InfoSleuth Example Applications

[ Application Index | Representative Applications ]

Application Index

This table enumerates some of the applications that were developed in projects either at MCC or associated with MCC. MCC (Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation) did consortial research until June 2000, and the InfoSleuth project was one of the consortial research projects sponsored by the MCC members.

The basic InfoSleuth functionality was validated against several application types and domains. Applications "implemented at MCC" were primarily implemented by MCC InfoSleuth project members in response to member requests. Applicatons "implemented by InfoSleuth project members" were implemented primarily by the consortial project members of InfoSleuth, with consultation from the MCC InfoSleuth staff.

The rows of this table primarily indicate the aegis under which the project was deployed, third-party" means that the project was developed either under contract to a specific company or for a commercial application. "Government" indicates that the project was deployed for the government. These projects range in sophistication from rough prototypes to solid, tested systems. In one area, that of business intelligence and technology tracking, both the MCC InfoSleuth team and one of its member companies implemented separate versions of the same basic application.

Telcordia Technologies was an InfoSleuth project member and owns rights to use InfoSeuth and to develop InfoSleuth applications. We are continuing forward with new applications and research directions related to Telcordia business interests.

	Implemented at MCC	Implemented by InfoSleuth project members
Commercial, third-party	Knowledge management Business Intelligence	Technology Tracking Distributed Traffic Monitoring
Government	Advanced Logistics Program (DoD) Crisis Management (DoD) Environmental Data Exchange Network Detection of Composite Events (Rome ARL) Genome Mapping	Battlefield Awareness Data Dissemination

Representative Applications

Environmental Data Exchange Network (EDEN)

This mature project was motivated by the need for government agencies in different countries to be able to share toxic waste site and cleanup information. Technically, it focuses on the delivery of integrated information products specific to user contexts and profiles. Its network of 11 (and growing) multi-megabyte databases are semantically linked together, and the combined data is accessible through interfaces appropriate to the class of user (citizen, scientist, ...).

Key issues addressed by this project include the fusion of information from heterogeneous data sources, distributed throughout the United States and Europe. This included the addressing of terminological nightmares of comparing different representations for types of soil and for chemical compounds. Semantic resolution of these terminological problems was critical to the ability to relate and fuse information from different information sources. Because of these issues, existing heterogeneous database solutions failed to solve the information integration problem.

This government project was a joint effort of EPA, DoE, and DoD in the United States, and EEA in Europe.

[ More information on EDEN: "Agent-Based Semantic Interoperability ..." | EDEN demonstration--a ScreenCam self-playing movie executable for Windows (size=35 Meg) ]

Genome Mapping

The purpose of this project was to aid researchers in their ability to build "evidence"in support of multi-species comparative maps. To do this, it enacted a pipelined process that took gene sequencer output, processed that data through several existing programs to get the actual amino acid sequences, and then analyzed and compared the results to sequences stored in other gene databases, and concerning other types of animals.

Key technical issues addressed by this project include the need to enact these pipelined processes, and the ability to interface to the existing machines and programs used by the scientists. Furthermore, the agents invilved needed to be able to scale the application up to match the capabilities of emerging hardware sequencers, and to be able to cope with high throughput data flows among heterogeneous application servers. This project employed the same model for exchange among "image analysis" services applications as for exchange of data.

This project was supported by USDA.

[ More information on Genome Mapping: "Use of InfoSleuth to Coordinate ..." ]

Business Intelligence and Technology Tracking

This application was both explored at MCC and extended by an InfoSleuth project member. It explored several facets relating to monitoring other companies and technological areas for new developments. One aspect of this application was the monitoring of company competitors for financial stability and for activity in new application areas. This included monitoring specific data sources for trends and for deviations from trends. A second aspect involved the continuouos acquisition and classifcation of information against a taxonomy of products or areas of interest. Users could access the documents by where they were classified in the hierarchy, reducing the need to filter through irrelevant documents.

[ More information on Technology Tracking: "Industrial-Strength Conversations" ]

Large-scale Distributed Traffic Monitoring

This prototype effort by an MCC InfoSleuth project member monitored the flow of traffic in specific areas. Technically, it was couched as a massive distributed subscription & notification problem.

Key issues addressed by this project include the reliability and scalability of perpetual queries in InfoSleuth, and the ability of the project to scale to hundreds of agents. Another issue was the ability to develop the prototype rapidly -- in fact, it took only three months (4.5 man-months) from the time the member received its first copy of InfoSleuth to the time the platform was demonstrated. An alternative, equivalent platform was estimated to take 2+ man-years using distributed systems technology.

Broadcast (Satellite) Data Dissemination

The goal of this project was to support the awareness needs of different groups of people on a battlefield. The technocal approach was to gather information on stable internets, and broadcast neighborhoods of relevant information via satellite to dissemination centers. The dissemination of the information was based on user profiles.

Technically, the focus of this project is to integrate heterogeneous information sources on or relating to the battlefield, in a timely manner. It also exercises some of the perpetual query aspects of InfoSleuth. There is currently a live demonstration system running over GBS feeding distribution to US Navy ships.

This project was supported by the DoD, and executed by an InfoSleuth project member.