A Link-Based Collection Fusion Strategy
Michail Salampasis & John Tait
School of Computing and Information Systems
University of Sunderland
Priestman Building - Green Tce
Sunderland SR1 3SD, UK
abstract
This paper presents a method for solving the collection fusion problem in hypermedia digital libraries. The proposition which is explored and evaluated is that across document links between hypermedia documents residing in distributed hypermedia collections can supply sufficient useful information to allow effective collection fusion. In contrast to other collection fusion strategies, the link-based fusion strategy does not require a learning phase before it can be utilised and, also does not use any information from remote collections other than the returned list of documents. Because of these characteristics the proposed fusion strategy is suitable for very large and extremely dynamic environments in which other collection fusion strategies (e.g. learning collection fusion strategies) may be inapplicable. Evaluation of the link-based fusion strategy demonstrates that the proposed strategy is more effective and efficient than the uniform strategy which can be applied under the same conditions.
( published in Information Processing & Management.)
HyperTree: A Structural Approach to Web Authoring
Michail Salampasis, John Tait, Colin Hardy
School of Computing and Information Systems
University of Sunderland
Priestman Building - Green Tce
Sunderland SR1 3SD, UK
abstract
The expansion of the World Wide Web (WWW) and its great acceptance from the Internet community has created an increasingly need for tools, capable of supporting WWW authors in composing documents using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Currently, most of the web authors make use of HTML editors to produce HTML documents. These editors are in principle ordinary text editors which have additional features, such as the easy use of HTML tags, or, they are WYSIWYG editors which can have more advanced productivity features such as the visual development of an HTML page without using (directly) HTML tags. These approaches place the burden on the web author to design and create the entire web site in a top-down fashion, starting from the home page and manually creating and managing the other pages within the site. In this paper we discuss an alternative approach to Web authoring, which is based on the use of the HyperTree hypermedia system as the central authoring tool. The advantages of using HyperTree are two-dimensional. Firstly, for web authors using HyperTree can organize and treat a web site as a single complete hypermedia database. HyperTree provides facilities such as the automatic creation of alphabetical and hierarchical indices, finds link inconsistencies between pages and allows different collaborative web authors to build a single web site in parallel. Additionally, it provides authors the data model and the user interfaces to organize the web pages hierarchically without using any HTML. HyperTree also helps to ensure that the pages produced follow a common page layout of house style. Secondly, web end-users can benefit from the use HyperTree, since web pages produced by it will be organized in meaningful hierarchies, and they will have a common internal structure (layout). They will also have at their disposal navigational aids such as alphabetical and hierarchical indeces. Hypermedia research and experience from surfing the web indicates that end-users seeking information in structured web sites, could be less disorientated and develop less cognitive overhead.
(published in Software Practice & Experience)
Evaluating the Information Seeking Performance in Hypermedia Digital Libraries
Michail Salampasis, John Tait, Chris Bloor
School of Computing and Information Systems
University of Sunderland
St. Peter's Campus, St. Peter's Way
Sunderland SR6 ODD, UK
Abstract Nowadays, we are witnessing the development of new information seeking environments and applications such as hypermedia digital libraries. Information Retrieval (IR) is increasingly embedded in these environments and plays a cornerstone role. However, in hypermedia digital libraries IR is a part of a large and complex user-centred information seeking and processing environment. In particular, information seeking is also possible using non-analytical, opportunistic and intuitive browsing strategies. This paper discusses the particular evaluation problems posed by these current developments and attempts to point out some possible solutions. Current methods based on Recall and Precision for evaluating IR are discussed, and their suitability for evaluating hypermedia digital libraries is examined. We argue that these evaluation methods can not be directly applied, mainly because they can't measure the effectiveness of browsing strategies, and the underlying notion of relevance ignores the fact of highly interconnected information and misses the reality of how information seekers work in these environments. Therefore, we propose a new evaluation methodology, based on the structural analysis of hypermedia networks and the navigational and search state patterns of information seekers, which can provide a (partial) solution to the problem.
