ANNUAL REPORT 2006 - Forschungszentrum L3S
ANNUAL REPORT 2006 - Forschungszentrum L3S
ANNUAL REPORT 2006 - Forschungszentrum L3S
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<strong>ANNUAL</strong> <strong>REPORT</strong> <strong>2006</strong>
In today‘s society, individuals and organizations are, on one<br />
hand, confronted with an ever growing load of information and<br />
content and, on the other, with increasing demands for knowledge<br />
and skills. To cope with this, we need to link content, knowledge and<br />
learning, making content and knowledge more accessible, interactive<br />
and usable over time by humans and machines alike.<br />
This is how „Challenge 4: Digital Libraries and Content“, one of<br />
seven challenges focusing ICT research and technological development<br />
in Europe which is funded through the Seventh Framework Programme<br />
(FP7) is introduced. The paragraph equally well describes <strong>L3S</strong><br />
research initiatives and projects through which we investigate and develop<br />
innovative methods and technologies focusing on knowledge,<br />
information and learning as key enablers of the European Information<br />
Society and Europe’s economical growth.<br />
PROJECTS PREFACE<br />
Knowledge, Information and Learning<br />
as Key Enablers of the European Information Society<br />
Third party funding through the EU/IST program amounts for about one third of our yearly budget of more<br />
than 5 Million Euro; another third coming from German funding agencies and from industry. <strong>L3S</strong> thus plays a very<br />
active role in European research, advancing the state of the art on all aspects concerned with digital resources and<br />
their technological underpinnings (semantic web, digital libraries, distributed systems, networks and grids), as well<br />
as the use of these resources in eLearning and eScience contexts.<br />
One of these projects is the new Integrated Project PHAROS, which is funded by the European Union from<br />
2007 to 2009. PHAROS aims at building a next generation audiovisual search platform, to be designed, developed<br />
and applied jointly by a consortium consisting of 13 high-profile academic and industrial partners, including the<br />
leading European search engine company FAST Search and Transfer, France Telekom, the Italian system integrator<br />
Engineering, and the <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center. <strong>L3S</strong> contributions, funded with about 1 Mill. Euro, will focus on user<br />
and context technologies, and will include innovative algorithms supporting user centric searching and robustness<br />
against spam. <strong>L3S</strong> innovations will also build upon social network and blog analysis (important aspects in new Web<br />
2.0 environments), which provide rich information about user preferences, and enhance user experience with the<br />
PHAROS audio visual search platform.<br />
This annual report provides a good opportunity to learn about this and many other projects, and contains descriptions<br />
of exciting research results as well as interesting case studies and applications, developed in the context<br />
of these projects. We hope you will find them as exciting as we do, and encourage you to contact our project leaders<br />
and researchers for more details and cooperation possibilities.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> success builds upon the high motivation, enthusiasm, solid research background and competencies of all<br />
members, researchers and staff. More than 70 researchers on Ph.D. and PostDoc positions, with 15 different nationalities,<br />
provide an invigorating environment, which guarantees convincing results and successful work in all our<br />
projects. This is what makes work at our institute so exciting for all of us, and <strong>L3S</strong> the right place to turn to for both<br />
advanced research and innovative ICT solutions.<br />
Hannover, February 2007<br />
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Nejdl, <strong>L3S</strong> Executive Director<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER 3
4<br />
PROJECTS TABLE OF CONTENTS<br />
Preface ........................................................................................................................3<br />
Table of Contents ....................................................................................................... 4<br />
ABOUT <strong>L3S</strong><br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Research Center in Profi le ............................................................................ 9 - 10<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Members ............................................................................................................ 11<br />
Advisory Board ......................................................................................................... 11<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Staff ................................................................................................................... 12<br />
New Projects<br />
BRICKS ...................................................................................................................... 16<br />
LINSearch ................................................................................................................. 17<br />
PHAROS .................................................................................................................... 18<br />
ACHIEVEMENTS AND RESULTS<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
- COOPER ................................................................................................................. 22<br />
- ELAN ...................................................................................................................... 24<br />
- EVITA ..................................................................................................................... 26<br />
- HELCA ................................................................................................................... 28<br />
- <strong>L3S</strong>CPD .................................................................................................................. 30<br />
- mstbildung ............................................................................................................ 32<br />
- PROLEARN ............................................................................................................. 34<br />
- PROLIX .................................................................................................................. 36<br />
- TENCompetence ................................................................................................... 38<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
- APIS ....................................................................................................................... 40<br />
- PUMA .................................................................................................................... 42<br />
- P2P-IS .................................................................................................................... 44<br />
- ELEONET ............................................................................................................... 46<br />
- NEPOMUK ............................................................................................................. 48<br />
- REWERSE ............................................................................................................... 50<br />
- VIKEF ..................................................................................................................... 52<br />
- PSW ....................................................................................................................... 54<br />
- KnowledgeWeb ..................................................................................................... 56<br />
- iSearch ................................................................................................................... 58<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS<br />
TABLE OF CONTENTS PROJECTS<br />
- PeerTrust ............................................................................................................... 60<br />
- D-Grid ................................................................................................................... 62<br />
- PULSERS ................................................................................................................ 64<br />
- UKOLOS ................................................................................................................ 66<br />
- AFT ........................................................................................................................ 68<br />
- Trobot ................................................................................................................... 70<br />
- KIOP ...................................................................................................................... 72<br />
NEWS AND EVENTS<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER AT CEBIT 2007<br />
Beagle++ Desktop Search<br />
WebRatio® Competence Center Germany<br />
Knowledge-based Hotline Support System<br />
ELEONET: The Search Portal for Learning Objects<br />
Federated Search .............................................................................................. 76 - 77<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> supports international violin contest<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Researchers Win Best Student Paper Award .................................................... 78<br />
EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong> – Conference series successfully started<br />
IBM recognizes <strong>L3S</strong> Ph.D. student as one of Europe’s best .................................... 79<br />
Best Student Paper Award at WWW<strong>2006</strong><br />
Stud.IP Developer workshop ................................................................................... 80<br />
European Projects Join Forces in Professional Learning ........................................ 81<br />
WORK AND COLLABORATION<br />
International & Industrial Partners ................................................................. 84 - 85<br />
Publications ...................................................................................................... 86 - 90<br />
Programm Committee Memberships .............................................................. 91 - 94<br />
Imprint .................................................................................................................... 96<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER 5
PROJECTS ABOUT <strong>L3S</strong><br />
integration appletree computer science just ru<br />
exist learning toast with jam information cro<br />
tomato sauce is red semantic web nail polish kn<br />
green fun members space ship boiled egg dev<br />
downtown research strong wind security talking<br />
6<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
+++ The <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center focuses on innovative<br />
methods and technologies for three key research<br />
fields of the European Information Society, namely<br />
knowledge, information and learning. <strong>L3S</strong> is a<br />
nationally and internationally renowned research<br />
institute in these fields and especially in its core<br />
areas of Technology Enhanced Learning, Semantic Web<br />
and Digital Libraries +++<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
ABOUT <strong>L3S</strong><br />
nning around research blue bananas do not<br />
codile investigation showercap digital libraries<br />
owledge cloudy day in the fields tomcat content<br />
elopment rain in salt lake city future walking<br />
loudly policies eat garlic bread powerful teams<br />
7
8<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER IN PROFILE<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Research Center in Profile<br />
The <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center focuses on innovative<br />
methods and technologies for three key research fields<br />
of the European Information Society, namely Knowledge,<br />
Information and Learning. In the last six years<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> has successfully established itself as a nationally<br />
and internationally renowned research institute in<br />
these fields and especially in its core areas of Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning and Semantic Web/Digital Libraries.<br />
Today, more than 70 researchers work at the <strong>L3S</strong><br />
in the areas:<br />
- Technology Enhanced Learning<br />
- Semantic Web and Digital Libraries<br />
- Distributed Systems and Networks<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> is the only research institution in Lower Saxony<br />
to coordinate one of the prestigious Networks of<br />
Excellence within the 6th Research Framework Program:<br />
PROLEARN. Furthermore, <strong>L3S</strong> coordinates the<br />
EU/IST COOPER Project and participates in two other<br />
EU/IST Integrated Projects in the area of Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning, PROLIX and TENCompetence. The<br />
new PRO-LC Cluster integrates these and other EU/ IST<br />
projects investigating innovative solutions for technology<br />
enhanced learning, knowledge management and<br />
business processes.<br />
Semantic Web Reasoning, Metadata Management,<br />
Trust and Security Policies and Personalization<br />
are investigated in two EU/IST Networks of Excellence,<br />
KnowledgeWeb and REWERSE. Edutella, iSearch and<br />
NEPOMUK, an EU/IST IP started in <strong>2006</strong>, focus on distributed<br />
search and information retrieval, the use of<br />
semantic and metadata information on the desktop,<br />
and on sophisticated ranking algorithms for personalized<br />
information retrieval, task specific access to<br />
information, and spam detection and avoidance. The<br />
NEPOMUK Social Semantic Desktop integrates many of<br />
these aspects and will allow personalized and extremely<br />
precise search on personal desktops and connected<br />
repositories to work groups and other social networks.<br />
In 2007 <strong>L3S</strong> starts PHAROS, an EU/IST IP focussing on<br />
audio visual search infrastructures, aimed at achieving<br />
extreme search precision through the analysis and exploitation<br />
of user and community preferences.<br />
Distributed Infrastructures are also very important<br />
for the sharing of computing and information resources.<br />
The BMBF project D-Grid started in fall 2005 and<br />
aims to build a sustainable Grid-Computing-infrastructure<br />
for education and research (eScience) in Germany.<br />
New wireless transmission technologies are being investigated<br />
as well. UltraWideBand (UWB) is a method<br />
for a new type of short range radio communication including<br />
location capabilities, which enables new learning<br />
and collaboration scenarios, as well as ubiquitious<br />
computing environments.
We focus on UWB media access control and location<br />
methods in a subproject within the EU project<br />
PULSERS II and a project within the DFG Priority Program<br />
UKOLOS.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> success is largely attributable to international<br />
alliances between some of the world’s most prominent<br />
researchers and developers in <strong>L3S</strong>’s areas of focus and<br />
to the international visibility of <strong>L3S</strong> members and staff;<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> as a research institution is a very attractive place<br />
for international students, two thirds of <strong>L3S</strong> employees<br />
(Ph.D. students and PostDocs) come from abroad. The<br />
number of researchers at <strong>L3S</strong> has increased substantially<br />
in <strong>2006</strong>, which underlines the importance of <strong>L3S</strong> as<br />
an excellent place for Ph.D. and PostDoc researchers.<br />
Work and resources have been very thoughtfully<br />
and strategically invested in promising research fields<br />
during the previous years. <strong>L3S</strong> managed to grow continuously<br />
over the years and this trend will continue.<br />
Over the last few years <strong>L3S</strong> has consistently and very<br />
successfully increased funding from third parties. In<br />
<strong>2006</strong>, <strong>L3S</strong> has succeeded in reaching an impressive percentage<br />
of 65% third party funding, for 2007 this figure<br />
will surpass 70%.<br />
Given all these achievements, this report presents<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> as a very visible pillar of Computer Science<br />
and Information Technologies in Lower Saxony and as<br />
an example for international, innovative and interdisciplinary<br />
research combining the strengths of individual<br />
professors, institutes and universities.<br />
Hannover, February 2007<br />
Dr. Uwe Thaden, <strong>L3S</strong> Managing Director<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER IN PROFILE<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
9
10<br />
ORGANIZATION<br />
Directors<br />
Prof. Dr. techn. Wolfgang Nejdl Executive Director<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gabriele von Voigt Deputy Director<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Reimers Deputy Director<br />
Dr. Uwe Thaden Managing Director<br />
Dr. Christoph Strutz Managing Director<br />
Members<br />
Dr. Wolf-Tilo Balke Leibniz University Hannover<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Jobmann Leibniz University Hannover<br />
Prof. Dr. techn. Wolfgang Nejdl Leibniz University Hannover<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Reimers TU Braunschweig<br />
Dir. Uwe Rosemann TIB / UB Hannover<br />
Prof. Dr. Gerd Stumme University of Kassel<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gabriele von Voigt Leibniz University Hannover / RRZN<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernardo Wagner Leibniz University Hannover<br />
Associated Members<br />
Prof. Dr. Michael Breitner Leibniz University Hannover<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Grimm Leibniz University Hannover / RRZN<br />
Prof. Dr. Nicola Henze Leibniz University Hannover<br />
Prof. Dr. Herbert Matthies Hannover Medical School<br />
Prof. Dr. Karl Neumann TU Braunschweig<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stephan Olbrich Heinrich-Heine-Universität Duesseldorf<br />
Prof. Dr. Lars Wolf TU Braunschweig<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
Advisory Board<br />
Prof. Marc Eisenstadt, Ph.D. Knowledge Media Institute / Open University UK<br />
Prof. Dr. Matthias Jarke RWTH Aachen / Fraunhofer FIT / GI President<br />
Prof. Dr. Hermann Maurer TU Graz / KNOW Center<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
ADVISORY BOARD<br />
Prof. Dr. Erich Neuhold ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Research Studios Austria/<br />
University of Vienna<br />
Prof. Dr. Thomas Ottmann University of Freiburg<br />
Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. A.-W. Scheer IDS Scheer AG<br />
Prof. em. Gio Wiederhold, Ph.D. Computer Science Department, Stanford University, USA<br />
11
12<br />
STAFF<br />
Staff<br />
M.Sc. Mohammad Alrifai<br />
Dr. Wolf-Tilo Balke<br />
Dipl.-Ök. Patrick Bartels<br />
Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Kim Bartke<br />
Kerstin Bischoff, M.A. IIM<br />
Dr. Jan Brase<br />
Dipl.-Ök. Finn Breuer<br />
B.Sc. Marko Brosowski<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Ingo Brunkhorst<br />
Katia Cappelli<br />
Ling Chen, PH. D.<br />
M.Sc. Sergey Chernov<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Paul-Alexandru Chirita<br />
SungRan Cho, Ph.D.<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Stefania Costache<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Juri Luca De Coi<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Gianluca Demartini<br />
M.Sc. Dipl-Inf. (FH) Elena Demidova<br />
Dipl.-Dok. FH Elena Derr<br />
Dr. Jörg Diederich<br />
Dr. Peter Dolog<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Arnd Eden<br />
Dr. Nils Faltin<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Claudiu S. Firan<br />
Dipl.-Päd. Uwe Frommann<br />
Dipl. Ing. Stefan Galler<br />
Dipl. Ing. Comm.-Sys. Julien Gaugaz<br />
Dipl.-Inf. FH Gabriel Gaus<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Rita Gavriloaie<br />
M.Sc. Ralf Gröper<br />
Dr. Nils Hagge<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Heinrich<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Mathias Hentschel<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Inga Herbold<br />
Dr. Eelco Herder<br />
Dr. Thomas Huk<br />
M.Sc. Ekaterini Ioannou<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Tereza Iofciu<br />
Dipl. Des. FH Anne-Kathrin Ittmann<br />
Dipl.-Math. Robert Jäschke<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Olaf Jansen-Olliges<br />
M.Sc. Nils Jensen<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
Dipl.-Inf. Philipp Kärger<br />
Dipl.-Sozialwirt Cornelis Kater<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Arne Wolf Kösling<br />
Dipl.-Des. FH Dennis Kohlmetz<br />
Dipl.-Inf. FH Christian Kohlschütter<br />
Dipl.-Math. Beate Krause<br />
M.Sc. Daniel Krause<br />
Dipl.-Soz. Päd. FH Jörn Krückeberg<br />
Dipl.-Berufspäd. Marc Krüger<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Jörg Langenberg<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Thomas Lösch<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Christoph Lofi<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Enrico Minack<br />
Dr. Claudia Niederée<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Stefan Ohlemeyer<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Daniel Olmedilla<br />
M.Sc. Odysseas Papapetrou<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Maria Dolores Perez Guirao<br />
Dipl-Ing. Golaleh Rahmatollahi<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Marko Reimer<br />
Dr. Claus-Peter Rückemann<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Simon Frederik Rüsche<br />
Claudia Saalbach<br />
Dipl.-Phys. Robin Sandvoß<br />
Dipl.-Math. Henning Schnoor<br />
Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing. Henrik Schumacher<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Harald Schwier<br />
M.Sc. Joachim Selke<br />
Dr. Wolf Siberski<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Rodolfo Stecher<br />
M.Sc. Avaré Stewart<br />
Dr. Christoph Strutz<br />
Dr. Uwe Thaden<br />
M.Sc. Sascha Tönnies<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Gian Luca Volpato<br />
Dipl.-Päd. Ulrike von Holdt<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Jan Wiebelitz<br />
Dipl.-Inf. Andreas Wodrich<br />
Dr. Martin Wolpers<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Ana L. Zapater Alemany<br />
Xuan Zhou, Ph. D.<br />
Iris Zieseniß<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
STAFF<br />
13
PROJECTS NEW PROJECTS<br />
evaluation winning in the lottery search colourful fis<br />
shower visual blue planet indexing peanut butter info<br />
extraction receiving a love letter data never seen a yell<br />
night metadata terrible hairstyle terms music in the a<br />
+++ Over the years <strong>L3S</strong> has established itself as a<br />
well renowned partner in national and international<br />
research projects. Three new projects (PHAROS, BRICKS<br />
and LINSearch) on digital library and search engine<br />
infrastructures have started in January 2007 +++<br />
14<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
in the reef database duck chicken wings audio cold<br />
rmation fly away development call your grandmother<br />
ow hippo content cold feet in bed approach big city at<br />
r document high noon scalability tennis socks control<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
NEW PROJECTS<br />
15
16<br />
NEW PROJECTS<br />
BRICKS – Integrated Access to Distributed Cultural<br />
Knowledge Resources<br />
A large amount of digital content in the cultural domain will be accessible electronically. Libraries and<br />
museums are providing large collections of multimedia documents to the public. Currently, cultural digital<br />
information providers are highly distributed, which leads to an increasing user demand for integrated<br />
access.<br />
The BRICKS Project<br />
The aim of the BRICKS project is to defi ne, develop and maintain<br />
a user- and service-oriented space for sharing knowledge<br />
and resources in the cultural domain. Users will have integrated<br />
access to cultural knowledge, but they can also provide or<br />
sell their own digital content to the public. With the help of<br />
the BRICKS system, the provided content will be much more<br />
visible for the interested audience. Retrieval of content will<br />
be supported by a wide range of semantic and language oriented<br />
services.<br />
The Architecture<br />
The development goal of the BRICKS architecture is to ensure<br />
high reliability and availability while reducing administration<br />
costs. The BRICKS infrastructure will be service oriented, decentralized<br />
and self-organizing. Every cultural institution will<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
be able to freely join or leave the system with minimal administrative<br />
effort. BRICKS users will still have the full control over<br />
their own system and content. A security infrastructure will<br />
ensure the integrity and rights of the digital content.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Role in the Project<br />
The role of <strong>L3S</strong> together with Fraunhofer IPSI in the project<br />
is the development of a decentralized database for metadata,<br />
which is similar to a distributed database but without a central<br />
coordination point. It is therefore more reliable and higly<br />
scalable. <strong>L3S</strong> and IPSI are also responsible for the development<br />
of a general and fl exible annotation service, which can<br />
be used by a wide range of application types. Both partners<br />
coordinate the integration of German scientifi c and cultural<br />
institutions.
