Note that personalized search requires that you already have some information in your user profile (primarily  tagging behavious). Personalized Search has been implemented by Fred Durao at the University of Aalborg.
  • Community Equity. Release 0.7 is also the first KiWi version to have Sun’s Community Equity algorithm integrated in the system. Community Equity is an algorithm that tries to determin the “social value” of information in a collaborative system by tracking how much interest is generated about a certain item. Community Equity is pretty sophisticated, featuring also an aging algorithm that avoids reputation being built up ad infinitum. Community Equity has been implemented by the Community Equity team at Sun (Josef, Dimitri, Max) and integrated by Mihai Radulescu at Salzburg Research.
  • Optimistic Locking. KiWi 0.7 switched the data and transaction model to more error-proof optimistic locking; this also makes the system more reliable in concurrent situations, i.e. if two users change the same content. Optimistic Locking has been implemented by Stephanie Stroka at Salzburg Research.
  • Simplified Setup. When starting for the first time, users are now guided through a semi-automatic setup process that makes configuring KiWi much simpler than it used to be. The setup process has been implemented by myself, and Mihai is now working on making it even more simpler, allowing users also to configure database and path settings via the Web-based interface.
  • TagIT2. The TagIT application has been completely reimplemented and is scheduled for beta-testing starting January. New features are a completely new user interface, the possibility to display users in addition to news and blog posts, and many usability improvements. TagIT2 has mostly been implemented by Thomas Kurz at Salzburg Research.

There have been many smaller enhancements that I cannot mention here in detail (Exhbit support, Facebook integration, FOAF+SSL integration, …) and even more bug fixes. Thanks a lot to all project members for their participation!

Availability

As usual, the KiWi release is available at the following locations:

Road Map

Undoubtedly, version 0.7 still contains many bugs. In the weeks after Christmas, we will therefore likely release minor updates improving the stability and reliability of the system. These will be numbered 0.7.x.

Version 0.8 of KiWi is scheduled for end of February 2010. It will have improved Community Equity support, first draft of permission management, and Semantic Forms support. Version 0.9 is scheduled for end of May and will feature an improved user interface and widget support based on SmartGWT. Version 1.0 (final) is scheduled for end of August, with one month of testing.

A KiWi handbook will be written starting September 2010. It will contain not only instructions on how to use the KiWi system but also practical examples and best practices on how it can be used.

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One response so far

One Response to “KiWi Prototype Release 0.7 (Milestone 3)”

  1. Christoph Lange sagt:
    23. Dezember 2009 um 20:55

    Dear KiWis,
    congratulations! This is the last work-related news post I read before going offline for Christmas – a nice present, but I will only have a closer look next year. Meanwhile, I wish you all the best for Christmas, and for 2010.
    Cheers, Christoph

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