(published in Interacting with Computers)
Towards Increasing Productivity of the Greek Beekeeping Industry:
Tools and Methods for Building A Hypermedia Digital Library for Extension Training
C. Batzios1, M. Salampasis3, V. Liakos1, J. Tait3 and S. Androulidakis2
1 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
2 School of Agricultural Technology, Technological Educational Institution of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
3School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK
Abstract
In this paper a hypermedia digital library is presented which has been designed and developed to meet the expressed educational needs of Greek beekeepers. These needs are not fulfilled by the current traditional extension services such as extension agents, mass media or books which present some disadvantages. For example, visiting extension agents are usually prohibitively expensive, require mobility and can not be offered in a global scale. On the other hand, books or mass media are usually unresponsive to specific needs. The lack of proper extension services has been identified as one potential reason for the low productivity of the beekeeping industry in Greece. In our digital library, five distributed hyperbases have been produced covering the main areas on which beekeepers expressed interest. In the core of the digital library system lies HyperTree, a site-oriented web authoring tool that has been developed to address problems of the digital library authoring process. HyperTree has been used to help the collaborative authors of the library to effectively structure and interconnect the information provided, and to preserve a common interface design thereby making the library more usable. It also provides facilities for the automatic creation of navigational aids such as alphabetical and hierarchical indices. End-users of our digital library can benefit from the use of HyperTree, since information seeking in structured web sites is generally less disorientating.
(published in the Brazilian Journal of IT in Agriculture)
The Identification and Modelling of Cooperating Agents
J.J. Longstaff, R.A. Duncan, N. Jennings, M. Salampasis
Abstract
We present practical enhancements to Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD) which enables the identification and modelling of cooperating agents. The techniques we use for agent modelling are based on the 3SC protocol for Cooperating Knowledge Base Systems (CKBS).
We present the concept of Specialised Processing Submodels for Object Oriented Analysis (OOA). A Specialised Submodel is model of the processing provided by complex systems such as CKBS or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which are to be considered for design/implementation. The submodel is referenced during OOA to potentially include its specialised functionality in the resulting OOA application models. We describe a Submodel for CKBS, based omn the 3SC protocol.
Taken together, the techniques produce comprehensive, well documented development models for large applications , which may include aspects of cooperative working.
(SPICIS 94 conference, Singapure, November 1994)
Co-operative Information Retrieval in Digital Libraries
Michail Salampasis, John Tait, Chris Bloor
School of Computing and Information Systems
University of Sunderland
St. Peter's Campus, St. Peter's Way
Sunderland SR6 ODD, UK
Abstract In recent years, the great expansion of distributed resources such as the Internet has set-up a framework for the realisation of an age-old vision: gaining first-hand access to vast amount of information. The concept of a digital library is a step towards the realisation of this vision, and can be regarded (from a computer science perspective) simply as a distributed information system. However, the essence of a digital library is information, and brings new challenges to information retrieval (IR). In this paper, we present an open agent-based hypermedia model for distributed digital libraries, but we mainly focus on a technique for using dynamic links, known as co-operative retrieval links, and the implication of this technique for the process and nature of distributed information retrieval.
(the 18th annual colloquium of the BCS IR SG)
An Agent-based Hypermedia Framework for Designing and Developing Digital Libraries
Michail Salampasis, John Tait, Colin Hardy
School of Computing and Information Systems
University of Sunderland
Priestman Building - Green Tce
Sunderland SR1 3SD, UK
Abstract
The idea of a digital library has many facets; and as such, is the focus for a number of emerging areas of study. We consider digital libraries as heterogeneous and dynamic information environments, and to that end, have identified inter-operability and extensibility as essential characteristics for effective digital libraries. In this paper we present what may be termed a 'computer science' approach, through the development of an agent-based hypermedia model for digital libraries. Our model provides an agent-based framework which allows digital libraries to be considered, designed and developed as information environments being composed of different co-operating agents playing several roles: library agents providing information retrieval services, accessor agents providing information storage services, authors publishing their work, and finally users requesting information.
(Advanced Digital Libraries 96 conference)
A Hypermedia Digital Library for the Education and Extension Training of Greek Beekeepers
Christos A. Batzios(1), Michail Salampasis(2), Vasilis D. Liakos(1), John Tait(2) & Stavros Androulidakis(3)
1 Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, {batzios,vliakos}@vet.auth.gr
2 School of Computing & Information Systems, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK, {cs0msa,cs0jta}@isis.sund.ac.uk
3 School of Agricultural Technology, Technological Educational Institution of Thessaloniki, Greece, androu@alpha.it.teithe.gr
Abstract: In this paper a hypermedia digital library is presented which has been designed and developed to meet the educational needs of Greek beekeepers. These needs are not fulfilled by the current extension services. This lack has identified as one potential reason for the low productivity of the industry in Greece. Five distributed hyperbases have been produced covering the main areas on which beekeepers expressed interest. A web authoring tool called HyperTree has been used to help the collaborative authors of the library to effectively structure and interconnect the information provided, and to preserve a common interface design thereby making the library more usable.