The project<br />
The aim of the LINSearch project is the development, evaluation<br />
and usage of an integrated system for indexing and<br />
searching technical and scientifi c documents for TIB and FIZ<br />
Technik. This system should support the natural language of<br />
the users as well as other languages, especially German and<br />
English. To access documents the correct index terms about<br />
a document are most important. Currently, indexing is done<br />
manually by experts, which is very time-consuming. Also the<br />
time-consuming, and the constantly increasing amount of publications<br />
leads to reduced actuality of the provided information.<br />
Approach<br />
In the fi rst phase of the project available technologies for indexing<br />
and information extraction will be used to automatically index<br />
a subset of the documents of TIB and FIZ Technik. The results<br />
will be evaluated and compared with the manually generated index.<br />
In the next step, the different techniques will be combined<br />
in order to exploit the benefi ts of different approaches.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
NEW PROJECTS<br />
LINSearch – Indexing and Natural-language Search<br />
for Technical and Scientific Documents<br />
The daily business of TIB and FIZ Technik is to provide professional users with high quality information<br />
in technical domains such as electrical and computer engineering or materials. For their users it is important<br />
to get high quality results according to their queries delivered by intelligent retrieval technologies.<br />
Semi-automatic indexing will support the experts in their job<br />
by proposing appropriate index terms, which can afterwards<br />
be corrected. With the help of self-learning algorithm index<br />
algorithm should learn over time to improve its suggestions.<br />
The user will be assisted during query formulation by the system<br />
proposing related terms. After query execution, the result<br />
set will contain not only the description of the documents,<br />
but also related index terms, which can be used to further<br />
refi ne the query. The retrieval engine, which handles the user<br />
queries, combines linguistic methods and thesauri to improve<br />
query results.<br />
After three years<br />
At the end of the project TIB and FIZ Technik will be able<br />
to index new documents much more effi ciently and with a<br />
higher quality. They will have strengthened their position in<br />
the global information market, as their users always get high<br />
quality and up to date information.<br />
17
18<br />
NEW PROJECTS<br />
PHAROS – Searching the Audiovisual Web<br />
The PHAROS project is dedicated to the development of an integrated next generation search platform<br />
for audio-visual search. PHAROS will develop a scalable search framework which lets users search, explore<br />
and analyze contextually relevant data. In addition, PHAROS will create user interaction models<br />
where live user traffi c contextually relevant improves the user experience via social network analysis and<br />
spam-resistant ranking. An innovative showcase, built on the PHAROS platform, will be used to gather<br />
user feedback and validate the PHAROS approach.<br />
Search has been established as one of the main mechanisms<br />
of dealing with the explosive growth in digital data. While<br />
the web is commonly perceived as the largest corpus for<br />
search, businesses and government organizations often have<br />
much more data which needs to be systematically managed.<br />
Further, newer data repositories containing multimedia data<br />
along with text are growing at a fast rate and are expected<br />
to drive new growth and new technologies for dealing with<br />
audio visual search. The aim of PHAROS is to develop novel<br />
technologies to deal with these scenarios.<br />
Besides the requirements of accuracy and scalability, it is<br />
expected that new technologies developed in PHAROS will<br />
provide extensive support for user centric searching and robustness<br />
against spam. Such techniques will ensure that next<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
generation search technology can deal with the huge heterogeneous<br />
user population more accurately, while preventing<br />
malicious companies and users from manipulating search results<br />
using any form of spam. Further, PHAROS aims to harness<br />
the large amount of information available within online<br />
communities like MySpace and Orkut for better understanding<br />
the requirements of search users. Social network and Blog<br />
analysis is expected to provide rich information about millions<br />
of user which can in turn be used to enhance their experience<br />
with the PHAROS audio visual search platform.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> will serve as the scientifi c director of PHAROS. Within the<br />
project, <strong>L3S</strong> will lead the research in ‘User and Context Technologies”,<br />
working on Social Media, Advanced Personalization,<br />
and Spam Detection.
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
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ACHIEVEMENTS & RESULTS<br />
+++ <strong>L3S</strong> has continuously and successfully expanded<br />
its range of projects and scientific results over the<br />
last year while maintaining the focus of its objectives<br />
and mission. It has clearly reached critical<br />
mass and acknowledged leadership in its core research<br />
fields. <strong>L3S</strong> is an influential research institute in<br />
the German as well as in the international scientific<br />
community and is a major player in international research.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> projects are connected to its three principal<br />
research areas ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’,<br />
‘Semantic Web and Digital Libraries’ and ‘Distributed<br />
Systems and Networks’ +++<br />
grey elephant security yellow efficient provider<br />
growing slowly during winter technology bean s<br />
husband microsystem technology desert coordinat<br />
catching a cold integration dancing in the rain<br />
web pullover with three holes information choc<br />
20<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
ACHIEVEMENTS & RESULTS<br />
s sushi elearning butterfly knowledge grass is<br />
oup with sausages academic lip gloss activities<br />
ion rising high project pink hazelnut excellence<br />
networks go for gold resources emotional motion<br />
late is healthy digital libraries white wallpaper<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
COOPER – Collaborative Open Environment<br />
for Project-centred Learning<br />
Project-centred learning requires a dynamic working environment in which a group of people, with heterogeneous<br />
backgrounds and competencies, can collaborate on a common project. Such an environment<br />
helps learners to build various team-work, communication and problem solving skills. However, due to<br />
geographical barriers, such an environment can hardly be established in most multinational companies<br />
and universities. COOPER intends to defi ne and create an online project-centred learning environment<br />
to support geographically dispersed learners.<br />
Objective<br />
The objective of COOPER is to create techniques and tools<br />
that support team-based, project-centred learning in the following<br />
circumstances:<br />
• Graduate (or post-graduate) university studies involving<br />
students and lecturers participating in focused projects (e.g.,<br />
master or specialization courses) coming from different institutions<br />
and backgrounds;<br />
• Company universities and company training, involving<br />
multi-national participants coming from a company’s site<br />
or customers, which are dispersed world-wide, cooperating<br />
to launch new products or technologies, or participating in<br />
product- and project-centred training.<br />
The research and development in COOPER is focused upon<br />
the problem of: creating and managing virtual teams of persons<br />
with heterogeneous backgrounds and competencies;<br />
assessing their entry-level competencies and their scientifi c<br />
growth; coordinating their collaboration as well as facilitating<br />
their personalized growth; and even following them after<br />
the end of their formal participation in the learning activities,<br />
when they constitute an alumni community. This approach is<br />
built upon project-centred learning and social network learning<br />
situations, which is seen as an important mechanism for<br />
breaking distance barriers and making effective use of eLearning<br />
technology.<br />
Approach<br />
In the beginning of this project, extensive case studies were<br />
conducted among several education and training institutions.<br />
From these case studies, we generalize the following most important<br />
technical requirements in the COOPER scenario.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
COOPER is dedicated to develop and test a<br />
model-driven, extensible environment that<br />
supports individual and collective competency<br />
building in virtual teams, whose members<br />
are geographically dispersed, have different<br />
backgrounds and competencies, and<br />
are working together in projects to solve<br />
complex problems.<br />
• Defi ning a set of team management processes that are most<br />
suitable for supporting project-centred learning in the COO-<br />
PER scenario.<br />
• Creating knowledge sharing and recommendation services<br />
to facilitate collaborative teamwork processes.<br />
• Defi ning pedagogical scenarios and assessment tools to<br />
support competency building and competency assessment in<br />
heterogeneous virtual project teams.<br />
• Developing a web-based infrastructure with a set of telecommunication<br />
tools to support the distant cooperation in a<br />
distributed virtual team.<br />
During the project, we exploit several technologies, including<br />
collaborative learning, knowledge sharing, recommendation,<br />
social network, process modeling, and synchronous communication.<br />
All results delivered by the project will contribute to<br />
forming a protected, shared COOPER platform that will be<br />
easily deployed over any university or company intranet.
Impact<br />
In the end, COOPER will contribute to:<br />
• Defi ning innovative collaborative learning scenarios, which<br />
focus on new ways of learner assessment, and contribute to<br />
relevant standards;<br />
• Supporting personalized and contextualized collaborative<br />
learning situations by exploiting learner background, learner<br />
interaction, and social networks in learning;<br />
• Providing a model-driven, easy-to-use, and easy-to-reconfi<br />
gure infrastructure, supporting learners in adapting to new<br />
needs or requirements.<br />
These contributions will facilitate more dynamic and realistic<br />
learning scenarios, centred on the “learning by doing” approach.<br />
The scenarios, approach, infrastructure, and methodology<br />
will help institutes and universities to establish new<br />
innovative project-centred study programmes in information<br />
technology and related fi elds<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: STREP<br />
Duration: December 2005 – November 2007<br />
Research Areas: Technology enhanced learning,<br />
Web engineering, Information retrieval, Knowledge<br />
sharing<br />
Contact: Xuan Zhou, zhou@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.cooper-project.org<br />
selected publications<br />
J. Diederich and T. Iofciu: Finding Communities of<br />
Practice from User Profi les Based On Folksonomies,<br />
1st International Workshop on Building Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning solutions for Communities of<br />
Practice (TEL-CoPs‘06), <strong>2006</strong>, Greece.<br />
Paul-Alexandru Chirita, Claudiu S. Firan and Wolfgang<br />
Nejdl: Summarizing Local Context to Personalize<br />
Global Web Search, the 15th Intl. CIKM Conf. on<br />
Information and Knowledge Management, <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
USA.<br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
ELAN – eLearning Academic Network Lower Saxony<br />
The ELAN Pilot Hannover/Braunschweig coordinates the activities at the Leibniz University Hannover,<br />
the Technical University of Braunschweig and the Hannover Medical School. The project aims to build a<br />
broadly spread network of eLearning in different disciplines in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany. The<br />
aim of the project is to develop and encourage sustainable eLearning projects and services and share<br />
effective practice in eLearning projects. ELAN is fostering the sustainable use of digital and multimediabased<br />
technologies in teaching and research. Appropriate use of these new technologies and eLearning<br />
material can enhance the quality and experience of teaching and learning activities. This is closely connected<br />
to the Bologna process and the idea of lifelong learning.<br />
The two ELAN phases ELAN I (2002-2004) and ELAN II (2004-<br />
<strong>2006</strong>) implemented an innovative approach to expand the<br />
use of new multimedia technologies at the participating universities.<br />
During the fi rst phase of the project the essential aim<br />
was the formation of a central service group and the production<br />
of an extensive content portfolio in four exemplary areas:<br />
computer science/information technology, civil engineering<br />
and architecture, education and continuing education of<br />
teachers, and medicine. Since this time, numerous eLearning<br />
courses have been created, implemented and put into<br />
practice. Multimedia technology has become a regular part<br />
of teaching and learning.<br />
An important aim of the second phase of the project was to<br />
strengthen the work of the pilot universities and the integration<br />
of more institutes of higher education in Lower Saxony<br />
into its networks of eLearning services. The driving forces of this<br />
development are the two objectives jointly instigated by the<br />
ELAN pilots: the lecture series “Lower Saxony Telecolloquium”<br />
(www.telekolloquium.de) and the construction of the ELAN<br />
Portal (www.elan-niedersachsen.de).<br />
Lower Saxony Telecolloquium<br />
The Lower Saxony Telecolloquium is an innovative, event in<br />
which modern telecommunication technologies are used to<br />
connect eight institutes of higher education in Lower Saxony<br />
in a teleconference. The intention was to establish a supraregional<br />
and inter-university event and to fi nd an effective way<br />
to conduct and coordinate regional meetings in a distributed<br />
manner. The event takes place periodically during the semester<br />
and normally consists of three to fi ve presentations given<br />
by invited speakers on a devoted topic. After the presentation,<br />
the audience has the opportunity to ask questions and often<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
The eLearning Academic Network (ELAN) is<br />
dedicated to improving the eLearning activities<br />
at the participating universities in Lower<br />
Saxony. Six universities in Lower Saxony have<br />
joined forces in order to develop sustainable<br />
technical and organizational infrastructures<br />
for multimedia teaching and learning and to<br />
support a high-quality content portfolio.<br />
a lively discussion ensues, across the different universities. The<br />
Telecolloquium opens up possibilities for collaborative teaching<br />
and learning and allows an intensive and uncomplicated<br />
scientifi c exchange. Furthermore, it gives access to expertise<br />
not available within a single institution. The Telecolloquium<br />
buils on new audio-visual technologies and supplements the<br />
traditional colloquia or small symposia. In total, 19 Telecolloquia<br />
took place during May 2004 and December <strong>2006</strong>. The<br />
entire event has been evaluated positively by the involved university<br />
participants.<br />
ELAN Portal<br />
During the last years, the project partners have carried out<br />
many successful eLearning projects and activities. Therefore, a<br />
major task was the integration of all relevant ELAN pilot information<br />
into the ELAN Portal and the addition of new services<br />
including a joint service catalogue. To aid the visibility and
Project Type: eLearning Academic Network funded<br />
by the Ministry for Science and Culture of<br />
Lower Saxony<br />
Duration: October 2002 – December <strong>2006</strong><br />
Research Areas: eLearning, collaborative working<br />
Contact: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Nejdl (nejdl@<strong>L3S</strong>.de)<br />
Prof. Dr. Lars Wolf (wolf@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de)<br />
Prof. Dr. Herbert Matthies (matthies@<strong>L3S</strong>.de)<br />
URL: www.elan-niedersachsen.de<br />
www.telekolloquium.de<br />
dissemination of the eLearning activities at the participating<br />
universities, the creation and maintenance of a central webservice<br />
on which links to eLearning examples and resources<br />
should be gathered was necessary. By building up the ELAN<br />
Portal, the universities of Lower Saxony established a worldwide<br />
accessible eLearning Service Portal. It presents eLearning<br />
projects for a wider group of users and shows ways to arrange<br />
own eLearning projects. The ELAN Portal will continue as a<br />
central information base after the two phases of ELAN I and<br />
II and will be maintained and advanced at the University of<br />
Oldenburg.<br />
What changes?<br />
ELAN has made considerable strides to support the development<br />
of multimedia technologies at the universities in Lower<br />
Saxony, and to demonstrate different ways to embed eLearning<br />
activities. This process has not only improved access developed<br />
media competence of teachers and students, but also<br />
developed the media competence of the teachers and the<br />
students. In the future, eLearning will become a normal part<br />
of university practice and complement traditional teaching<br />
methods. With ELAN, the universities have a sound foundation<br />
for further improvements.<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING PROJECTS<br />
info box<br />
selected publications<br />
ELAN-Management Board (2007). ELearning Academic<br />
Network Niedersachsen, Bericht zur Förderphase<br />
ELAN II, (in preperation)<br />
I. Herbold (2007). Das Niedersächsische Telekolloquium-<br />
Öffentliche Ringvorlesungen zwischen<br />
nord deutschen Hochschulen. In: Lehren und<br />
Forschen mit Neuen Medien an der Leibniz Universität<br />
Hannover. Shaker-Verlag (in preperation)<br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
EVITA – Efficient methods for Visualization<br />
in Tele-immersive Applications<br />
The EVITA project is concerned with the visualization of complex data resulting from massively-parallel,<br />
four-dimensional simulations in the area of computational fl uid dynamics. Visualization enables researchers<br />
to extract conclusions such as the fl ow of air pollutants within a city structure, and facilitates<br />
an understanding of the underlying concepts. Other applications of the software developed in Evita are<br />
molecular structures, deformation of bodies or applications where interactive visualization in 3D/4D<br />
enhances cognition. By creating animated images from numbers, we enable researchers to get an intuitive<br />
approach to results otherwise diffi cult to comprehend. The project is funded by the German Science<br />
Foundation (DFG, ref. number GZ: OL 241/1-1).<br />
The underlying concept<br />
The software developed in “Evita” not only generates 2D images<br />
varying in time, but also creates entire 3-dimensional<br />
worlds which can be explored interactively and in a comfortable<br />
way. The special advantages of the software – called<br />
“DSVR” – are that users are able to manipulate the virtual<br />
environment interactively and may look at the scene even<br />
during a running simulation. The software supports the use of<br />
sophisticated output devices such as a “Phantom” for haptic<br />
output and stereo or multi-screen projection setup. Furthermore,<br />
the software explicitly has been parallelized and ported<br />
to supercomputers to avoid bottlenecks, such as a single computer<br />
receiving large data sets from a computing cluster. The<br />
data sets are quite large, and as a rule of thumb, the fi ner<br />
and more precise the simulations get, the bigger the resulting<br />
data will be.<br />
Distributed virtual reality<br />
The picture shows an excerpt from a meteorological setup<br />
designed to analyze the distribution of pollutants in the air<br />
around a rather tall building in the city of Hannover. Some<br />
virtual “particles” are inserted at certain times into the running<br />
simulation and then tracked to see how the chemicals<br />
will be distributed. To get an idea about the process of distribution,<br />
a trajectory line is added to each particle showing the<br />
exact path of the molecules. The geometry of the buildings<br />
themselves has to fi t to the numerical grid used for the simulation;<br />
this makes the picture seem somewhat crude, but in<br />
actuality it is quite detailed. The simulation depicted has one<br />
of the highest resolutions that may be handled with today’s<br />
computers.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
Scientifi c visualization mainly aims at facilitating<br />
an understanding of results. Evita is<br />
a project concentrating on the visualization<br />
of large and complex data sets resulting<br />
from simulations running on supercomputers.<br />
The software developed makes use of<br />
the supercomputing environment to avoid<br />
bottlenecks. It enables interactive viewing<br />
of four-dimensional simulation results even<br />
when the simulation is still running.<br />
Illuminated streamlines and particles in a parallelized meteorological<br />
large-eddy-simulation of Hannover use data obtained<br />
by an in-fl ight laser scan as city model.<br />
Usability<br />
At times there can be many things going on simultaneously in<br />
a simulation. Therefore, we experiment with alternative methods<br />
to represent the data to the user – namely, using a haptic<br />
device which enables “touching” the results of the simulation<br />
or selecting where to show particle traces. Overcrowded<br />
scenes are called “visually cluttered”, and should be avoided.<br />
As a primary objective, data understanding should be facilitated,<br />
and the goal is not to just create a representation that<br />
may convey more information.
selected publications<br />
Nils Jensen, Gabriele von Voigt, Wolfgang Nejdl,<br />
Johannes Bernarding: Effi cient 1-Pass Prediction<br />
for Volume Compression. SCIA 2005: 302-311.<br />
Springer.<br />
Nils Jensen, Gabriel Gaus, Gabriele von Voigt,<br />
Stephan Olbrich: Design and Psychophysical Study<br />
of Volume Compression for Haptic Rendering.<br />
Accepted for publication at the World Haptics<br />
Conference 2007, Tsukuba, Japan.<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING PROJECTS<br />
info box<br />
Project type: DFG-funded<br />
Duration: March 2005 – March 2007 (first stage)<br />
Research Areas: Visualization, Computer<br />
Graphics, High-Performance Computing,<br />
Numerical Simulation<br />
URL: http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de/evita<br />
Staff: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stephan Olbrich,<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gabriele von Voigt,<br />
Gabriel Gaus, Nils Jensen<br />
{olbrich, vonvoigt, gaus, jensen}@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER 27
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
HELCA – Hannover eLearning Campus<br />
Setting up the future of learning<br />
HELCA focuses mainly on the extension of traditional teaching with eLearning technologies, transferring<br />
the results of previous projects into common practice for all faculty members of the University of Hannover.<br />
Fundamental organizational changes are required and have to be coordinated within the overall<br />
IT strategy of the university and the main partners on campus.<br />
The state of the eLearning<br />
The HELCA project started in July 2005. Its goal is the systemic<br />
improvement, structural optimization and pervasive dissemination<br />
of eLearning throughout the University of Hannover.<br />
By creating an eLearning enhanced culture, HELCA will ensure<br />
a permanent improvement in the effi ciency of teaching and<br />
study-related services at the Leibniz University Hannover.<br />
In <strong>2006</strong> the following milestones were achieved:<br />
• The Learning management system Stud.IP is now being utilized<br />
by around 5,000 active users. About 350 courses in the<br />
winter semester <strong>2006</strong>/07 benefi t from the available functionalities<br />
of the system.<br />
• The data of all offi cial courses and staff members are imported<br />
and updated automatically from the corresponding<br />
planning systems of the university. This automatic support<br />
enables every staff member of the university to use Stud.IP for<br />
their courses, with minimal overhead.<br />
summary<br />
The HELCA project makes eLearning a constituent<br />
part of teaching at the Leibniz University<br />
of Hannover. In <strong>2006</strong> we focused on<br />
infrastructures and organizational activities,<br />
which resulted in increased usage and awareness<br />
of eLearning services. In 2007, it will be<br />
necessary to establish ELSA as a permanent<br />
institution within the university and to continue<br />
winning new users.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Service orientated integration<br />
project funded by BMBF<br />
Duration: July 2005 - June 2008<br />
Research areas: eLearning, learning management<br />
systems, IT and media services<br />
Contact: Dipl.-Sozw. Cornelis Kater,<br />
kater@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.elsa.uni-hannover.de<br />
http://elearning.uni-hannover.de<br />
• All users of the learning management system now have the<br />
possibility to ask for immediate help or to report any problems<br />
while using the system by calling a dedicated hotline<br />
number.<br />
• A large number of institutes and individuals at the university<br />
were given the required help using eLearning tools and also<br />
had the opportunity to take part in tutorials and training lectures<br />
on selected topics.<br />
• Lecture recording is now supported by ELSA (eLearning-<br />
Support-Abteilung). Many institutes have shown interest in<br />
this utility and make use of the installed equipment to create<br />
eLearning material in their courses.<br />
• The learning-content management system ILIAS, for maintaining<br />
on-line courses and assessments, was coupled with<br />
Stud.IP and is now available for users at the university. Users<br />
can access both systems with one account.<br />
• The installation of the e-Classroom for supporting the interactive<br />
presentation of learning contents starts at the beginning<br />
of 2007.
Events for the masses<br />
In order to increase the awareness of the support for eLearning<br />
provided by ELSA at the Leibniz University Hannover for<br />
both the students and teachers, two large-scale events were<br />
organized in the year <strong>2006</strong>:<br />
Under the title: Willst du mit mir online gehen (would you go<br />
online with me) all students – especially junior students – were<br />
invited to an introductory lecture about the different onlineoffers<br />
in the context of eLearning at the Leibniz University of<br />
Hannover. In this lecture, ELSA made students aware of the<br />
requirements of online-learning and successfully encouraged<br />
them to explore the various possibilities and functionalities of<br />
the eLearning platform Stud.IP. The lecture was presented in<br />
the form of a show and was supported by some sponsors.<br />
For the second group of users, namely the teachers, ELSA<br />
has organized the fi rst eTeaching and eScience conference,<br />
to which all employees of the university were invited. Fifteen<br />
speakers presented their experiences with eLearning at the<br />
Leibniz University of Hannover. More than 70 interested participants<br />
attended this event.<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Brehm, J., Olbrich, S.: HELCA - Ein Konzept für<br />
einen E-Campus? SL05 – Workshop Structured<br />
eLearning (Pre-Conference zur DeLFI 2005),<br />
Rostock, 13.09.2005.<br />
And we will go on…<br />
In 2007 ELSA will take further steps for improving the provided<br />
services, increasing the awareness of these services,<br />
training the users. ELSA will also repeat and re-organize the<br />
successful events of the year <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
The e-Classroom will start service this year, more connections<br />
to the learning management system will be established (e.g.<br />
digital collections, integrating the system with the offi cial web<br />
site of the university) and new technologies like Podcasts will<br />
be part of the offered services.<br />
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30<br />
PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
<strong>L3S</strong>CPD – <strong>L3S</strong> Center for Professional Development<br />
The <strong>L3S</strong>CPD project focuses on a central research question, namely, how can innovative information,<br />
as well as learning and knowledge technologies be used when establishing a knowledge society? For<br />
this purpose, Ph.D. students are working with Professor Klaus Jobmann on didactical and methodological<br />
issues. The goal of this work is to develop eLearning scenarios in an empirical way, the research<br />
method focuses on the design-based research approach. With such as approach, general pedagogical<br />
questions such as self-directed learning, student communication processes and the design of media are<br />
addressed.<br />
What has happened?<br />
During the fi rst phase of the project, lectures were recorded at<br />
the Institute of Communication Engineering (Leibniz University<br />
Hannover) and made available on the Internet as a video<br />
stream with slide accompaniment. Two years ago, lectures<br />
were recorded interactively using automatic camera control.<br />
Part of the concept is a “simple” lecture recording using the<br />
authoring tool LECTURNITY®; which includes the interaction<br />
between the students and the teacher. Based on the lecture<br />
recordings, different eLearning scenarios in Distance Learning<br />
and Blended Learning were conducted and the results of our<br />
empirical evaluation were published.<br />
What is going on?<br />
Current work deals with further innovative eLearning scenarios<br />
that are enabled through lecture recordings. Our goal is to<br />
reduce the teacher-centred character of the media by creating<br />
learner-centred scenarios [1]. Students learn in groups of two<br />
or three using: a text guide, the normal lecture materials and<br />
the recorded lectures. On the basis of the available media,<br />
each group of students must answer the questions in the text<br />
guide. The eLearning scenario is called VideoLern and was<br />
also demonstrated in a vocational school. The evaluation results<br />
and experiences were very positive. Students experience<br />
great satisfaction with this kind of learning because they can<br />
work independently. Teachers appreciate the great advantage<br />
of not having to deliver content during classes and instead<br />
can use this time for direct student supervision. An empirical<br />
investigation of this eLearning scenario, which is built on the<br />
design-based research approach, was designed, the investiga-<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
<strong>L3S</strong>CPD means <strong>L3S</strong> Center for Professional<br />
Development. Goal of this work is to develop<br />
eLearning scenarios on an empirical way.<br />
Actually the work focuses on a self-directed<br />
eLearning scenario with lecture recordings.<br />
Further works focus on the split-attention<br />
problem during learning with lecture recordings.<br />
tion will be carried out this year. In addition, the aspects of<br />
self-directed learning and the teacher-student as well as student-student<br />
communication processes will be measured.<br />
Furthermore, a literacy study on the split-attention problem<br />
during the use of lecture recording was carried out [2]. The<br />
Research Center <strong>L3S</strong> worked together with the Freie Universität<br />
Berlin and the Universität Osnabrück; the research results<br />
give implications for the design of web lecture interfaces. Our<br />
work so far suggests that eye-tracking measurement could be<br />
an indication for the split-attention problem. Our plan is to<br />
conduct a study that measures the learning effi ciency.
selected publications<br />
Marc Krüger, Klaus Jobmann: Erfahrungsbericht<br />
zum Lehren und Lernen mit eLectures. Vortrag auf<br />
der 1. eLearning & eScience Tagung am 17.11.<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Paper will be published in March 2007<br />
Robert Mertens, Gerald Friedland, and Marc<br />
Krüger: To See or Not To See: Layout Constraints,<br />
the Split-Attention Problem and their Implications<br />
for the Design of Web Lecture Interfaces. Published<br />
on e-learn World Conference on ELearning in Corporate,<br />
Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education.<br />
Honolulu, Hawaii, Oct. 13-17, <strong>2006</strong><br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING PROJECTS<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Research and Application Project<br />
Duration: 2003-2007<br />
Research areas: Technology Enhanced Learning<br />
Contact: Prof. Dr.-Ing Klaus Jobmann,<br />
Dipl.-Berufspäd. Marc Krüger<br />
{jobmann, krueger}@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de/l3scpd<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER 31
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
mstbildung – Net Based Strategies for<br />
Qualification in Microsystem Technology<br />
Microsystem Technology has played an increasingly important role for growth and employment and is<br />
likely to be a key technology in the 21th century. Due to the fact that a growing number of companies<br />
is using microsystem technologies and seeking employees with broad and comprehensive knowledge; it<br />
is becoming diffi cult to satisfy the demand for skilled labour. The current system of college degrees and<br />
vocational training is not creating enough specialists. Consequently, there is a huge demand for training<br />
and continuing professional development.<br />
Education Network Lower Saxony<br />
The project mstbildung (Microsystem Technology Education)<br />
is part of an educational network aiming to promote<br />
microsystem technology in Lower Saxony. Companies, research<br />
and educational institutes have joined forces in order<br />
to promote education and training in an interdisciplinary and<br />
cross-technology manner. Focusing on Microsystem Technology,<br />
the project investigates an approach that can fulfi ll the<br />
demand for qualifi cation and lifelong learning by using netbased<br />
teaching and learning strategies. The required resources<br />
are developed by the <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center, in co-operation<br />
with the Center for Technical Didactic, Leibniz University of<br />
Hannover and provided via an Internet training and learning<br />
platform.<br />
Multi-medially Learning with Ilias<br />
Within the mstbildung network, one fundamental aim is to<br />
develop teaching and learning material to support vocational<br />
schools in the region. To provide a wide range of material,<br />
an opensource web-based Learning Management System,<br />
called Ilias, was installed on a <strong>L3S</strong> server. Ilias allows users to<br />
create, edit and publish learning and teaching material in an<br />
integrated system using their normal web browsers, making<br />
it easily accessible for all participants. Tools for cooperative<br />
working and communication are included as well. Trainees<br />
can access Ilias anytime and follow their own working and<br />
learning rhythm.<br />
The multimedia supported learning units are dealing with<br />
typical microtechnology tasks with great applied relevance.<br />
All project courses follow the principle of “complete action”.<br />
The individual phases are carried out by trainees in different<br />
learning locations within the educational network, such as vo-<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
cational school, companies, and laboratory. The trainees are<br />
exposed to a new topic through multimedia teaching materials<br />
chosen by their teachers. Every multimedia teaching unit is<br />
illustrated by numerous pictures, movie sequences and comments.<br />
The use of this material helps to link the fundamental<br />
skills and knowledge with excercises. By doing this, trainees<br />
are better prepared for practical phases, such as working in a<br />
cleanroom.<br />
The use of multimedia technology has provided many encouraging<br />
outcomes. The experience shows that multimedia<br />
teaching and learning material has aided the student learning<br />
process. Study techniques become more active and effi cient<br />
and the approach generates greater interest in the units and<br />
encourages the trainees to work more diligently. In addition<br />
teachers and trainees gained experience in multimedia technology<br />
by using the Learning Management System Ilias. In<br />
sum, Ilias maximizes social, contextualized, and problem focused<br />
learning.<br />
selected publications<br />
A. Weiner (2007), Kooperatives Lernen in projektorientierten<br />
Lehrveranstaltungen. In: Lehren und<br />
Forschen mit Neuen Medien an der Leibniz Universität<br />
Hannover. Shaker-Verlag (in preperation)<br />
R. Sandvoss (<strong>2006</strong>), Innovative Strategies of<br />
Qualifi cation in Microsystem Technology. In: International<br />
newsletter in micro-nano integration,<br />
No.06/06, VDI/VDE-IT, Berlin
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING PROJECTS<br />
summary<br />
To supply the microsystem technology<br />
branch with well-educated and inter-discipline<br />
workers a high level of education and<br />
professional training is needed. The education<br />
has to include generic skills as well as<br />
professional subjects. The project mstbildung<br />
creates a net-based teaching and learning<br />
environment, which helps all participants<br />
to acquire new and important technical<br />
knowledge. These net-based teaching and<br />
learning strategies fulfi ll the demand for<br />
qualifi cations and lifelong learning. With the<br />
help of the Learning Management System<br />
Ilias, teachers and trainees can be qualifi ed<br />
co operatively.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Educational Network funded by<br />
the German Federal Ministry of Education and<br />
Research (BMBF)<br />
Duration: Januar 2003 – December 2007<br />
Research Areas: self-directed learning,<br />
eLearning<br />
Contact: Akad. Rat Andreas Weiner,<br />
weiner@zdt.uni-hannover.de<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Inga Herbold, herbold@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.mst-bildung.de<br />
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TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
PROLEARN –<br />
Network of Excellence in Professional Learning<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> coordinates the Network of Excellence PROLEARN, which integrates European research in the fi eld of<br />
professional learning. The network consists of 21 internationally renowned partners, over 240 researchers<br />
and about 300 associated participants. PROLEARN stimulates cooperation and new initiatives, and<br />
plays a major role in disseminating the research results. Various events are organized for researchers and<br />
professionals, such as the annual Summer School for Ph.D. students, Professional Training Facts and the<br />
European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning.<br />
Summary of Activities<br />
PROLEARN is a Network of Excellence dealing with technology<br />
enhanced professional learning. Our mission is to bring<br />
together the most important research groups in the area of<br />
professional learning and training, as well as other key organizations<br />
and industrial partners. The Network the currently<br />
existing gap between research and education at universities<br />
and similar organizations and training and continuous education<br />
that is provided for and within companies.<br />
The PROLEARN network aims to integrate research on relevant<br />
topics. Explicit attention is paid to the identifi cation of<br />
new topics, in order to set up a roadmap for future research in<br />
the fi eld of technology-enhanced learning in Europe. To reach<br />
this goal, community building is essential, in particular via the<br />
organization of scientifi c events.<br />
summary<br />
PROLEARN is a Network of Excellence dealing<br />
with technology enhanced professional<br />
learning. Our mission is to bring together<br />
the most important research groups in the<br />
area of professional learning and training, as<br />
well as other key organizations and industrial<br />
partners. PROLEARN bridgets the currently<br />
existing gap between research and education<br />
at universities and similar organizations<br />
and training and continuous education that<br />
is provided for and within companies.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
Research<br />
The PROLEARN research topics are clustered as follows:<br />
interoperability; competencies and personalization; business<br />
processes and learning; and collaborative learning. The results<br />
are refl ected in a large number of scientifi c publications<br />
in conference proceedings and journals, as well as in various<br />
project proposals. Research exchanges refl ect ongoing joint<br />
projects within the PROLEARN context.<br />
Another important outcome in <strong>2006</strong> has been the foundation<br />
of the Professional Learning Cluster PRO-LC. PRO-LC connects<br />
major European research projects in the area of Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning which focus on professional learning,<br />
including PROLEARN and the Integrated Projects Prolix,<br />
APOSDLE, TENCompetence and Palette. Through close cooperation,<br />
these projects aim to strengthen European research<br />
and industry in the area of professional learning, for example<br />
through standardization bodies.<br />
With its activities, PROLEARN is reshaping research in technology-enhanced<br />
learning in Europe. PROLEARN joint research<br />
and activities have proven to be a successful base for<br />
joint collaboration in new projects and events focusing on<br />
new and important research issues.<br />
Events<br />
A major PROLEARN focus has been the establishment, maintenance<br />
and initiation of joint activities, events and projects in<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. In addition to workshops and dissemination events at<br />
– among others – Adaptive Hypermedia <strong>2006</strong>, ICALT <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
I-KNOW 06 and WWW <strong>2006</strong>, the two main events were the<br />
Summer School <strong>2006</strong> and the fi rst European Conference on<br />
Technology-Enhanced Learning EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong>.
The PROLEARN Summer School <strong>2006</strong>, held in Bled, Slovenia,<br />
attracted 71 participants representing 29 nationalities. The<br />
summer school featured lectures given by professors, various<br />
workshops and mentoring activities. The summer school was<br />
useful in promoting participation at the fi rst PROLEARN Doctoral<br />
Consortium to be held at the EC-TEL conference.<br />
EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong> took place in Crete, Greece. Thanks to the ambitious<br />
and competitive selection process (acceptance rate was<br />
22%), EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong> managed to bring together the leading<br />
experts in the fi eld of technology-enhanced learning. The<br />
main goal of the conference was to support a forum for European<br />
research, which was emphasized by the presence of<br />
representatives from the EC and by eight EU/IST project meetings<br />
focusing on technology enhanced learning. It was a very<br />
good start for the newly created EC-TEL conference and we<br />
look forward to its continued success.<br />
Future<br />
Several sustainability activities have been developed in order<br />
to ensure the continuation of the PROLEARN activities. The<br />
PRO-LC will take care of the organization of the Summer<br />
Schools and EC-TEL conferences. In order to provide a legal<br />
basis for these activities, an association will be founded by<br />
February 2007.<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type:<br />
Network of Excellence, funded by EU PF6<br />
Duration: January 2004 – December 2007<br />
Research: Professional Learning, Technology-Enhanced<br />
Learning, Collaborative Learning, Personalization,<br />
Knowledge Management, Standardization<br />
Contact: Dr. Eelco Herder, herder@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.prolearn-project.org<br />
selected publications<br />
Philipp Kaerger, Carsten Ullrich, Erica Melis:Integrating<br />
Learning Object Repositories Using a<br />
Mediator Architecture. In: Proceedings of the First<br />
European Conference on Technology Enhanced<br />
Learning (EC-TEL‘06), Springer LNCS, Crete, Greece,<br />
October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Martin Wolpers, Margit Hofer, Gunnar Martin:<br />
Professional Learning in Europe and beyond - Structures<br />
for sustainable TEL-Research. In: Proceedings<br />
of the First European Conference on Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL‘06), Springer LNCS,<br />
Crete, Greece, October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Jehad Najjar, Martin Wolpers, Erik Duval: Towards<br />
Effective Usage-Based Learning Applications: Track<br />
and Learn from User Experience(s). In: Proceedings<br />
of the 6th IEEE International Conference on<br />
Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT <strong>2006</strong>),<br />
Kerkrade, The Netherlands, July <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
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TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
PROLIX – Process-oriented Learning<br />
and Information Exchange<br />
Modern enterprises use information technology both to control and manage their business processes<br />
and to manage and administer employee learning processes. Currently however, the respective systems<br />
are completely independent of each other, making the alignment of business process changes and corresponding<br />
personnel development tedious and ineffi cient. The main goal of PROLIX is to support learning<br />
processes aligned with business processes; thereby enabling organizations to improve the competencies<br />
of their employees faster and more effi ciently according to the continuous changes of business requirements.<br />
Challenges<br />
PROLIX aims to support a complete learning process life cycle.<br />
This life cycle starts with the analysis of complex business situations,<br />
followed by the identifi cation of individual and organisational<br />
learning goals, the analysis of competencies and their<br />
matching with individual skills. Based on this analysis, appropriate<br />
learning strategies and actual courses are selected or<br />
developed. Success of the learning process execution and the<br />
learner’s actual performance at the work place are constantly<br />
monitored, providing valuable feedback to business process<br />
designers and human resource managers.<br />
This approach imposes several challenges, among them:<br />
• Development of a comprehensive competency model: The key<br />
to interconnection of business and learning processes is the<br />
concept of competency profi les. Such profi les are used to describe<br />
current employees skills, the skills required to conduct<br />
a business task, and the competencies obtained by taking a<br />
specifi c course or course element.<br />
• Design of a service-oriented integration architecture: The integration<br />
of business and learning processes also has to take place<br />
on a technical level. PROLIX does not build a new information<br />
system for that purpose from scratch, but instead takes advantage<br />
of existing, mature systems reusing them as software<br />
components. The challenge is to defi ne suitable interfaces for<br />
these components to enable a loose technical coupling which,<br />
at the same time, provides a tight functional integration.<br />
R&D Highlights<br />
Competency model: An extensive framework for description<br />
of competency profi les has been created, which allows attaching<br />
competency-related information to several concepts<br />
as person, process, role, function, course, learning template,<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
The vision of PROLIX is to enable business<br />
process driven learning at the workplace,<br />
taking into account individual learners<br />
and their needs as well as the corporate<br />
requirements. To realize this vision, PROLIX<br />
will create a process- and competency-driven<br />
software framework for interlinking business<br />
process intelligence tools on the one hand<br />
with knowledge management and learning<br />
environments on the other.<br />
etc. This framework allows capturing complex competencies<br />
along with supplementary information such as evidence records.<br />
It is possible to compose competency defi nitions from<br />
existing descriptions, and relations between competencies<br />
(e.g. inclusion) can be stated. This fosters reuse and will lead,<br />
in the long term, to a network of – possibly standardized<br />
– competency specifi cations.<br />
PROLIX architecture: A major achievement in <strong>2006</strong> was the<br />
fi rst architecture specifi cation. In addition to business process<br />
management and learning management systems, components<br />
for competency profi le management, process simulation,<br />
learning process creation and process monitoring had to<br />
be integrated. For all these components, interfaces, interaction<br />
patterns, and data formats have been defi ned. As a technical<br />
foundation, the system is using the Service Oriented Architecture<br />
paradigm based on an Enterprise Service Bus. This type of<br />
infrastructure decreases component coupling signifi cantly and<br />
allows for fl exible system composition and confi guration.