(First European Conference on Information Technology in Agriculture)
Modeling Open & Extensible Hypermedia Digital Libraries as a Society of Cooperating Agents
Michail Salampasis
School of Computing and Information Systems
University of Sunderland
St. Peter's Campus, St. Peter's Way
Sunderland SR6 ODD, UK
This paper reports an ongoing research effort which aims to design and develop an agent-based open hypermedia system which can be used as a platform for creating hypermedia digital libraries. We consider digital libraries as heterogeneous and dynamic information environments, and to that end, have identified openness, extensibility,interoperability and scalability as essential characteristics.Given these requirements the Open Hypermedia approach to digitallibraries seems promising. Our model is grounded on the Dexter hypertext reference model, but we follow an agent based approach and interpretation of it. Based on the idea of software agents we introduce the idea of a hypermedia agent. Hypermedia agents in our (prototype) system communicate with their peers using an agent communication language, and thus interoperate in an open and distributed hypermedia environment. Finally, we facilitate the Flag Taxonomy to classify our model and to discuss how different issues related to open hypermedia research agenda (e.g. integration of third-party applications) are viewed or achieved using our approach.
(ACM Hypertext 97 conference - OHS workshop)
BRODESSYS: A Tool for Effective Decision Making in Broiler Industry
E. Kalentzi, C. Batzios, M. Salampasis, A. Yiannakopoulos and A. Katos
abstract
In this paper a computerised tool, called BRODESSYS, is presented which has been designed and developed to support decision the making process in broiler enterprises. BRODESSYS has two basic components. A model base subsystem, based on mathematical equations describing the productive activities of a typical broiler enterprise and a database subsystem, daily updated with external and internal data. The BRODESSYS Spreadsheet integrates both components and aims, in providing managers with a well organised environment for retrieving and analysing a large amount of information and, in efficiently testing and examining several what-if scenarios. The overall goal of this project is to improve the profitability in broiler industry, through making correct managerial decisions on micro economic level.
(Second European Conference on Information Technology in Agriculture)
Adoption of IT for Extension Services in Developing Countries: Practice and Experience from the Albanian.
M. SALAMPASIS, Y. BICOKU,S. ANDROULIDAKIS, V. SAMATHRAKIS,C. BATZIOS
It seems the expectations that Information Technology (IT) could be adopted widely and rapidly by farmers and extensionists have slightly cooled recently. There is a wide range of possible explanations for the slow adoption rate. This paper discusses the adoption rate of Information Technology (IT) by extension services in a developing country such as Albania. We report practices and experiences from an ongoing research and development programme which is financially supported by the European Union (EU). One of the main objectives of this programme is to increase IT adoption rates and to set up information centers for “one stop” information shopping in different areas of Albania. Since this programme involves the largest public agricultural organisations (ministry of agriculture and food), the largest private associations in Albania as well as academia, we believe that experiences and practices reported here may be very useful to other researchers or extensionists.
(Third European Conference on Information Technology in Agriculture)
HyperTree: An Alternative Approach To Web Authoring
Michail Salampasis, John Tait
School of Computing and Information Systems
University of Sunderland
Occassional paper 95-8
Abstract
The expansion of World Wide Web and its great acceptance from the internet community has created an increasingly need for tools, capable to support W3 users in composing text documents using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, a special markup language based in SGML). HTML defines how document is organized, how elements are displayed and how links are embedded. Usually authors who create HTML pages (alternatively web pages), use an HTML editor from the many available (mainly shareware programs). An HTML editor is usually an ordinary text editor which is enhanced to support HTML tags. In this document we present an alternative way of creating web pages. This alternative way is based in the use of HyperTree hypermedia system. HyperTree enforce the creation of web pages which are organized in meaningful hierarchies and the creation of web pages with a common internal structure. Web pages created using this alternative approach, may lead to more readable and easier to navigate web structures.
Towards A New Collection Fusion Strategy
Michail Salampasis
School of Computing & Information systems
University of Sunderland, UK cs0msa@isis.sund.ac.uk
Occassional paper 97-23
Abstract
Collection fusion is a data fusion problem in which the results of query runs in different, autonomous and distributed document collections must be merged to produce a single, effective result. This paper explores an isolated collection fusion technique that approximates the distribution of relevant documents in multiple document collections, based on linkage information between documents located in individual collections of hypermedia digital libraries. In contrast to other strategies this technique does not use a learning phase and can be directly applied even to the most dynamic electronic environments such as digital libraries. Experiments using a clustered version of the CACM test collection demonstrates the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed collection fusion strategy.