In 2007, this system will be installed at selected corporations<br />
and institutions from telecommunications, health care, and<br />
fi nance to evaluate its usage and gather input for their further<br />
development. The next research activities will focus on<br />
effi cient matching of competency profi les to requirements<br />
and fl exible workfl ow support for the service-oriented architecture.<br />
Project Type: Integrated Project funded by EU<br />
Duration: December 2005 – December 2009<br />
Research Areas: Technology Enhanced Learning,<br />
Service-oriented Architectures<br />
Contact: Dr. Wolf Siberski, siberski@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.prolix-project.eu<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
info<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Juri L. De Coi, Eelco Herder, Arne Koesling, Christoph<br />
Lofi , Daniel Olmedilla, Odysseas Papapetrou,<br />
and Wolf Siberski. A Model for Competence Gap<br />
Analysis. Proceedings of the 3rd International<br />
Conference on Web Information Systems and<br />
Technologies (WEBIST), Barcelona, 2007.<br />
Wolf Siberski, Christoph Lofi , Odysseas Papapetrou.<br />
PROLIX Functional Architecture. Technical<br />
Report, 2007.<br />
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TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
TENCompetence – Building the European Network<br />
for Lifelong Competence Development<br />
Traditionally, instructional learning has covered the needs of people searching for new labor opportunities,<br />
be it to improve or upgrade in current jobs or search for new ones. Normally, the learning process<br />
would start with some formal curriculum (e.g., at the university level) and then be followed by some<br />
specifi c courses related to the area of work (e.g., an MBA). Nowadays, there is a growing need for more<br />
fl exible and cost-effective solutions for learners in order to provide lifelong competence development.<br />
People need the possibility to learn at different locations (e.g.,<br />
at home) and at times that better fi t their working hours while<br />
still keeping most of the benefi ts of face-to-face learning, for<br />
example, the availability of tutors to help them if a question<br />
arises. TENCompetence addresses this need and aims to<br />
support individuals, groups and organizations in Europe in<br />
lifelong competence development by establishing the most<br />
appropriate technical and organizational infrastructure and<br />
using open-source, standards-based, sustainable and innovative<br />
technology.<br />
The project focuses on new pedagogical models, fi nding the<br />
best solutions, pro-active sharing, assessment, support tools,<br />
decentralized management and integration of isolation tools<br />
by conducting research within the following four areas:<br />
summary<br />
The aim of TENCompetence is to support<br />
individuals, groups and organizations in<br />
Europe in lifelong competence development<br />
by establishing the most appropriate technical<br />
and organizational infrastructure, using<br />
open-source, standards-based, sustainable<br />
and innovative technology. Research focuses<br />
on four specific areas: knowledge resources,<br />
learning activities, competence development<br />
programs and learning networks.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
Knowledge Resource Sharing and Management<br />
The TENCompetence infrastructure requires a knowledge resource<br />
sharing and management middleware as basis in order<br />
to ensure the availability of resources as well as their proper<br />
exchange and use. Moreover, learners should be able to share<br />
their resources and access resources from other learners as<br />
well. Such middleware brings together: centralized repositories<br />
(e.g., institutional servers and Learning Management<br />
Systems); decentralized networks (e.g., Peer-to-Peer); emergent<br />
Web2.0 applications (e.g., Flickr or YouTube). In this way<br />
TENCompetence provides new means for users to share information<br />
with a higher level of motivation.<br />
Learning Activities & Units of Learning<br />
Units of learning are activities designed and directed to the<br />
attainment of a learning object by a person. They add pedagogical<br />
information to knowledge resources. In this area, new<br />
pedagogical models and tools for the creation and management<br />
of units of learning are needed in order to provide a<br />
more complete overview of the learning process and facilitate<br />
the integration of individual and collaborative learning for<br />
persons, groups and institutions.<br />
Competence Development Programmes<br />
Lifelong learning requires not only accessing existing formal<br />
curricula but also ad-hoc programmes (collections of units of<br />
learning) provided by i.e. other learners based on their experience:<br />
thereby increasing dramatically the options of the learners.<br />
Due to the lack of standards for describing Competence<br />
Development Programmes in a formal, semantic and interoperable<br />
way, TENCompetence will provide such a specifi cation
and use it to help users position themselves within a learning<br />
network as well as give recommendations based on their profi<br />
le and goals.<br />
Networks for Lifelong Competence Development<br />
These networks are collections of Competence Development<br />
Programmes defi ned within a knowledge domain. TENCompetence<br />
aims at providing a general vision of the content of<br />
such networks as well as the people participating in them. In<br />
addition, new models for the stimulation of proactive collaboration<br />
among learners based on software agents, games and<br />
simulations, as well as visualization of communities and social<br />
networks will be provided.<br />
Project type: Integrated Project<br />
Duration: December 2005 - November 2009<br />
Research Areas: eLearning, Knowledge sharing,<br />
SOA, Personalization, Social networks<br />
Contact: Daniel Olmedilla, olmedilla@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.tencompetence.org<br />
TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING<br />
info box<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Ingo Brunkhorst and Daniel Olmedilla. Interoperability<br />
for peer-to-peer networks: Opening p2p to<br />
the rest of the world. In Innovative Approaches for<br />
Learning and Knowledge Sharing, First European<br />
Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-<br />
TEL), volume 4227 of Lecture Notes in Computer<br />
Science, pages 45-60, Heraklion, Greece, Oct <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Springer.<br />
Frans Van Assche, Erik Duval, David Massart, Daniel<br />
Olmedilla, Bernd Simon, Stefan Sobernig, Stefaan<br />
Ternier, and Fridolin Wild. Spinning interoperable<br />
applications for teaching & learning using the<br />
simple query interface. Educational Technology &<br />
Society. Special Issue (April <strong>2006</strong>) on Interoperability<br />
of Educational Systems, 9(2):51-67, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Bernd Simon, Stefan Sobernig, Fridolin Wild, Sandra<br />
Aguirre, Stefan Brantner, Peter Dolog, Gustaf<br />
Neumann, Gernot Huber, Tomaz Klobucar, Sascha<br />
Markus, Zoltán Miklós, Wolfgang Nejdl, Daniel<br />
Olmedilla, Joaquín Salvachúa, Michael Sintek, and<br />
Thomas Zillinger. Building blocks for a smart space<br />
for learningtm. In 6th IEEE International Conference<br />
on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT <strong>2006</strong>),<br />
pages 309-313, Kerkrade, The Netherlands, July<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. IEEE Computer Society.<br />
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SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
APIS – Advanced Personalization<br />
in Information Services<br />
Due to the ever growing volume of database content and the personalization needs in information<br />
searches, human preferences play an essential part in today’s information systems. This is because mere<br />
traditional database queries quite often produce empty or too numerous results. The user is frustrated<br />
in both cases and feels left alone facing the information fl ood. The APIS Group at <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center<br />
investigates personalized service provisioning based on individual sets of personal preferences for each<br />
user. Such preference sets not only best express user’s information needs, but also state the trade-offs<br />
each user is prepared to consider. In short, respecting user preferences and effi cient preference handling<br />
are essential building blocks towards truly cooperative information services.<br />
Focus on Cooperative System Behavior<br />
Cooperative information systems offer user-centered querying<br />
by automatic relaxation of (less important) query parts.<br />
Today, most systems use complicated ranking schemes to<br />
express the utility of information with respect to the query.<br />
However, the practical applicability in large information<br />
sources still remains rather limited: generally users cannot be<br />
expected to provide meaningful weightings for a complex<br />
utility function and subsequently, neither can calculated rankings<br />
be explained intuitively to the user.<br />
Therefore, recently the skyline query paradigm has been applied<br />
in a variety of applications ranging from digital item<br />
adaptation to location-based information services. In skyline<br />
queries, the user merely specifi es basic predicates to be queried<br />
and in return, an optimal result set is always retrieved. A<br />
summary<br />
APIS aims at personalized service provisioning<br />
based on individual sets of personal<br />
preferences for each user. These preferences<br />
are part of a flexibly adaptable profile and<br />
more necessary information can be elicited<br />
on demand directly from users. Directly focusing<br />
on the users’ information needs APIS<br />
thus investigates technologies to efficiently<br />
provide ‘prime cuts’ of all available information<br />
in an interactive and cooperative query<br />
process.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: DFG Project within the Emmy Noether<br />
Program of Excellence<br />
Duration: November 2004 – October 2008<br />
Research Areas: Databases and Information Systems,<br />
Service Provisioning, Personalization<br />
Contact: Dr. Wolf-Tilo Balke, balke@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de/apis<br />
user simply cannot miss any important answer. However, the<br />
advantage of intuitive query formulation comes at a price: on<br />
the one hand, skylines are rather expensive to compute; on<br />
the other hand skylines are known to grow exponentially in<br />
size with increasing number of query predicates. Thus, the<br />
user again has to face the information fl ood.<br />
Focus on Interactive Query Processes<br />
The APIS approach works together with the user to personalize<br />
results and supports refi nements of the individual<br />
preference profi le. Users are enabled to interactively specify<br />
additional preference information, as well as equivalences between<br />
choices, leading to an incremental reduction of result<br />
set sizes. Users can thus even express trade-offs or compromises<br />
they are willing to consider and can also intuitively adjust<br />
imbalances between fi ne-grained and coarser preference<br />
specifi cations.<br />
In all these tasks, the APIS system effi ciently supports the user<br />
by automatically taking care that newly specifi ed preferences<br />
and equivalences will never violate the consistency of previ-
ously stated preferences. Users will not encounter confl icts<br />
and will understand how their information need shapes the<br />
result set. Moreover, the effi cient algorithms developed in the<br />
preference handling framework allow the retrieval of focused<br />
result sets, respecting real time constraints even over large information<br />
collections.<br />
The benefi ts of APIS’s personalized information services are<br />
pervasive information access with proactive support for information<br />
search and retrieval. Together with innovative wireless<br />
technologies and powerful client devices, these services help<br />
to provide the right information anytime, anywhere. The APIS<br />
project is committed to bringing together researchers from<br />
different disciplines to improve the personalization capabilities<br />
in today’s information services. APIS is funded by the German<br />
Research Foundation as part of the Emmy- Noether-Program<br />
of Excellence.<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Wolf-Tilo Balke, Ulrich Güntzer, and Christoph Lofi<br />
Eliciting Matters – Controlling Skyline Sizes by<br />
Incremental Integration of User Preferences. International<br />
Conference on Database Systems for<br />
Advanced Applications (DASFAA), Bangkok, Thailand,<br />
2007.<br />
Wolf-Tilo Balke, Ulrich Güntzer, and Wolf Siberski<br />
Getting Prime Cuts from Skylines over Partially<br />
Ordered Domains. GI-Fachtagung für Datenbanksysteme<br />
in Business, Technologie und Web (BTW),<br />
Aachen, Germany, 2007.<br />
Wolf-Tilo Balke, Ulrich Güntzer, and Wolf Siberski<br />
Exploiting Indifference for Customization of Partial<br />
Order Skylines. International Database Engineering<br />
& Applications Symposium (IDEAS), Delhi, India,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
41
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SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
PUMA – Personalized Universal Media Access<br />
The Personalized Universal Media Access (PUMA) project at <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center embraces the vision of<br />
accessing multimedia data anywhere anytime from a variety of (mobile) client devices. Today this is usually<br />
facilitated out of a plethora of complex monolithic applications. But building and maintaining such<br />
complex large scale multimedia systems is always a diffi cult, costly, time-consuming and challenging<br />
problem. Service-based architectures and the possibility to fl exibly reuse services for different workfl ows<br />
and compose basic services to implement more complex workfl ows or rather execution fl ows, as proposed<br />
in the Web and Grid communities, can provide a possible solution to this problem.<br />
Flexibility and Reusability by Service Orientation<br />
Service-oriented computing and service-oriented architectures<br />
are concepts strongly discussed and researched in the<br />
Web and Grid communities today. With the advent of frameworks<br />
and languages to build and manage Web services and<br />
protocols to enable conversations between them, much work,<br />
mostly driven by industry alliances has been invested in standardization.<br />
Generally speaking, Web applications can already<br />
now be fl exibly modeled using services as basic building<br />
blocks. Beside the effi cient provisioning and improved reusability<br />
of components, the move from data-driven to servicedriven<br />
Web architectures promises to open up a whole new<br />
fi eld of value-adding applications.<br />
PUMA develops these applications on top of existing components<br />
and thus reuses individual services to form new and increasingly<br />
complex workfl ows in a time- and cost-aware manner.<br />
Moreover, new innovative business models for content-,<br />
service- and network-providers can be employed and used for<br />
mutual benefi t.<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Leibniz University of Hannover<br />
project in the framework ’Innovationsschwerpunkt<br />
Service Oriented Architectures’.<br />
Duration: August <strong>2006</strong> – September 2008<br />
Research Areas: Multimedia Systems, Serviceoriented<br />
Architectures, Personalization<br />
Contact: Dr. Wolf-Tilo Balke, balke@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de/puma/<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
The Personalized Universal Media Access<br />
(PUMA) project embraces the vision of accessing<br />
multimedia data anywhere anytime<br />
from a variety of (mobile) client devices.<br />
Composing the necessary tasks as basic<br />
building blocks in a service-oriented architecture<br />
promises to introduce maximum<br />
flexibility and reusability for components<br />
when building advanced and highly personalizable<br />
multimedia applications.<br />
Cost-efficient Multimedia Application Development<br />
Given the enormous development costs for large scale applications<br />
the multimedia community is currently on the move<br />
from monolithic multimedia applications to more fl exible<br />
solutions. PUMA focuses especially on the domain of data<br />
semantics. The multimedia community already provides sophisticated<br />
standards for media coding accompanied with<br />
meta-data descriptions (e.g. MPEG-7, MPEG-21). Nevertheless,<br />
useful concepts from Web services research on dynamically<br />
building complex applications and execution fl ows using<br />
semantically well-defi ned descriptions did not make a broad<br />
impact on multimedia systems development yet.<br />
Multimedia applications are generally fl ow-based applications,<br />
since their data usually are continuous streams (e.g.,<br />
video and audio streams), i.e. dependent in time and space.
Quality constraints often need to be taken into account, adding<br />
another dimension. Hence, due to the rich semantic relations<br />
of multimedia data, and their time and space dependencies,<br />
functional services end up with rich dependencies, and it<br />
makes the building of large scale multimedia applications and<br />
systems truly challenging. To build a large scale distributed<br />
multimedia application, the underlying system infrastructure<br />
must provide a strong support across multiple protocol and<br />
service layers for the overall service composition process.<br />
Advanced Personalization Tasks<br />
Managing and delivering multimedia content over a variety of<br />
devices in a service-oriented and personalized fashion also puts<br />
great demands on the selection and adaptation of content.<br />
For every individual user a specifi c workfl ow has to be created<br />
respecting the user’s content preferences, con-tent semantics<br />
and network constraints, as well as terminal capabilities. Depending<br />
on the available media, the discovered services and<br />
all semantic, user-specifi c and technical constraints, the selection<br />
of the best possible workfl ow needs to solve a complex<br />
preference problem. By integrating a model of partial order<br />
preferences and developing algorithms to effi ciently evaluate<br />
complex preference constraints, the PUMA framework is able<br />
to handle such trade-offs in a more meaningful way.<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Benjamin Köhncke and Wolf-Tilo Balke<br />
Personalized Digital Item Adaptation in Service-<br />
Oriented Environments.<br />
International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation<br />
and Personalization (SMAP), Athens,<br />
Greece, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Wolf-Tilo Balke and Jörg Diederich<br />
A Quality- and Cost-based Selection Model for<br />
Multimedia Service Composition in Mobile Environments.<br />
IEEE International Conference on Web<br />
Services (ICWS), Chicago, IL, USA, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
43
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SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
P2P-IS<br />
Peer-to-Peer Information Systems<br />
P2P-IS is devoted to conducting basic research in the area of P2P networks for information systems. In<br />
<strong>2006</strong>, new coordination approaches for routing of keyword queries were explored. Also, previous work<br />
was extended to allow more expressive queries, taking into account user preferences. Additionally, progress<br />
was made in the area of distributed reasoning algorithms, and in interconnecting P2P networks with<br />
service-oriented information systems.<br />
P2P Information Retrieval<br />
In the last years, <strong>L3S</strong> has worked on an information retrieval<br />
P2P network, allowing for effi cient keyword search in distributed<br />
document collections. Currently, this network uses<br />
a super-peer backbone for distribution of queries. While this<br />
works effi ciently, it relies on the availability of performant<br />
network nodes to bear the burden of analyzing and routing<br />
queries. Therefore, it is attractive to use a less centralized infrastructure<br />
for query routing, such as a distributed hash table<br />
infrastructure (DHT). We have devised an information retrieval<br />
network where clusters of peers are coordinated by such a<br />
DHT. New peers contact the DHT to fi nd the right cluster, and<br />
register in the network. Due to careful selection of distinguishing<br />
keywords, this registration process affords only few interactions<br />
with the DHT. A querying peer fi rst contacts the DHT<br />
to retrieve the relevant clusters, and then contacts a cluster<br />
representative directly for further query routing. This ensures<br />
that for any query, only a small fraction of the network is involved<br />
in the processing.<br />
With the availability of more and more structured data about<br />
documents and their contexts (e.g., due to Semantic Web annotations),<br />
it becomes desirable to include search conditions<br />
related to this additional information. Our distributed top-k<br />
evaluation algorithm which takes into account the subject to<br />
fi nd most relevant documents has been generalized such that<br />
preferences with respect to any additional information are<br />
considered for the identifi cation of the most relevant documents.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
Information systems such as digital libraries<br />
or learning object repositories are becoming<br />
increasingly interconnected. Currently, these<br />
networks are manually administered, leading<br />
to high effort and low flexibility. Thus, it<br />
is appealing to move towards self-organized<br />
networks, where information sources can<br />
join open information networks easily. P2P-<br />
IS conducts research to make such networks<br />
feasible.<br />
P2P Reasoning<br />
For complex coordination tasks, e.g., distributed policy checking,<br />
peers in an information network need to perform a distributed<br />
reasoning and proof process. This is a challenging<br />
task because the network has to make sure that the reasoning<br />
process always terminates, although there is no central<br />
control. The key to tackling this challenge is an adaptation<br />
of the tabling algorithm for the distributed case. For a goal<br />
occurring during the reasoning process, a table is created<br />
where answers for this goal are stored as soon as they are<br />
found. Since repeated answers are not propagated, looping is<br />
avoided and program termination is guaranteed.<br />
P2P System Integration<br />
While P2P networks offer a high degree of self-organization<br />
and a scalable interconnection facility, they also require all
participating nodes to implement a network-specifi c interface<br />
and protocol. For existing systems, this poses a high entrance<br />
barrier, due to signifi cant development efforts for the required<br />
adaptation. <strong>L3S</strong> has devised a concept and implemented an<br />
infrastructure which allows sharing of content between the set<br />
of peers inside a P2P network and other systems outside the<br />
network. The approach uses proxy nodes and semantic mappings<br />
to translate the proprietary P2P protocol to an open,<br />
standard-based web service interface. This interface can be<br />
used seamlessly by any system capable of offering and/or calling<br />
web services, thus lowering the entrance barrier signifi -<br />
cantly.<br />
Project Type: Base Funding<br />
Duration: since 2001<br />
Research Area: Peer-to-Peer Networks<br />
Contact: Dr. Wolf Siberski, siberski@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de/english/projekte/edutella.html<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
info box<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Wolf Siberski, Jeff Z. Pan, and U. Thaden. Querying<br />
the Semantic Web with Preferences. Proceedings<br />
of the 5th International Semantic Web Conference<br />
(ISWC), Athens, GA, USA, <strong>2006</strong>. Best Student Paper<br />
Award<br />
Loizos Michael, Wolfgang Nejdl, Odysseas Papapetrou,<br />
Wolf Siberski: Improving distributed join<br />
effi ciency with extended bloom fi lter operations,<br />
The IEEE 21st International Conference on Advanced<br />
Information Networking and Applications<br />
(AINA-07)<br />
Odysseas Papapetrou, Wolf Siberski, Wolf-Tilo<br />
Balke, Wolfgang Nejdl: DHTs over Peer Clusters for<br />
Distributed Information Retrieval , The IEEE 21st<br />
International Conference on Advanced Information<br />
Networking and Applications (AINA-07)<br />
45
46<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
ELEONET – European Learning Objects Network<br />
While the European market of digital Learning Objects is rapidly growing, the prospective customers still<br />
face diffi culties searching for an appropriate Learning Object. When traditional learning materials, such<br />
as textbooks, are referenced via ISBN identifi ers. Digital Object Identifi ers are still unknown to producers<br />
of learning content. The ELEONET project aims at creating a European catalogue of educational materials<br />
offering an added value service to all the actors involved within the eLearning value chain, such as<br />
content producers, learning communities and intermediaries.<br />
Challenges<br />
The current situation among national learning repositories<br />
suffers from three main problems:<br />
• Market Lock-In. National repositories contain the learning<br />
objects which can be used outside the local market. At the<br />
same time, there are no facilities to allow a Europe-wide exchange<br />
of the learning information.<br />
• No central search. When users are aware that many repositories<br />
can be relevant for fi nding an appropriate Learning Object,<br />
they still do not have a single search interface to query all<br />
of them at once, especially for school material.<br />
• No standard identifi er for Learning Objects. Finally, when a<br />
Learning Object is known, its URL can be outdated and there<br />
is no way to access it. We need an identifi er with a permanent<br />
link to the object, which will help to fi nd it at any time.<br />
Project Results<br />
By offering to the European teaching communities an easy<br />
and unifi ed access to educational resources, ELEONET increases<br />
the content producers’ opportunity to disseminate their<br />
learning objects throughout Europe, ensuring a wider visibility<br />
and thus enhancing the market growth. Digital content available<br />
through the ELEONET catalogue is identifi ed using the<br />
Digital Object Identifi er (DOI), the international standard for<br />
identifying and describing any Intellectual Property in a digital<br />
environment. ELEONET allows Learning Object producers to<br />
assign DOIs and to register metadata onto any content.This is<br />
done according to a metadata schema interoperable with the<br />
existing standards implemented at EU and international level.<br />
The DOI registration system includes an editor to ease the<br />
input of educational metadata. Schools, teachers and learn-<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Specific Targeted Research<br />
Project funded by EU<br />
Duration: January <strong>2006</strong> – June 2007<br />
Research Areas: eLearning<br />
Sergey Chernov, chernov@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.eleonet.org<br />
ing communities, in general, can access the ELEONET metadata<br />
and DOI repository through a search engine available<br />
in four European languages (English, Spanish, German and<br />
Italian) allowing both simple and advanced search by widely<br />
accepted criteria: educational level, title, etc. ELEONET offers<br />
Learning Object producers an effective solution for standard<br />
identifi cation and metadata management of their own contents<br />
through a single access point.<br />
Potential Users<br />
There are three expected categories of users:<br />
• Content producers, which will assign DOIs to Learning<br />
Object and register metadata;<br />
• Intermediaries, which will exploit the existence of the standard<br />
to facilitate the identifi cation of Learning Objects and<br />
metadata collection;<br />
• End users, which will search the metadata to retrieve appropriate<br />
content.<br />
Content producers will include different type of organisations.<br />
Educational publishers are the fi rst target group, but not the
only one. Many other organisations entered the market in<br />
recent years, such as non-profi t entities, technological and<br />
telecom enterprises, media companies other than publishers,<br />
multimedia publishers and so on. Sometimes educational organisations<br />
are responsible for content production. Schools or<br />
individual teachers, universities, training organisations, etc.,<br />
often produce content. Therefore, they also belong to an important<br />
target group to which ELEONET will give the possibility<br />
to register DOI and increase the possibility to disseminate<br />
Learning Objects to other educational institutes, stimulating<br />
the re-use of educational content.<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
selected publications<br />
Jan Brase, Sergey Chernov and Alvaro Ordóñez,<br />
ELEONET: The search portal for learning objects:<br />
IV International Conference on Multimedia and<br />
Information and Communication Technologies in<br />
Education (m-ICTE) <strong>2006</strong><br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
ELEONET is an emerging European search<br />
portal for Learning Objects being associated<br />
with Digital Object Identifiers (DOI).<br />
ELEONET allows creators and publishers to<br />
obtain the DOIs for their Learning Objects<br />
and to upload the corresponding metadata.<br />
Within the eLearning value chain, ELEONET<br />
is aiming to connect the major national<br />
learning repositories, provide interoperability<br />
on a European scale between all organizations<br />
involved in the eLearning value chain.<br />
47
48<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
NEPOMUK – Building the Social Semantic Desktop<br />
PC desktop users are facing more and more data every day. Structuring and organizing the Personal Information<br />
Repository is thus becoming a serious problem. This is why, in some cases, it is faster to fi nd a<br />
document on the World Wide Web, even though we know we stored it somewhere on our desktop. NEPO-<br />
MUK addresses these challenges and provides solutions to support the personal knowledge lifecycle of<br />
each person, as well as assists in information sharing and management.<br />
<strong>2006</strong> Challenges Overview<br />
As a three year EU project with 16 major partners, NEPOMUK<br />
focused, in its fi rst year, on building the foundations of what<br />
is to become “The Social Semantic Desktop”. Several areas<br />
needed to be tackled in order to fulfi ll such a forward-looking<br />
goal. First, there is of course the knowledge articulation<br />
and linkage into Semantic Web data structures at the desktop<br />
level. Once accomplished, this needs to be backed by social<br />
communication services as well, in order to enable fast and<br />
effective information exchanges. Finally, all results need to be<br />
extensively tested within various case studies, as well as widely<br />
disseminated across representative scientifi c communities and<br />
beyond.<br />
R&D Highlights and Results<br />
Enhancing Desktop Search: <strong>L3S</strong> covers a highly innovative<br />
role within NEPOMUK, both within the local and social en-<br />
summary<br />
The first year of NEPOMUK proved to be a<br />
very successful one, not only for <strong>L3S</strong>, but<br />
also across the entire project consortium.<br />
We managed to build solid foundations for<br />
the research to come in the next two years,<br />
while at the same time being already able to<br />
design and publish a series of initial results.<br />
We are confident in keeping up the good<br />
work within 2007 as well, for both local and<br />
social network environments.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
vironments. Thus, in <strong>2006</strong>, we continued our work on the<br />
Beagle++ Desktop Search infrastructure and extended it with<br />
high quality metadata generation modules, and especially<br />
with at least two novel approaches to ranking personal items.<br />
The fi rst one, published at the European Semantic Web Conference,<br />
is based on the analysis of specifi c user actions and<br />
results in rather sparse, but very clean importance measure for<br />
our desktop resources. The second technique, published at<br />
the Symposium on String Processing and Information Retrieval,<br />
introduces a generalization concept according to which all<br />
our desktop actions are relevant when ranking our personal<br />
documents. While visibly more comprehensive, this latter algorithm<br />
also includes some noise in its output, just because<br />
some of our actions are driven by external factors, such as<br />
context switches. We are thus planning to design, in 2007, an<br />
even better desktop fi le ranking algorithm, which combines<br />
the advantages of each of our current approaches.<br />
Automatic Detection of Desktop Activity Contexts: Within our<br />
second of investigation, we started again from activity analysis<br />
as the main user profi ling information source. This was then<br />
combined with an insight into the content of each fi le being<br />
utilized, thus developing an exact approach to group personal<br />
resources. Furthermore, we exemplifi ed this idea within a reallife<br />
application, Web search: In this scenario, we fi rst looked<br />
into each user’s desktop for documents relevant to her Web<br />
query, and then exploited these to personalize the output of<br />
the Web search engine. This turned out to be a very successful<br />
technology, described in a paper presented at the ACM Conference<br />
on Information and Knowledge Management.<br />
Bringing Desktop Users Together: Finally, we also made the<br />
fi rst steps towards building good inter-workspace relations.
Project Type: Integrated Project EU/IST FP6<br />
Duration: <strong>2006</strong> – 2008<br />
Research Areas: Desktop Search, Semantic Web,<br />
Text and Data Mining, Social Networks.<br />
Contact: Dipl.-Ing. Paul – Alexandru Chirita,<br />
chirita@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://nepomuk.semanticdesktop.org<br />
More specifi cally, we proposed new approaches to identify<br />
communities of users sharing similar interests. The techniques<br />
we investigated were quite diverse, varying from data mining<br />
algorithms on top of each user’s tags to analyzing the actual<br />
contents of our neighbors’ desktops. Last, but not least, we<br />
initiated another stream of research into workplace activity<br />
support via content recommendations from social neighbors.<br />
An interesting example here is the community wide identifi cation<br />
of fi les, similar to a given item on our desktop. We expect<br />
the fi rst full version of our social prototype results to be completely<br />
functional by mid-2007.<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
info box<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Beagle++: Semantically Enhanced Searching and<br />
Ranking on the Desktop. Paul - Alexandru Chirita,<br />
Stefania Ghita, Wolfgang Nejdl, Raluca Paiu. In<br />
Proceedings of the 3rd European Semantic Web<br />
Conference (ESWC), Budva, Montenegro, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Analyzing User Behavior to Rank Desktop Items.<br />
Paul – Alexandru Chirita, Wolfgang Nejdl. In Proceedings<br />
of the 13th International Symposium<br />
on String Processing and Information Retrieval<br />
(SPIRE), Glasgow, United Kingdom, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Summarizing Local Context to Personalize Global<br />
Web Search. Paul – Alexandru Chirita, Claudiu<br />
Firan, Wolfgang Nejdl. In Proceedings of the 15th<br />
ACM International CIKM Conference on Information<br />
and Knowledge Management, Arlington,<br />
United States, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
49
50<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
REWERSE –<br />
Reasoning on the Web with Rules and Semantics<br />
In the last years the information technology community, and especially the web community, has employed<br />
an increasing amount of Semantic Web technologies based on the emerging Web 2.0. Many<br />
technologies and tools developed by the Semantic Web directly infl uenced a number of web-based applications<br />
and systems currently being deployed. Semantic Web tools such as RSS, Ontologies and Taxonomies,<br />
allow new intelligent search engines, automatic processing of content, complex transactions,<br />
personalization, as well as content adaptation.<br />
Challenges<br />
The content on the semantic web is augmented with annotations<br />
which describe the meaning of the data, and thus<br />
support the automated processing of the data by machines.<br />
These metadata (literally data about data) are the basis for<br />
many applications that are currently leaving the test-beds and<br />
starting to become main-stream tools on the web. Some examples<br />
are RSS News Syndication or socially engineered community<br />
web-sites. Socially engineered sites allow community<br />
users to make annotations with free-form tags or by using<br />
engineered Ontologies or Taxonomies.<br />
REWERSE in particular aims at developing and standardizing<br />
– in terms of an open W3C standard – a set of interoperable<br />
rule languages for the Semantic Web, including such fi elds<br />
as: e-commerce, e-contracting, authentication and authorization,<br />
confl ict resolution, user profi le management, and personalization,<br />
among many others.<br />
summary<br />
The objective of REWERSE is to establish<br />
Europe as a leader for the Web by creating<br />
a “Network of Excellence” among the<br />
community that needs these tools and by<br />
providing the basis for industrial software<br />
development of advanced Web applications.<br />
Education and Training as well as Technology<br />
Transfer and Awareness are also part of<br />
REWERSE.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
Project Type: Network of Excellence (NoE) funded<br />
by the EU Commission and Switzerland within FP6<br />
Duration: March 2004 – February 2008<br />
Research Areas: Semantic-based knowledge systems<br />
Contact: Prof. Dr. Nicola Henze, henze@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://rewerse.net/<br />
info box<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> is leading the working group A3 which focuses on<br />
“Personalized Information Systems”, one of the eight working<br />
groups in the project.<br />
In web-based information systems, personalization (or adaptation)<br />
is used to change the content, the appearance,<br />
the experience a user has when using the system, based on<br />
implicit data about the user’s previous dealings with the system,<br />
and the user’s preferences. These systems utilize a user<br />
model, to model and store all the relevant information about<br />
the user, and a personalization engine, powered by a variety<br />
of techniques including rule-based fi ltering, to create the personalized<br />
view. For sophisticated personalization approaches,<br />
the sources of the information used must be annotated with<br />
metadata of suffi cient quality; otherwise, the results of fi ltering<br />
and adaptation become of limited use for end users.<br />
R&D Highlights and Project Results<br />
In the working group A3, <strong>L3S</strong> together with its partners, developed<br />
a number of applications to use as test-beds and to<br />
promote the potential of rule-based personalization for web<br />
information systems. This includes the award-winning Personal<br />
Publication Reader (3rd place at the Semantic Web Chal-
lenge Competition 2005), which is one of the applications<br />
realized using the Personal Reader Framework developed by<br />
<strong>L3S</strong>. Other published applications, developed at <strong>L3S</strong> are a Personalized<br />
eLearning Reader for working with online eLearning<br />
material, a Recommender and Syndication system for selecting<br />
and listening to Music Streams, aka MyEar. Together with<br />
the University of Torino, <strong>L3S</strong> developed a Curriculum Planner<br />
System for the creation and validation of University Course<br />
Curriculum Sequences, using the Hannover University course<br />
database as information source. For creating metadata-rich<br />
content, the working group A3 is also dealing with the automatic<br />
extraction and aggregation of content from various<br />
sources, e.g. the crawling of plain, but structured, web-pages<br />
such as publication pages or a online course list, to create a<br />
semantically rich and sound description of the content for use<br />
with the personalized information systems.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> also participates in the working group I2 (policy specifi cation,<br />
enforcement and integration), in which the Protune language,<br />
an advanced Semantic Web policy language, has been<br />
developed. Current achievements include the development of<br />
an engine able to perform policy-driven negotiations and the<br />
generation of natural language explanations from the result of<br />
such negotiations. Current work focuses on the formulation of<br />
policies based on natural language specifi cations, in order to<br />
help users creating and understanding policies.<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
F. Abel, I. Brunkhorst, N. Henze, D. Krause, K.<br />
Mushtaq, P. Nasirifard and K. Tomaschewski: Personal<br />
Reader Agent: Personalized Access to Confi<br />
gurable Web Services. ABIS <strong>2006</strong> - 14th Workshop<br />
on Adaptivity and User Modeling in Interactive<br />
Systems, Hildesheim, October 9-11 <strong>2006</strong><br />
P. Barahona, F. Bry, E. Franconi, N. Henze, U. Sattler<br />
(Eds.): Reasoning Web. Springer, <strong>2006</strong>, ISBN<br />
3-540-38409-X.<br />
Nicola Henze and Daniel Krause: Personalized<br />
Access to Web Services in the Semantic Web.<br />
SWUI <strong>2006</strong> - 3rd International Semantic Web User<br />
Interaction Workshop, November 6, <strong>2006</strong>, Athens,<br />
Georgia, USA, collocated with ISWC <strong>2006</strong><br />
Piero A. Bonatti, Claudiu Duma, Norbert Fuchs,<br />
Wolfgang Nejdl, Daniel Olmedilla, Joachim Peer,<br />
and Nahid Shahmehri. Semantic web policies - a<br />
discussion of requirements and research issues. In<br />
3rd European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC),<br />
volume 4011 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science,<br />
Budva, Montenegro, June <strong>2006</strong>. Springer.<br />
51
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SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
VIKEF - Virtual Information and<br />
Knowledge Environment Framework<br />
Scientifi c and business documents contain information about relevant entities such as products or scientifi<br />
c authors. If this knowledge is extracted and integrated from different sources, interesting services<br />
become possible, which ease domain understanding. So far, however, considerable manual effort has to<br />
be invested for making this knowledge explicit. The VIKEF project develops advanced methods for reducing<br />
this effort and enables content and service providers such as trade fair and conference organizers to<br />
build customizable intelligent services on top of the represented knowledge.<br />
Challenges<br />
The extraction of semantic information from a wide variety<br />
of distributed scientifi c and business content, its adequate<br />
representation and integration, as well as its effective re-use<br />
in different application settings imposes major challenges for<br />
the VIKEF project:<br />
• automated information extraction methods: for extracting<br />
entities and relationships from image, texts and semi-structured<br />
information and for combining the extracted results;<br />
• advanced information integration: for dealing with semantic<br />
information extracted from different sources;<br />
• seamless technology-level integration: for achieving full<br />
knowledge supply chain support from raw content over semantic<br />
representation to intelligent services;<br />
• user-friendly customization support: for adapting the extraction<br />
process to specifi c application content and for tailoring<br />
intelligent services to community needs;<br />
summary<br />
The Semantic Web technology project VIKEF<br />
is dedicated to multimedia information extraction<br />
methods and to blossoming intelligent<br />
services on top. In an intermediate<br />
layer an advanced infrastructure for representing,<br />
integrating and contextualizing<br />
knowledge is built. VIKEF addresses trade<br />
fairs and scientific conferences as crystallization<br />
scenarios for the developed technology,<br />
which is also applicable in other domains.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Integrated Project funded by EU<br />
Duration: April 2004 – March 2007<br />
Research Areas: Information extraction,<br />
Semantic Technologies, Personalization<br />
Contact: Dr. Claudia Niederée, niederee@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.vikef.net<br />
R&D Highlights and Project Results<br />
In the VIKEF project, methods and components for multimedia<br />
information extraction, advanced knowledge representation<br />
and integration, and personalized community services<br />
are developed and integrated into a customizable framework<br />
for supporting the full knowledge supply chain. In <strong>2006</strong>, the<br />
focus has been on improving the extraction pipeline, on developing<br />
useful intelligent services on top of the knowledge<br />
layer and on extending the customization support. Some of<br />
the achieved outcomes are:<br />
• Advanced solutions in personalization by considering relationship-based<br />
user models and by realizing an approach for<br />
cross-system personalization, which effectively re-uses user<br />
information across system borders;<br />
• An approach for using the extracted semantic information<br />
for easing content digestion by “infusing” selected semantic<br />
information into documents in a customizable way (semantic<br />
infusion), e.g. by adding links to background knowledge and<br />
high-lighting information.<br />
• Improved support for information integration by contextualizing<br />
knowledge and by introducing a systematic way of<br />
managing entities and identities;
content<br />
upload<br />
machine<br />
learning<br />
content<br />
harmonization<br />
IMAGE<br />
INFORMATION<br />
EXTRACTION<br />
customized<br />
information<br />
extraction<br />
image<br />
processing<br />
Potential Applications<br />
The technologies developed in VIKEF offer exploitable assets<br />
for different application domains. Two application domains,<br />
trade fairs and scientifi c conferences, have been investigated<br />
in more detail during the project. In the trade fair domain,<br />
VIKEF technology - especially the combination of semantic extraction<br />
from text and image material – enables fair organizers<br />
to deal more effectively with provider catalogues (e.g. supporting<br />
catalogue merging). This enables fair visitors to easier<br />
identify fi tting and similar products and to browse and search<br />
uniformly across catalogue borders.<br />
In the area of scientifi c conferences, VIKEF technologies enable<br />
the provision of domain overviews and support organizers in<br />
planning conference events. VIKEF domain overview services<br />
help the conference participants and other community members<br />
in understanding the domain and navigating among domain<br />
resources enabling e.g. more effective event planning.<br />
Further example applications are knowledge integration in<br />
the automotive industry and the use of VIKEF extraction technology<br />
for automating the creation of company ratings from<br />
news articles.<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
LINGUISTIC<br />
INFORMATION<br />
EXTRACTION<br />
annotation<br />
pipeline<br />
customization<br />
multimedia<br />
information<br />
extraction<br />
MULTIMEDIA<br />
INFORMATION<br />
EXTRACTION<br />
ONTOLOGY<br />
ENGINEERING<br />
ontology<br />
construction<br />
support<br />
ontology<br />
learning<br />
annotation<br />
refinement<br />
KNOWLEDGE<br />
REPRESENTATION<br />
semantic<br />
elicitation<br />
semantic<br />
representation<br />
information<br />
integration<br />
introducing<br />
context<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
entity<br />
management<br />
semantic<br />
navigation<br />
services<br />
intelligent<br />
catalogue<br />
services<br />
semantic<br />
infusion<br />
SMART<br />
COMMUNITY<br />
SERVICES<br />
knowledge<br />
view<br />
definition<br />
selected publications<br />
Stecher, Rodolfo; Niederée, Claudia; Bouquet,<br />
Paolo, Jacquin, Thierry; Ait-Mokhtar, Salah; Brunelli,<br />
Roberto and Demetriou, George: Enabling a<br />
Knowledge Supply Chain: From Content Resources<br />
to Ontologies : ESWC <strong>2006</strong> Workshop on Mastering<br />
the Gap: From Information Extraction to Semantic<br />
Representation<br />
Dietz, Laura; Stewart, Avaré: Utilize Probabilistic<br />
Topic Models to Enrich Knowledge Bases. : ESWC<br />
<strong>2006</strong> Workshop on Mastering the Gap: From Information<br />
Extraction to Semantic Representation<br />
53
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SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
PSW – Personalization in the Semantic Web<br />
The vision of the Semantic Web is to enable machines to process the meaning of electronic Web resources.<br />
Basic techniques for the Semantic Web have been developed so far, and the Semantic Web becomes<br />
more and more popular and starts to grow. However, one of the most important questions is still open:<br />
how to match – semantically enriched – information to the needs of the end user? Personalized systems<br />
exactly cope with this problem by fi rst learning what kind of information is relevant for the user, and<br />
second how to discover, prepare and present this information.<br />
Personalization<br />
Personalization, the task of adapting interfaces, behavior and<br />
content of an application to a user has been implemented<br />
in a variety of applications. Personalized systems recommend<br />
which items we should consider to buy, show menu items<br />
which are relevant to fulfi ll our current task, give us hints what<br />
we might consider to explore next, and so on. Many different<br />
techniques, like recommender systems or adaptive hypermedia<br />
systems, have been proposed for realizing personalization<br />
in different scenarios and applications.<br />
Personalization in the Semantic Web<br />
The challenge of applying personalization in the Semantic<br />
Web is to take the special characteristic of the Semantic Web<br />
summary<br />
This project aims at realizing personalized<br />
access to Semantic Web content. Personalization<br />
rules are defined which search,<br />
access and syndicate information in the Semantic<br />
Web according to the individual requirements<br />
of the end user. A user interface<br />
supports users to configure and combine<br />
personalization rules as they like. The enabling<br />
infrastructure is based on a Semantic<br />
Web service architecture and demonstrates<br />
a maximum flexibility for realizing personalized<br />
information access.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project type: Research project funded by the DFG<br />
Duration: May <strong>2006</strong> – April 2008<br />
Research areas: Information discovery, Semantic<br />
Web, Personalization, Rules<br />
Prof. Dr. Nicola Henze, henze@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
M. Sc. Daniel Krause, krause@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
http://www.personal-reader.de<br />
into account: distributed data, and domain independence.<br />
Everybody is invited to contribute resource to the Semantic<br />
Web by publishing on any webserver in the world, and by<br />
annotating the content independently from other authors.<br />
Hence, personalization has to cope in this area with the problems<br />
of fi nding relevant resources, combining differently annotated<br />
resources from different sources, and the fact that the<br />
discovered information might even be incomplete.<br />
Rule based systems are a very promising approach in this area.<br />
They have been researched for a long time in artifi cial intelligence,<br />
can handle incomplete data, and are very well suited<br />
for reasoning on information about the user and the user requirements.<br />
Challenges<br />
The goals of the PSW project are divided into four main<br />
tasks:<br />
• Formal classifi cation of methods for personalization<br />
in the Semantic Web: Which personalization methods and<br />
techniques are adequate for the Semantic Web? Which stateof-the-art<br />
methods for personalization are less suited for being<br />
used in the Semantic Web?