Hypermedia: An Introduction and Survey
Michail Salampasis
School of Computing & Information Systems
University of Sunderland
Occassional paper 95-5
Abstract0
Many people think of hypermedia as a framework for organising, structuring and storing information. Models produced from that group are limited to the data aspects of hypermedia. Others view hypermedia from a more behavioural or process oriented perspective. Models proposed by them emphasise browsing semantics of hypermedia.
A more holistic view of hypermedia is required. The hypermedia concept is a combination of data and process submodels. Individual data and process aspects of hypermedia are tightly interrelated, therefore, fragmentary consideration of hypermedia concept should be prevented. First and second generation hypermedia systems rely in a basic hypemedia model. The general structure of this basic model allowed different people to build systems with different intentions. Several limitations have been identified to first and second generation systems. While we are moving towards the development of third generation hypermedia systems a global view to hypermedia concept seem to be important.
An Agent-Based Hypermedia Model for CAL
Michail Salampasis
School of Computing & Information SystemsUniversity of Sunderland
Abstract
We facilitate agent-based software engineering techniques to design an agent-based hypermedia model grounded in Dexter hypertext reference model. Conformance with the Dexter's basic architecture is achieved, since basic components in Dexter model are included as software agents in our model. We slightly change the Dexter's storage layer to make clear the semantics of composites in our model.
Dexter model focuses mainly in data aspects of hypermedia. Interactional aspects are less covered. Therefore, we use our agent-based hypermedia model as a basis to further extend it with a process model based in cooperative problem solving (CPS) among hypermedia components, called them hypermedia agents. Hypermedia agents in the storage layer are organised in federations to provide a cost effective communication and coordination architecture for cooperating agents. Coordination between agents is based in negotiation. Navigation in our model is mostly directed. A goal agent is responsible for interacting with the hypermedia users and create navigation goals. Afterwards, navigational goals are used to direct the user to components able to support the expressed goals.
Taken together, the efficiency of Dexter model, the flexibility and extendibility of agent-based design and the dynamic aspects of CPS process model and curriculla modelling may produce a hypermedia model capable for supporting individualized learning environments.
(ACM Hypertext 96 conference - Doctoral consortsium)
Use of Information Technology in Developing Countries: Towards Building a Decentralised Extension Network in Albania
Michail Salampasis , Stavros ANDROULIDAKIS, Yulli Bicoku
This paper discusses the current status about the adoption of Information Technology (IT) by the extension services in a developing country such as Albania. Similar to other former Easter European countries, Albania is moving towards a western-type economy and an intensive effort is made to promote the use of IT for providing decentralised extension services of high quality. This is considered as a key factor in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the agricultural industry. In this paper we also report preliminary results of an ongoing research and development programme which is financially supported from the European Union (EU). The main objective of this programme is to set up information centers for “one stop” information shopping in different areas of Albania. Since this programme involves the largest public agricultural organisations (ministry of agriculture and food), the largest private associations in Albania as well as academia, we believe that experiences and practices reported here may very useful to other researchers or professionals who may work in similar settings commonly found in developing countries.
(The International Symposium of Intelligent Agricultural Information Technology 2000 (ISIAIT 2000) )
Rich interactions in digital libraries:
Short review and an experimental user-centered evaluation of an Open Hypermedia System and a World Wide Web information seeking environment
Michail Salampasis and Konstantinos I. Diamantaras
Department of Informatics
Technology Educational Institute of Thessaloniki
This paper presents an experimental user-centered evaluation of two hypermedia system architectures, each representing two different interaction models and information seeking environments. The first system is a hypermedia digital library based on the World Wide Web (WWW). This system represents an interaction model in which information seekers consistently use a single interface (i.e. a WWW browser) to access different information seeking strategies (ISSs). The second system is a similar library (in terms of content and organisation) which is based on an agent-based Open Hypermedia System (OHS). This library encourages an interaction model in which multiple user interfaces and information seeking strategies may be used in a more parallel fashion. Several researchers have suggested that information seeking may be more effective in systems, which allow the parallel use of multiple information seeking strategies. On the other hand, the ease of use of the simple click-and-goto interaction model introduced by the WWW and the consistency of its interface appears to be more attractive for most information seekers. The aim of this paper is to examine and critically discuss these hypotheses. Although, general conclusions can not be drawn from the experiment, the results present some useful indications. A first indication is that information seeking environments which support multiple seeking strategies through multiple interfaces may be more effective and efficient for some information seeking tasks. Also, results taken from a questionnaire given to users using the OHS, indicate that complex interaction models may not be prohibitively difficult to use, even for inexperienced information seekers.
(Journal of Digital Information, May 2002, special issue on interactivity on Digital Libraries)