• Personalization rules and rule patterns: What do personalization<br />
rules look like, how can they be modeled? Do rule<br />
patterns exist, i.e. patterns that can be used to generate rules<br />
for different domains or tasks automatically?<br />
• User interface: How can users confi gure personalization<br />
rules according to their needs and how can they correct automatically<br />
generated rules? How can users combine rules to<br />
generate new, more complex and expressive rules?<br />
• Infrastructure: How can such an interface be integrated<br />
into a personalized information system for the Semantic Web?<br />
How can personalization modules which are reused in different<br />
applications be designed?<br />
The Personal Reader Framework<br />
The Personal Reader Framework - a Semantic Web Servicebased<br />
framework for designing, implementing and realizing<br />
personalized Web Content reader – is used for a prototypical<br />
implementation. Here, so-called personalization services encapsulate<br />
parameterized personalization rules. Other Semantic<br />
Web Services, so-called Syndication Services, create user<br />
interfaces and support users discover, adjust and combine<br />
personalization rules.<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Nicola Henze and Daniel Krause: Personalized<br />
Access to Web Services in the Semantic Web.<br />
SWUI <strong>2006</strong> - 3rd International Semantic Web User<br />
Interaction Workshop, November 6, <strong>2006</strong>, Athens,<br />
Georgia, USA, collocated with ISWC <strong>2006</strong><br />
Nicola Henze and Daniel Krause: User Profi ling and<br />
Privacy Protection for a Web Service Oriented Semantic<br />
Web. ABIS <strong>2006</strong> - 14th Workshop on Adaptivity<br />
and User Modeling in Interactive Systems,<br />
Hildesheim, October 9-11 <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
55
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SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
KnowledgeWeb – Moving the Semantic Web from<br />
Academia to Industry<br />
A major problem of today’s information society is the huge amount of data, e.g., in the World Wide Web,<br />
which can only be processed with sophisticated technologies such as those used by today’s search engines.<br />
Computers, however, cannot understand the meaning or “semantics” of such data without further<br />
help. For example, the semantics of “Jaguar” (e.g., an animal vs. a car) remains unclear by just looking<br />
at the word “Jaguar”. Since 1991, researchers have proposed to extend the Web with semantics, to create<br />
the “Semantic Web”, but industry has only recently started to adopt these ideas. KnowledgeWeb is<br />
intended to support this transition process from the university into industry.<br />
Challenges<br />
The Semantic Web is an extension of the current World Wide<br />
Web, where textual data is extended with metadata carrying<br />
the necessary semantics to enable machines to understand<br />
the Web data. Transferring such Semantic Web technologies<br />
from research into industry will enable the integration of extended<br />
and intelligent functionalities for the Next Generation<br />
Web, to improve the retrieval and re-use of information on<br />
the Internet, company intranets as well as on every desktop.<br />
KnowledgeWeb follows a three-pillar approach to support<br />
such transition process:<br />
• Outreach to industry: Promote greater awareness and faster<br />
take-up of Semantic Web technology within Europe in full<br />
synergy with the research activity. As researchers have often<br />
only a vague idea of industrial requirements, this will help to<br />
reduce time needed to transfer the technology to industry<br />
and to market.<br />
• Outreach to education: Establish a European Association<br />
for Semantic Web Education (EASE), acting as a hub for all<br />
educational activities related to Semantic Web topics. Such<br />
a single contact point with high-class educational resources<br />
is essential for companies to be able to educate their staff in<br />
Semantic Web technologies.<br />
• Coordination of research: Ensure that the research is suffi<br />
ciently coordinated to avoid both duplication and fragmentation.<br />
Since the Semantic Web is an inter-disciplinary area,<br />
such coordination is particularly important and requires joint<br />
collaborations among and across various research communities.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
The Semantic Web is an extension of the<br />
World Wide Web designed to provide machines<br />
working on World Wide Web data<br />
with additional information about the meaning<br />
of that data. KnowledgeWeb brings<br />
together the work of eighteen first-class<br />
research institutes from all over Europe to<br />
support the deployment of Semantic Web<br />
technologies from academic environments<br />
to industrial settings.<br />
R&D Highlights and Project Results<br />
The <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center is leading the ‘Outreach to education’<br />
pillar of the KnowledgeWeb, whose main idea is that<br />
the Semantic Web can only become a success story if enough<br />
industrial people have been educated in Semantic Web technologies<br />
to be able to use such technologies. In collaboration<br />
with its partners, <strong>L3S</strong> has provided a comprehensive Semantic<br />
Web Educational Portal, the so-called REASE Repository<br />
(http://rease.semanticweb.org). The repository allows the<br />
publication of educational material related to Semantic Web<br />
topics under a single infrastructure, providing e.g., customizable<br />
licenses and a metadata-based search. At the end of<br />
2005 we started with 140 registered users, from more than<br />
70 different institutions. Now we have more than 350 users<br />
from 170 institutions all over the world. They have access to<br />
more than 100 high-quality learning units about Semantic<br />
Web topics, comprising teaching materials and best practice<br />
examples, as well as the necessary information about back-
ground technology. More than 30 of these units have been<br />
especially designed for industrial education purposes to support<br />
the transition process of Semantic Web technology from<br />
research to industry.<br />
Furthermore, in June <strong>2006</strong> <strong>L3S</strong> spearheaded the foundation<br />
EASE, the “European Association for Semantic Web Education”.<br />
EASE is intended to support following:<br />
• eLearning activities related to Semantic Web throughout Europe<br />
and the necessary infrastructure to host the Educational<br />
Portal<br />
Project Type: Network of Excellence funded by EU<br />
Duration: January 2004 – December 2007<br />
Research Areas: Semantic Web Technologies, Education,<br />
Ontologies<br />
URL: http://knowledgeweb.semanticweb.org<br />
http://rease.semanticweb.org<br />
Contact: Dr.-Ing. Jörg Diederich,<br />
diederich@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
• educational events such as the KnowledgeWeb summer<br />
school<br />
• the integration of European Higher Education efforts, manifested<br />
in a joint European Master program in Semantic Web<br />
and Ontology technology.<br />
EASE will ensure that the educational activities in KnowledgeWeb<br />
will endure even after the end of the project.<br />
selected publications<br />
info box J. Diederich and W. Nejdl and R. Tolksdorf: EASE:<br />
The European Association for Semantic Web Education,<br />
in Proceedings of the Semantic Web Education<br />
and Training Workshop (SWET‘06), co-located<br />
with the First Asian Semantic Web Conference<br />
(ASWC <strong>2006</strong>), Beijing, China, September <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
W.-T. Balke and U. Thaden and J. Diederich: The<br />
Semantic GrowBag Demonstrator for Automatically<br />
Organizing Topic Facets, in Proceedings of the<br />
SIGIR<strong>2006</strong> Workshop on Faceted Search, Seattle,<br />
USA, August <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
57
58<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES<br />
iSearch – Satisfying Your Information Needs<br />
The ever increasing size of the World Wide Web has made search engines part of our everyday lives. And<br />
yet, although usually indispensable for fi nding information across the Web, search technology is fairly<br />
young and underdeveloped. Many of its areas have not yet seen a viable architectural solution. User<br />
personalization, spam detection, and advertising are only a few of these. Within iSearch, <strong>L3S</strong> designs<br />
advanced algorithms to bring these areas further on their way towards technological maturity.<br />
<strong>2006</strong> Challenges Overview<br />
Search can be improved in many ways and iSearch took a<br />
systematic approach to tackle the particular limitations of<br />
Web Information Retrieval. Within <strong>2006</strong>, we focused on three<br />
highly important challenges. First, there is the pressing problem<br />
of malicious Internet content, which strongly impedes<br />
search engine users in fi nding web pages relevant to their information<br />
needs. Second, we investigated the technological<br />
demand for better and faster reputation ranking algorithms<br />
across the World Wide Web. Finally, we discovered that these<br />
ideas could be strategically exploited in other application domains<br />
as well, thus further easing the working and search experience<br />
of each person.<br />
R&D Highlights and Results<br />
Web Spam Detection: Our work towards the challenge of Web<br />
spam detection marked an important progress within the<br />
research community, and was published at the World Wide<br />
Web Conference. We proposed to analyze hyperlink relationships<br />
at the macroscopic level of Web sites, rather than simple<br />
pages. As a result, we were able to identify a large number<br />
of entities (e.g., companies, groups of users, etc.) participating<br />
in various types of the so-called link farms in an attempt<br />
to subvert the ranking system, and consequently to promote<br />
themselves artifi cially towards the top of the search engine<br />
results lists.<br />
Effective Social Ranking for the Web: In the year <strong>2006</strong>, the <strong>L3S</strong><br />
Research team developed the idea of applying mathematical<br />
optimizations to the distributed computation of power-law<br />
based social ranking algorithms, in particular that of Google’s<br />
PageRank. While these improvements were already widely<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
Year <strong>2006</strong> research results developed within<br />
iSearch have set high standards for the next<br />
year, the fourth of this German funded project.<br />
We managed to refine several significant<br />
ideas and presented them in the context<br />
of top research conferences in the area<br />
of information and internet technologies,<br />
including new and highly important Web<br />
site level spam detection technique. We look<br />
forward to facing new and innovative challenges<br />
in the year 2007, further improving<br />
the quality and user experiences in searching<br />
Web and other large collections.<br />
employed within the slow, centralized implementations of the<br />
well-known ranking algorithm, they were thought to be impossible<br />
to apply within a distributed setting. This is where<br />
our ideas came in and rendered the effi cient parallel implementation<br />
possible, thus speeding PageRank considerably. As<br />
this solution was also welcomed by the search engine experts,<br />
our report describing it was published within the European<br />
Conference on Information Retrieval.<br />
Integration with Other Domains: Within our third research<br />
stream, we attempted to bring the World Wide Web research<br />
closer to the community of Personal Information Management,<br />
which studies technological advances for PC Desktops.<br />
As this idea was generally unexplored, we developed several
innovations, an important one being the Web page oriented<br />
Task Management Support. Our contribution in this area was<br />
to extract informative keywords from the local document currently<br />
edited / viewed by the user (e.g., Word, PDF, etc.), and<br />
to use them in order to search the Web for other pages, highly<br />
relevant to user’s fi le. In this way, valuable Web input is automatically<br />
recommended to the Desktop user within a nonintrusive<br />
application.<br />
Project Type: Local Government Funding<br />
Duration: 2004 – 2009<br />
Research Areas: Web / Desktop / Enterprise<br />
Search, Personalization, Link Analysis, Text and<br />
Data Mining<br />
Contact: Dipl.-Ing. Paul – Alexandru Chirita,<br />
chirita@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de/iSearch<br />
SEMANTIC WEB AND DIGITAL LIBRARIES PROJECTS<br />
info box<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
1. Site Level Noise Removal for Search Engines.<br />
Andre Carvalho, Paul – Alexandru Chirita, Edleno<br />
Silva de Moura, Pavel Calado, Wolfgang Nejdl. In<br />
Proceedings of the 15th International World Wide<br />
Web Conference (WWW), Edinburgh, United Kingdom.<br />
2. Effi cient Parallel Computation of PageRank.<br />
Christian Kohlschütter, Paul – Alexandru Chirita,<br />
Wolfgang Nejdl. In Proceedings of the 28th European<br />
Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR),<br />
London, United Kingdom.<br />
3. Pushing Task Relevant Web Links down to the<br />
Desktop. Paul – Alexandru Chirita, Claudiu Firan,<br />
Wolfgang Nejdl. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM<br />
Workshop on Web Information and Data Management<br />
(WIDM - 21% acceptance rate on full papers)<br />
held at the 15th ACM International CIKM Conference<br />
on Information and Knowledge Management,<br />
Arlington, United States.<br />
59
60<br />
PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENHANCED AND LEARNING NETWORKS<br />
PEERTRUST – Negotiating Trust on the Web<br />
Nowadays, the Web poses serious security and privacy concerns due to the potential implications of<br />
information misuse. Users are permanently under the threat of attackers trying to get access to information<br />
they are not authorized to receive. A main problem is that authorization on the Web is unidirectional<br />
and based on identities (though many transactions occur among strangers). The former requires<br />
that only web servers can state conditions that clients must fulfi ll in a take-it-or-leave it fashion. The<br />
latter obliges users to trust web servers simply by knowing their identity from a certifi cate.<br />
Authorization based on properties<br />
The Web, with its enormous amount of users as well as web<br />
servers, is expanding rapidly. Traditional authorization relies<br />
on the fact that any two entities are able to make an authorization<br />
decision solely with the information of each other’s<br />
identities. However, this assumes that both entities are known<br />
to each other in advance. Since on the Web any two strangers<br />
must be able to interact, a new authorization scheme based<br />
on properties has emerged (e.g., whether a requester is a student<br />
or employee of a company). Those properties can be<br />
proven via disclosure of credentials: the digital equivalent to<br />
our real life student cards, passports or driver licenses.<br />
Using policies to state conditions<br />
Users and web servers can now use statements describing the<br />
conditions under which access to their resources or information<br />
can be gained. Whether a requester is a European citizen<br />
or a member of the Better Business Bureau seal program are<br />
examples of those conditions that may be used to control who<br />
has access to what. As part of this project, two different policy<br />
languages with different levels of complexity and expressiveness<br />
have been developed: PeerTrust and Protune. Both of<br />
them allow for advanced specifi cations of conditions that<br />
other parties must satisfy before information is disclosed.<br />
Bilateral Negotiations<br />
Due to the fact any entity can now specify conditions under<br />
which their resources and information are disclosed, transactions<br />
no longer are a one-shot interaction, but a bilateral<br />
negotiation. Entities negotiate based on their policies and increase<br />
the level of trust after each iteration. Disclosure of credentials<br />
may help to satisfy the other party‘s policy and there-<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
fore advance forward towards a successful negotiation. These<br />
negotiations are not only driven by each party‘s policies, but<br />
also by their negotiation strategies. A negotiation strategy defi<br />
nes which option to take in case alternatives exist.<br />
Policy Specification and User Awareness<br />
This new authorization schema puts responsibility on the user<br />
side. Users should specify their policies which will be used as a<br />
basis for negotiation. A trade-off between the expressiveness<br />
of the language and its simplicity is therefore required. In the<br />
PeerTrust project, we identify and address two different target<br />
groups: policy developers and users. Policy developers require<br />
good knowledge and understanding of the formal semantics<br />
of the policies as well as specifi cation and validation tools.<br />
Users will then instantiate and personalize templates and default<br />
policies made by developers but still require explanations<br />
and translations into natural language.<br />
info box<br />
Project type: Internal<br />
Duration: September 2003 - December 2008<br />
Research Areas: Policies, Security, Trust,<br />
Privacy, Reasoning, Rules<br />
URL: http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de/peertrust/<br />
Contact: Daniel Olmedilla, olmedilla@<strong>L3S</strong>.de
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS PROJECTS<br />
selected publications<br />
Piero A. Bonatti, Daniel Olmedilla, and Joachim<br />
Peer. Advanced policy explanations on the web. In<br />
17th European Conference on Artifi cial Intelligence<br />
(ECAI <strong>2006</strong>), pages 200-204, Riva del Garda, Italy,<br />
Aug-Sep <strong>2006</strong>. IOS Press.<br />
Piero A. Bonatti and Daniel Olmedilla. Semantic<br />
web policies: Where are we and what is still missing?<br />
Tutorials at the European Semantic Web<br />
Conference (ESWC), June <strong>2006</strong>, and 2nd RuleML<br />
International Conference, November <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
Grigoris Antoniou, Matteo Baldoni, Piero A.<br />
Bonatti, Wolfgang Nejdl, and Daniel Olmedilla.<br />
Rule-based policy specifi cation. In Ting Yu and<br />
Sushil Jajodia, editors, Secure Data Management in<br />
Decentralized Systems, volume 33 of Advances in<br />
Information Security. Springer, 2007.<br />
summary<br />
Current Web requires that any two strangers<br />
must be able to interact but traditional<br />
authorization based on identities does not<br />
scale. A new scheme based on properties<br />
and negotiations transforms authorization<br />
on the Web into a bilateral and secure process<br />
in which trust is built iteratively based<br />
each entity‘s policies. In order to ensure<br />
its adoption, current research must focus<br />
on the user, who must be able to use and<br />
understand her policies without requiring<br />
technical knowledge.<br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENHANCED AND LEARNING NETWORKS<br />
D-Grid Integration Project –<br />
Building the Infrastructure for eScience<br />
The modern knowledge and information society is affected by various possibilities of communication<br />
and simple access to information services, data storages and high capability computing resources. Relating<br />
to research activities these techniques enlarge the potential for better qualitative and quantitative<br />
scientifi c results. However, the challenge to maintain and provide the resources in such heterogeneous<br />
and distributed infrastructures increases with the complexity of the system components.<br />
Grid Computing – doing eScience<br />
The concept of Grid systems lies in the virtualization of computing<br />
and storage infrastructures by hiding the details of the<br />
implementation. The user only needs to know how to access<br />
the offered services; knowledge about their location becomes<br />
unimportant.<br />
The collaborative nature of Grids enables researchers to use<br />
new methods and procedures in science and industry. Grids<br />
support the creation of „Virtual Organizations“, dynamic aggregations<br />
of resources and users, to enable geographically<br />
dispersed collaborations of researchers. In the era of eScience,<br />
Grids act as the key technology. Researchers, supported by resource<br />
providers, develop and standardize Grid infrastructures<br />
which will become the mainstream in daily scientifi c work.<br />
To realize the vision of eScience in the German scientifi c community,<br />
six community grid projects were started in September<br />
2005. By funding distinct areas of research, the risk of producing<br />
isolated Grids which do not share tools and resources<br />
was obvious. Therefore, an additional integration project was<br />
established to provide a common foundation for the D-Grid<br />
initiative.<br />
Areas of work<br />
Researchers at <strong>L3S</strong> participate in the integration project in the<br />
fi elds of monitoring, accounting and billing (MAB), transport<br />
protocols, authentication and authorization infrastructures<br />
(AAI). Additionally, <strong>L3S</strong> participates in developing new concepts<br />
for the use of fi rewalls and provide the dedicated D-Grid<br />
infrastructure.<br />
MAB<br />
The MAB section provides concepts and components for visualizing<br />
the state and usage of Grid resources. The monitoring<br />
infrastructure displays the current state of Grid resources and<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> <strong>L3S</strong> · · <strong>L3S</strong> <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH RESEARCH CENTER CENTER<br />
currently processed jobs. The accounting data builds the basis<br />
for the billing section. Therefore, the sections: monitoring,<br />
accounting and billing act together to satisfy the needs for a<br />
sustainable operation of the D-Grid infrastructure. Activities<br />
from the <strong>L3S</strong> comprise the coordination of MAB as well as<br />
research in the sections accounting and billing.<br />
AAI<br />
While access to the D-Grid infrastructure shall be free for all<br />
community members, the identity of the accessing party has<br />
to be proofed by strong authentication mechanisms. After the<br />
successful authentication the user wants to perform certain<br />
tasks on the Grid he is authorized to do. These mechanisms<br />
are essential in distributed computing architecture. In D-Grid,<br />
the AAI project aims to defi ne and introduce a common authentication<br />
and authorization infrastructure for all three supported<br />
Grid middleware.<br />
summary<br />
To bring the vision of eScience in Germany<br />
to reality, the creation of a robust, flexible<br />
and sustainable Grid infrastructure is<br />
needed, which consists of network, computing<br />
and storage resources as well as of Grid<br />
services and middleware layers. The D-Grid<br />
Integration Project, as part of the D-Grid<br />
consortium, integrates developments from<br />
different community projects in one common<br />
D-Grid platform. This platform will be<br />
offered as services to the entire German<br />
scientific community.
Firewalls<br />
Firewalls control the communication patterns across institutes.<br />
Their presence is fundamental but their confi guration tends to<br />
be cumbersome. Systematic research and analysis have been<br />
carried out to identify the communication channels required<br />
by Grid services and to devise a recommended installation for<br />
the D-Grid Integration Project. The impact of Grid services on<br />
fi rewall confi gurations has been asserted and less invasive deployment<br />
models have been proposed. Current results have<br />
been shared with international partners and included in the<br />
latest documents of the Open Grid Forum.<br />
Success leads to more funding<br />
Due to the convincing results of D-Grid, hardware for a dedicated<br />
D-Grid infrastructure was funded at the end of <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
These resources are spread over more than 25 locations and<br />
comprise more than 2,100 CPU cores and about 5 petabytes<br />
of storage.<br />
In addition to the ongoing projects new scientifi c communities<br />
and gap projects to address open issues in Grid middleware<br />
were initiated. The fi rst funded gap project called IVOM<br />
deals with the interoperability of Shibboleth and the management<br />
of Virtual Organizations. IVOM was jointly proposed by<br />
members of <strong>L3S</strong> and Community Grids.<br />
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: D-Grid Integration Project,<br />
funded by BMBF<br />
Duration: September 2005 – February 2008<br />
Research Areas: Distributed Research<br />
Environments, Grid Computing<br />
Contact: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gabriele von Voigt,<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Grimm,<br />
{vonvoigt, grimm}@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
http://www.d-grid.de/<br />
selected publications<br />
S. Piger, C. Grimm, J. Wiebelitz, R. Gröper: An<br />
Approach to Restricted Delegation of User Rights<br />
based on the gLite Middleware, Proc. Cracow Grid<br />
Workshop 06, Cracow, Poland, October <strong>2006</strong><br />
R. Niederberger, W. Allcock, G. L. Volpato, C.<br />
Grimm, et. al.: Firewall Issues Overview, Open Grid<br />
Forum Document GFD.83, August <strong>2006</strong><br />
C.-P. Rückemann, W. Müller, G. von Voigt: Comparison<br />
of Grid Accounting Concepts for D-Grid,<br />
Proc. Cracow Grid Workshop 06, Cracow, Poland,<br />
October <strong>2006</strong><br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENHANCED AND LEARNING NETWORKS<br />
UKoLoS – Ultra-wideband Radio Technologies for<br />
Communications, Localization and Sensor Applications<br />
Radio technology has been widely used throughout recent decades. The increasing number of radio systems<br />
and services has enforced administrative regulation organizations to divide the electromagnetical<br />
spectrum in narrow bands to enable rapid development and low interference coexistence of applications.<br />
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radio systems follow a novel approach, where basically the whole frequency<br />
range from about 100MHz to beyond 10GHz can be used. To ensure coexistence regularisation efforts<br />
over the world protect established narrow-band systems by allowing only very low UWB power densities.<br />
The priority programme UKoLoS focuses on the investigation of basic UWB technology for new and innovative<br />
application areas, especially in the fi eld of sensors and electronic measurements.<br />
Challenges<br />
UKoLoS is a priority program composed of several projects.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> works within the project PAOLA (Design of Power Aware<br />
Scheduling schemes for Low Power and Low Data Rate Ultra-Wideband<br />
Networks) whose research interest focus on the<br />
application of UWB technology in sensor networks for industrial<br />
and logistics applications. The aim of PAOLA is the design<br />
of medium access control (MAC) protocols enabling effi cient<br />
and low-power communications. Major challenges addressed<br />
are:<br />
• Maximization of the overall lifetime of the network, while<br />
trying to maximize the data rate offered to each node. Here,<br />
there is a need to understand the design trade-offs in low<br />
power and low rate operation<br />
• design of a link scheduling function, which handles interference<br />
by controlling the time when a packet is transmitted<br />
• design of a power management scheme which controls the<br />
devices sleep/active cycles<br />
R&D Highlights and Project Results<br />
Requirements imposed by systems with joint communication<br />
and positioning/locating functionality, appearing e.g. in industrial<br />
environments and logistic applications, suggest that<br />
the MAC layer shall dynamically trade system performance<br />
with power consumption for the devices. The goal of PAOLA<br />
to fi nd out which advantages does the use of additional information<br />
such as location, mobility state or residual battery<br />
energy have in the link scheduling and in the power-saving<br />
algorithms for a low power low data rate UWB network. Derived<br />
analytical results will be the basis for investigation of the<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
optimal scheduling and power-saving algorithms in realistic<br />
scenarios. The combination of both functions shall control<br />
the transmission of each node to optimize the network lifetime<br />
while keeping network throughput high. Some of the<br />
achieved outcomes are:<br />
• Defi nition of the system model at the physical layer, since<br />
physical layer awareness is a requirement to enhance the design<br />
of MAC protocols in UWB<br />
• Initial defi nition of a transmission control function, which<br />
controls the transmission probability of sensor nodes trying<br />
to communicate with a base station in a factory scenario (so<br />
called “reader” scenario)<br />
• Initial design of an activity management algorithm, which<br />
controls the sleep/ active periods of the sensor nodes<br />
summary<br />
The Ultra-Wideband priority program, UKo-<br />
LoS, is dedicated to improving and investigating<br />
the application of Ultra-Wideband<br />
Radio Systems for Localization, Communications<br />
and Sensor Applications in Europe.
Potential Applications<br />
The UWB radio technology offers a complementary approach<br />
to existing wireless technologies enabling many novel applications,<br />
especially in the fi elds of communications, localization<br />
and sensor measurements. Due to its huge bandwidth, UWB<br />
allows for high temporal and spatial resolution of sensors and<br />
localisation systems without ambiguities. Regarding sensor<br />
applications, UWB sensors can obtain much more information<br />
about material properties and structures of scanned media or<br />
bodies. In radio communications, high data rates can be transmitted<br />
over short distances or, alternatively, low data rates can<br />
be sent over longer distances with high energy effi ciency.<br />
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Research priority program funded<br />
by DFG (German Research Foundation)<br />
Duration: June <strong>2006</strong> – June 2008<br />
Research Areas: Ultra-Wideband Radio Technology<br />
and its Applications<br />
Contact: Dipl.-Ing. M. Dolores Pérez Guirao,<br />
lola@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.emt.tu-ilmenau.de/ukolos/<br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENHANCED AND LEARNING NETWORKS<br />
PULSERS PHASE II – Pervasive Ultra-wideband Low<br />
Spectral Energy Radio Systems Phase II<br />
Traditionally, the development of wireless communications applications has been driven by the need to<br />
effi ciently use the spectrum resources, which are scarce. Worldwide, regulative authorities are in charge<br />
of releasing the utilization of the scarce and extreme valuable spectrum resources. Ultra-Wideband<br />
(UWB) radio technology follows a novel approach, based on sharing already occupied spectrum resources<br />
by means of the overlay principle, rather than looking for still available but possible unsuitable<br />
new bands. Novel devices and systems based on this emerging radio technology have the potential to<br />
provide solutions for many of today’s problems in the areas of spectrum management and radio system<br />
engineering. The PULSERS Phase II project investigates the challenges and possibilities associated with<br />
the Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology and its application in Europe.<br />
Challenges<br />
PULSERS Phase II is an extensive project composed of several<br />
working packages. <strong>L3S</strong> works within the working package<br />
Wp3b, whose research interest focus on the application of<br />
UWB technology in sensor networks for industrial and logistics<br />
applications. The aim of Wp3b is the design and demonstration<br />
of a system that allows the autonomous deployment<br />
and operation of (groups) of UWB devices with highly fl exible<br />
communication and positioning/location functionality. Major<br />
challenges addressed are:<br />
• enhancement of location information obtained via UWB by<br />
fusion with an integrated low cost inertial navigation system;<br />
• design of an autonomous resource access scheme at the<br />
medium access control (MAC) layer for the communication of<br />
autonomous aggregates of UWB devices;<br />
• design of radio frequency (RF) subsystem, which should<br />
provide bi-directional data communication functionality as<br />
well as localization functionality, by means of time-of-arrival<br />
measurements;<br />
R&D Highlights and Project Results<br />
Systems with joint communication and positioning/locating<br />
functionality, appearing e.g. in industrial environments and<br />
logistic applications, necessitate a high degree of confi gurability<br />
and the availability to operate in uncoordinated environments.<br />
Algorithms and components in the area of radio<br />
frequency and baseband processing, networking and medium<br />
access control, and positioning and tracking are developed<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
summary<br />
The Ultra-Wideband technology project,<br />
PULSERS, is dedicated to improving and<br />
investigating the application of Ultra-Wideband<br />
Radio Systems for Localization & Communications<br />
in Europe.<br />
and integrated into a system demonstrator. In the year <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
the focus of the R&D activities has been on the defi nition of<br />
the Wp3b subsystems requirements and establishment of the<br />
initial system design. Some of the achieved outcomes are:<br />
• Defi nition of a resource access scheme which should avoid<br />
the breakdown of the resource (channel capacity) by applying<br />
strategies acting on the pulse rate and the modulation<br />
scheme of the transmitted signals;<br />
• Proposal of a novel routing protocol consisting of an enhanced<br />
“energy-aware” version of the Greedy Perimeter<br />
Stateless Routing (GPSR), a location-based reactive multi-hop<br />
protocol;<br />
• Defi nition of the RF subsystem requirements. It should provide<br />
bi-directional data communication functionality as well as<br />
localization functionality, supporting two-way-ranging (TWR)<br />
as well as Differential-TDOA. The RF part will be a multi-chip<br />
solution including an interface to the baseband processor.<br />
The transmitter concept is based on an impulse generator<br />
supporting pulse amplitude as well as pulse position modula-
tion. The receiver concept is a non-coherent impulse detector<br />
including high-speed time measurement functionality.<br />
• Defi nition of the requirements of the UWB positioning system;<br />
specifi cation of its main subsystems and components.<br />
Potential Applications<br />
The UWB radio technology offers a complementary approach<br />
to existing wireless technologies enabling additional features<br />
(accurate localization and tracking) and applications. Two<br />
main application domains, short range high speed communications<br />
and long to medium range, low data rate joint communication<br />
and positioning applications are investigated in<br />
detail during the PULSERS Phase II project. Wp3b focuses on<br />
the second application domain, i.e. low data rate joint communication<br />
and positioning applications. Here UWB technology<br />
- especially impulse radio (IR) UWB- enables the uncoordinated<br />
operation of groups of radio devices in industrial<br />
environments and logistic applications, ensuring robustness<br />
against unpredictable interference either coming from alien<br />
or the same system.<br />
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Integrated Project funded by EU<br />
Duration: January <strong>2006</strong> – June 2008<br />
Research Areas: Ultra-Wideband Radio Technology<br />
and its Applications<br />
Contact: Dipl.-Ing. M. Dolores Pérez Guirao,<br />
lola@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
URL: http://www.pulsers.info<br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENHANCED AND LEARNING NETWORKS<br />
Autonomous Forklift Truck – Variable Pallet Pick-up<br />
and 3D Localization in Industrial Environments<br />
A cooperation between the company STILL GmbH and the <strong>L3S</strong>/Institute for Systems Engineering of the<br />
University of Hannover was set up with the objective of developing an autonomous forklift truck to facilitate<br />
fl exible navigation and material handling. The forklift trucks developed are able to recognize and<br />
lift pallets, as well as move them to another location autonomously.<br />
State of the art<br />
Internal material fl ows are an area which can could be greatly<br />
improved in many companies and attempts to fi nd more costeffective<br />
and fl exible systems are very common. Depending<br />
on the application, a range of systems are used for material<br />
fl ows. Some example systems are: static systems dealing with<br />
a high level of transport and fi xed transport routes; driverless<br />
transport systems dealing with medium to high levels of<br />
transport and alternating transport routes using simple predefi<br />
ned material handling; and conventional forklift trucks<br />
which are used in almost every company for complex material<br />
handling due to its varied areas of utilization. Although driverless<br />
transport systems have been used to automate processes<br />
since the 1960s, the utilization of these systems is greatly restricted<br />
when compared to conventional forklift trucks with<br />
human drivers.<br />
Project approach<br />
In order to improve the situation, a cooperation between the<br />
company STILL GmbH and the <strong>L3S</strong>/ Institute for Systems Engineering<br />
of the Leibniz University Hannover was set up with<br />
the objective of developing an autonomous forklift truck to<br />
facilitate fl exible navigation and material handling. The forklift<br />
truck developed is able to recognize and lift pallets, as well as<br />
move them to another location autonomously.<br />
Results of research and development<br />
The main innovation of the forklift truck is the fact that the<br />
pallets must no longer be positioned within predetermined<br />
pick-up locations, measured exactly to the last centimeter.<br />
Instead, the pallets can be lifted from different positions and<br />
heights autonomously. In order to allow automatic movement<br />
of the reach truck, it must be capable of locating itself in<br />
the environment. A 2D localization and a 3D localization are<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> <strong>L3S</strong> · · <strong>L3S</strong> <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH RESEARCH CENTER CENTER<br />
summary<br />
The forklift truck enables the identification<br />
of pallets, picking them up and automatically<br />
putting them down again in another<br />
place. The essential innovation of the system<br />
is that the pallets do not have to be put at<br />
a pre-defined hand over point, but instead<br />
are picked up flexibly from varying positions<br />
and heights. A further significant innovation<br />
can be found in the localization equipment.<br />
The 3D ceiling localization system enables<br />
navigation in a highly changeable environment.<br />
implemented for the localization, which does not require any<br />
alteration or modifi cation to the environment, as for example,<br />
the installation of refl ectors. The 2D localization utilizes the<br />
sensor information from the 2D laser scanner mounted on<br />
the forklift truck to determine its position. The actual position<br />
of the fork-lift truck is established on a previously prepared<br />
environmental map. Alternative to the 2D localization, the<br />
<strong>L3S</strong>/ Institute for Systems Engineering utilize a 3D localization,<br />
with the assistance of a 3D laser scanner specially developed<br />
for navigational tasks. The 3D laser used to establish<br />
the position of the forklift truck is by way of the ceiling<br />
structure of the building. The ceiling structure is perceived as<br />
three dimensional by the 3D laser scanner and with a previously<br />
prepared ceiling map, the actual position of the forklift<br />
truck is determined. The localization by way of the ceiling<br />
structure provides a reliable navigation procedure, because<br />
normally, the ceiling structure does not change within an<br />
industrial environment even over a long period of time and
Project Type: Industrial Project<br />
Research Areas: Autonomous mobile robots, 3D-<br />
Perception, Industrial Automation<br />
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernardo Wagner (wagner@<strong>L3S</strong>.de)<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Daniel Lecking (lecking@<strong>L3S</strong>.de)<br />
URL: http://www.rts.uni-hannover.de/index.php/<br />
Autonomer_Gabelstapler<br />
changes in the rest of the environment, such as remodeling of<br />
the shelving system, partition walls etc, do not infl uence the<br />
localization. Independently of these autonomous capabilities,<br />
the forklift truck keeps all its in-series features that make dualuse<br />
possible.<br />
Presentations<br />
The functional effi ciency of the forklift truck was demonstrated<br />
at the STILL GmbH stand at CeMAT 2005 fair in Hannover<br />
from 11th to 15th October 2005. The fl exibility of lifting palettes<br />
from the fl oor and platform, as well as free navigation<br />
with the assistance of the ceiling characteristics was demon-<br />
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS PROJECTS<br />
info box<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
selected publications<br />
Wulf, O.; Lecking, D.; Wagner, B.: Robust Self-Localization<br />
in Industrial Environments based on 3D<br />
Ceiling Structures, IEEE/RSJ International Conference<br />
on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS),<br />
October 9-15, <strong>2006</strong>, Beijing, China.<br />
Lecking, D.; Wulf, O.; Wagner, B.: Variable Pallet<br />
Pick-Up for Automatic Guided Vehicles in Industrial<br />
Environments, 11th IEEE International Conference<br />
on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation,<br />
September 20-22, <strong>2006</strong>, Prague, Czech<br />
Republic.<br />
Lecking D.; Wulf O.; Viereck, V.; Toedter J.; Wagner<br />
B.: The RTS-STILL Robotic Fork-Lift: Variable pallet<br />
pick-up and 3D localisation in industrial environments,<br />
The Third EURON/EUnited Robotics Technology<br />
Transfer Award, March 18, <strong>2006</strong>, Palermo,<br />
Italy.<br />
strated. Moreover, the forklift truck achieved an award at the<br />
EURON Technology Transfer Award <strong>2006</strong> in Palermo. The<br />
EURON/erf Technology Transfer Award rewards outstanding<br />
innovations in robot technology and automation arising from<br />
cooperation between academic researchers and industry.<br />
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENHANCED AND LEARNING NETWORKS<br />
Trobot – Electronic drawbar for unmanned ground<br />
vehicles<br />
In May <strong>2006</strong> the German Federal Armed Forces conducted the 1st European Land-Robot Trial (ELROB)<br />
<strong>2006</strong> in Hammelburg, Germany. The scope of this event was to provide an overview of the European<br />
state-of-the-art in the fi eld of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH, a<br />
German supplier for military ground vehicles, and the <strong>L3S</strong>/ Institute for Systems Engineering at the Leibniz<br />
University Hannover used the ELROB <strong>2006</strong> to present their capabilities in the fi eld of autonomous<br />
vehicles.<br />
Project Approach<br />
Transportation and logistics are two essential future fi elds of<br />
application for autonomous mobile robots in military context.<br />
These autonomous systems can help to reduce the endangerment<br />
of soldiers in confl ict areas.<br />
On behalf of Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH, the Institute<br />
for Systems Engineering developed a so-called electronic<br />
drawbar. This function enables unmanned ground vehicles to<br />
automatically follow a person or another vehicle in selectable<br />
distances. Differing from common approaches, data communication<br />
is not required between leader and follower. The key<br />
component of this system is the automatic leader’s recognition,<br />
based on 3D laser scans and camera images. Deduced<br />
from these data the leader’s position is computed and the<br />
motion of the leading person or vehicle is predicted. Based on<br />
the predicted position and motion, a vehicle controller is able<br />
to compute the vehicle’s speed and steering commands for<br />
following the path of the leading person or vehicle by maintaining<br />
the selected distance. In addition to following the<br />
leaders’ footsteps, this electronic drawbar is also useable for<br />
guiding the follower backwards. Controllable like a car trailer,<br />
this function can e.g. be used for backing into a parking<br />
space. As the electronic drawbar is based on optical sensors,<br />
a direct line of sight between leader and follower is required.<br />
Disturbing obstructions, e.g. caused by trees and leaves, are<br />
compensated and bridged by different fi lter algorithms.<br />
A prototype for this kind of leader-follower-behavior was implemented<br />
on top of “RTS-Dora”, one of the mobile robotic<br />
platforms of the Institute for Systems Engineering. With a total<br />
weight of 450kg this car-like platform enables following with<br />
a top speed of about 14 km/h (4m/s).<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> <strong>L3S</strong> · · <strong>L3S</strong> <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH RESEARCH CENTER CENTER<br />
summary<br />
In this project a so-called electronic drawbar<br />
was developed for unmanned ground vehicles.<br />
This function enables robotic vehicles<br />
to follow autonomously a leading person or<br />
another vehicle in selectable distances. A<br />
prototype for this application was set up and<br />
demonstrated on various events throughout<br />
the year.<br />
Presentations<br />
The electronic drawbar for unmanned ground vehicles was<br />
developed at the Leibniz University Hannover from November<br />
2005 to May <strong>2006</strong> and successfully demonstrated at the<br />
Rheinmetall test site in Unterlüß in April <strong>2006</strong>. At the ELROB<br />
in May <strong>2006</strong> the electronic drawbar was introduced to broad<br />
public with positive resonance. Furthermore, the Institute<br />
for Systems Engineering used this particular event to demonstrate<br />
autonomous and semi-autonomous driving in urban<br />
environments.<br />
In July <strong>2006</strong>, the leader-follower-behavior was demonstrated<br />
within the Tech Buffet <strong>2006</strong> at the University of Hannover.<br />
Students were encouraged to guide the robot “RTS-Dora”<br />
along a predefi ned track as fast as possible. With a total number<br />
of 50 students operating the robot safely, the easy and<br />
intuitive controllability of the electronic drawbar was shown<br />
even by leaders unfamiliar with the following robot.
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS PROJECTS<br />
selected publications<br />
Oliver Wulf and Bernardo Wagner: Fast 3D-Scanning<br />
Methods for Laser Measurement Systems. In:<br />
Proceedings of the International Conference on<br />
Control Systems and Computer Science (CSCS14),<br />
July 2-5, 2003, Bucharest, Romania.<br />
Oliver Wulf, Kai O. Arras, Henrik I. Christensen and<br />
Bernardo Wagner: 2D Mapping of Cluttered Indoor<br />
Environments by Means of 3D Perception. In: Proceedings<br />
of the IEEE/RAS International Conference<br />
on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), April 26-May<br />
1, 2004, New Orleans, USA.<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: Industrial project<br />
Research Areas: Autonomous service robot, 3D<br />
perception, Object recognition<br />
Contact: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernardo Wagner,<br />
wagner@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
Dipl.-Ing. Matthias Hentschel,<br />
hentschel@rts.uni-hannover.de<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER 71
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PROJECTS TECHNOLOGY DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENHANCED AND LEARNING NETWORKS<br />
KIOP – An Indoor Localization System for Persons Based<br />
on Channel-Estimation Information<br />
Indoor localization systems for persons offer a great variety of potential applications. Especially the<br />
combination of localization and communication enables various location based services (LBS). The DFG<br />
Research Grant KIOP investigates methods and algorithms targeting theses systems using simulations<br />
and real-word measurement setups.<br />
In a radio based communication and localization system, the<br />
position of a radiating source is typically estimated via the<br />
analysis of signals received at a certain number of sensors or<br />
vice versa. This approach is normally based on measuring<br />
ranges or range differences (by means of time of arrival or<br />
time difference of arrival measurements) between sources and<br />
sensors, and subsequent processing of range information into<br />
position estimates. Several conditions have to be fulfi lled in<br />
order to get accurate position estimates:<br />
• the receiver has to be able to estimate arrival times,<br />
• the signal structure must enable the receiver to detect the<br />
arrival time,<br />
• the signal must have the possibility to travel in a direct line<br />
of sight (LOS), and<br />
• the receiver must detect the correct LOS path in multi-path<br />
and interference environments<br />
As typical indoor environments are exposed to relatively harsh<br />
multi-path and interference conditions, methods and algorithms<br />
have to be developed, in order to ensure robust and<br />
accurate positioning.<br />
R&D Highlights and Project Results<br />
During this two year research project a variety of approaches<br />
targeting reliable localization have been analyzed by analytical<br />
investigation, simulation environments, real-word measurements<br />
and test-beds, e.g.:<br />
• A localization test-bed for Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and IEEE<br />
802.11b wireless LAN has been developed and implemented<br />
using a high speed digital sampling oscilloscope and a standard<br />
PC running MATLAB.<br />
• A low-cost experimental bi-phase UWB pulse generator, us-<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
ing the avalanche effect of two bi-polar transistors, has been<br />
developed and implemented.<br />
• Impulsive Ultra-Wideband signals have been compared to<br />
standard IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN signals regarding their<br />
indoor localization possibilities in an industrial storage environment.<br />
• Non line of sight (NLOS) detection and mitigation algorithms<br />
have been developed and compared by simulation as<br />
well as real-word measurements.<br />
• One example of integrating redundant relative positioning<br />
information, generated by a low-cost inertial measurement<br />
unit (IMU) has been investigated and implemented.<br />
Potential Applications<br />
Indoor localization systems for persons offer a great variety of<br />
potential applications. Especially the combination of localization<br />
and communication enables various location based services<br />
(LBS) such as: visitor guidance and information systems<br />
for individual guidance/navigation in museums, public buildings,<br />
trade fairs or shopping malls. Another fi eld of potential<br />
applications is the guidance and support of fi rst responders in<br />
buildings with reduced visibility due to fi re or smoke. A third<br />
application fi eld is industrial tasks involving logistic or security<br />
scenarios.<br />
summary<br />
The DFG Research Grant KIOP investigates<br />
indoor localization methods and algorithms<br />
using simulations and real-word measurement<br />
setups.
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS PROJECTS<br />
selected publications<br />
J. Schroeder, S. Galler, and K. Kyamakya: A Low-<br />
Cost Experimental Ultra-Wideband Positioning<br />
System, presented at IEEE International Conference<br />
on Ultra-Wideband, Zurich, 2005<br />
S. Galler, J. Schroeder, G. Rahmatollahi, K. Kyamakya,<br />
and K. Jobmann: Analysis and practical<br />
comparison of Wireless LAN and Ultra-Wideband<br />
technologies for advanced localization, presented<br />
at Position, Location and Navigation Symposium<br />
- PLANS, San Diego, USA, <strong>2006</strong><br />
J. Schroeder, S. Galler, K. Kyamakya, and K. Jobmann:<br />
NLOS detection algorithms for Ultra-Wideband<br />
localization, 4th Workshop on Positioning,<br />
Navigation and Communication (WPNC‘07), Hannover,<br />
Germany, 2007<br />
info box<br />
Project Type: DFG Research Grant<br />
Duration: February 2005 – February 2007<br />
Research Areas: Indoor Localization Methods and<br />
Algorithms<br />
Contact: Stefan Galler, galler@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
Jens Schroeder, jens.schroeder@ikt.uni-hannover.de<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER 73
PROJECTS NEWS AND EVENTS<br />
golden autumn technology enhanced learning flower<br />
restaurant in the middle of nowhere cooperation five<br />
interfaces know a good cook navigation forest full of b<br />
gymnastics participants phone book efficiently fitnes<br />
74<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
NEWS AND EVENTS<br />
power cluster projects green fee competitive chinese<br />
fingers and two feet web usage blue wave browser<br />
ikes hypertext black cat international top researchers<br />
s drink learn more never hesitate search architecture<br />
+++ The <strong>L3S</strong> is a global hub for theoretical and<br />
applied research on information, learning and<br />
knowledge technologies. <strong>L3S</strong>‘ activities range from<br />
research to consulting and technology transfer. <strong>L3S</strong><br />
staff members participate and organize important<br />
events and are visible both inside and outside the<br />
research community +++<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
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PROJECTS NEWS AND EVENTS<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Research Center at CeBIT 2007<br />
As in the previous years, <strong>L3S</strong> presents at CeBIT 2007. Besides providing an overall presentation<br />
of <strong>L3S</strong> research achievements and results, the CeBIT 2007 presentations of <strong>L3S</strong> Research<br />
Center will focus on five major products and services; exemplifying our continuous quest for<br />
intelligent integration and application of data and information in knowledge-intensive enterprises<br />
and institutions. (hall 3, E47 and hall 9, C21)<br />
Beagle++ Desktop Search<br />
Beagle++ is a tool for organizing, searching and integrating personal information spaces<br />
of today’s knowledge workers. Beagle++ indexes the content of all fi les on your desktop<br />
and in your workgroup, including Offi ce documents, emails, images, music, video<br />
fi les, or source code. To provide rich semantic relations among your documents and<br />
other entities represented on your desktop, Beagle++ extracts the metadata associated<br />
with desktop fi les as well as their context and usage patterns. For example, Beagle++<br />
supports keyword searches to retrieve scientifi c articles that were originally received as<br />
email attachments and subsequently stored as a fi le in the user´s local desktop. Specifi cally, during such a search, Beagle++ not<br />
only returns the fi le and the connection to the original email, but also related information from the email communication as<br />
well as bibliographic information, conference links, author information and relevant references to the article.<br />
Beagle++ and related tools are being developed together with a number of European research institutions and companies,<br />
including: DFKI and SAP in Germany, EPFL in Switzerland, IBM, HP and DERI in Ireland.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
WebRatio® Competence Center Germany<br />
For model-driven web application development of data-rich web applications,<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Research Center offers consultation and training as the WebRatio® Competence<br />
Center in Germany. WebRatio® is the result of years of extensive research<br />
and application in many different industry sectors. WebRatio® is the world‘s<br />
fi rst development environment to integrate advanced capabilities such as:<br />
• the development of Web applications through a visual model (WebML®) and<br />
their integration with third party solutions via Web Services (SOA)<br />
• automatic code generation of J2EE compliant applications ready for deployment<br />
• extensive support for documentation, maintenance and evolution of deployed<br />
applications<br />
In this context, we cooperate with Web Models in Milano and iSearch IT Solutions<br />
in Hannover.<br />
Knowledge-based Hotline Support System<br />
Good hotline support relies on a rich and well-organized knowledge base about relevant cases<br />
and their characteristics. <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center has developed a know ledge-based hotline support<br />
system that exploits the semantics of important topics in order to identify similar cases<br />
stored in the hotline support knowledge base. The system uses techniques such as: phrase<br />
detection, semantic relations in sentences, stemming, part-of-word detection, and stopword removal<br />
to easily fi nd related cases starting from the error message, as specifi ed by the customer<br />
calling the hotline. Each technique can be customized separately and further domain specifi c<br />
solutions can be added. The system has been developed together with IPH.<br />
ELEONET: The Search Portal for Learning Objects<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
NEWS AND PROJECTS EVENTS<br />
ELEONET is an emerging European portal for Learning Objects using Digital Object Identifi ers (DOIs), and has development<br />
partners and publishers from Italy, UK, Germany and Spain. Effective search over Learning Object (LO) metadata and persistent<br />
DOIs make this service especially valuable for producers and publishers of learning objects. ELEONET Portal provides a common<br />
interface which allows Learning Object producers to register DOIs and to upload metadata. LO metadata records are indexed by<br />
every registration agency and combined into a distributed search architecture, which allows both full-text and metadata search.<br />
Learning Object descriptions and system interfaces currently exist in the English, German, Italian and Spanish languages.<br />
FedSearch – A Common Search Infrastructure for Digital Libraries<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Research Center presents an innovative distributed search engine system which enables the user to simultaneously perform<br />
full-text queries or attribute-specifi c searches (like author, year of publication etc.) in heterogeneous digital libraries over the<br />
internet. What is unique with our approach to federated search is the fact that digital libraries can participate in a federation of<br />
digital libraries with low effort and while keeping their existing library-specifi c workfl ow intact.<br />
A novel plugin architecture facilitates interaction between otherwise incompatible<br />
systems. The architecture provides an improved and unifi ed<br />
search functionality within the Federation (particularly a consistent ranking<br />
of the search results. Surrounding conditions, requirements and processes<br />
(like document management, licensing models, legal restrictions, payment<br />
options) remain unchanged.<br />
The <strong>L3S</strong> Federated Search System has been tested successfully with various<br />
search engines, particularly with FAST Data Search. The plugin component<br />
itself is based upon the open source search platform „Lucene“, which has<br />
been extended appropriately to support federated search.<br />
The system has been developed within a DFG-founded project in collaboration<br />
with the German National Library for Science and Technology, Bielefeld<br />
University Library, FIZ Technik and Vascoda.<br />
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PROJECTS NEWS AND EVENTS<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> supports international violin contest<br />
Thirty-four selected violinists from fi fteen countries participated in the Hannover 6th International Violin Contest, an event<br />
dedicated to Joseph Joachim. The Stiftung Niedersachsen has organized this tri-annual classic event since 1991 with its partners,<br />
Staatsoper Hannover, HMTH and the NDR. This year offered two special features; the fi rst being an Audience Award, given for<br />
the fi rst time. In the second feature, the international violin contest of Hannover provided an unprecedented live internet stream<br />
of all its violinist’s performances.<br />
The live streaming represents an exceptional way for modernday<br />
contests to be held. The contestants appeared as online<br />
pioneers, having their own contest homepage since the mid<br />
nineties and in 1994 they provided a public viewing in front<br />
of the concert hall.<br />
This year, an audio-visual live presentation of all performances<br />
of the participants was given. The fi rst four rounds were<br />
shown on www.violin-wettbewerb.de and the fi nal round was<br />
broadcast on www.ndrkultur.de.<br />
Selected moderations were provided in German and English<br />
and made available for download after each round.<br />
Interested fans across the world, were given the opportunity to learn about the violin contest. <strong>L3S</strong> provided the entire technical<br />
facilities for streaming and pre-event consultation. Additionally, the recordings and daily features were provided and hosted as<br />
on-demand videos by the <strong>L3S</strong>.<br />
<strong>L3S</strong> Researchers Win Best Student Paper Award<br />
at Leading Semantic Web Conference<br />
A joint team of researchers from <strong>L3S</strong> and University of Aberdeen<br />
received the Best Student Paper Award at the International<br />
Semantic Web Conference <strong>2006</strong>, the leading conference<br />
in this research area. The award ceremony took place at<br />
the University of Georgia convention center in Athens, USA.<br />
The award-winning work was conducted as part of the EUfunded<br />
Network of Excellence KnowledgeWeb, which supports<br />
the transition process of Semantic Web technology<br />
from the world of Academia to the world of Industry.<br />
When users search on the Semantic Web, they do not want<br />
to get back a complete list of maybe thousands of results,<br />
but rather a ranked list of best hits. However, ‘best’ does not<br />
mean the same for all users. Each individual user has his personal<br />
preferences, which determine what he regards as best<br />
results. To allow the expression of such user preferences, Wolf<br />
Siberski and Uwe Thaden from <strong>L3S</strong> and Jeff Pan from University of Aberdeen have extended the upcoming standard query language<br />
for the Semantic Web. Their paper ‚Querying the Semantic Web with Preferences‘ that won the award, combines existing<br />
work from Semantic Web and from Databases and offers a comprehensive approach for preference support when searching in<br />
semantically enriched information sources.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong> – Conference<br />
series successfully started<br />
http://www.ectel06.org<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
NEWS AND PROJECTS EVENTS<br />
http://professional-learning-cluster.org<br />
250 participants from more than 20 countries worldwide – an impressive outcome for the First European Conference on Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong>) which took place in Crete from October 1st to 4th, <strong>2006</strong>. During this unique event,<br />
the organizers succeeded in providing a common forum for leading researchers and stakeholders in the area of Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning. In talks and workshops, the experts dealt intensively with topics such as Workplace Learning Infrastructures<br />
for Learning and Metadata and Learning Objects. Furthermore, project meetings, of no less than eight EU projects dealing with<br />
Technology Enhanced Learning, took place before and after the conference.<br />
In preparation for the 7th Framework Program, starting<br />
in January 2007, participating representatives of the EU-<br />
Commission offered detailed insights into the structure of<br />
the new Work Program. Technology Enhanced Learning,<br />
which enables individuals and organizations to learn more<br />
effi ciently and cost-effectively - independent of time, place<br />
and pace, will still be one of the strategic goals of the EU/IST<br />
Work Program.<br />
The conference was organized by the Professional Learning<br />
Cluster (PRO-LC) with the European Network of Excellence<br />
PROLEARN and was coordinated by <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center.<br />
PRO-LC has been founded by a cluster of major European<br />
research projects with the aim of ultimately designing and<br />
shaping Technology Enhanced Learning in Europe.<br />
Quoting a statement from Prof. Wolfgang Nejdl, Program Chair EC-TEL, “The EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong> was a very successful start for our<br />
annual conference series. We hope to have inspired the participants with new research ideas as well as to have enabled new<br />
cooperation with other research groups.”<br />
IBM recognizes <strong>L3S</strong> Ph.D.<br />
student as one of Europe’s best<br />
The IBM Software Development Laboratory in Rome, Italy will host this year’s EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) Best Student<br />
Recognition Event. The EMEA Best Student Recognition Event will bring together the top 75 students from across Europe,<br />
the Middle East and Africa. Gianluca Demartini, one of many top, international researchers at the <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center in Hannover,<br />
is an EMEA Best Student participant.<br />
Gianluca Demartini, born in 1981, joined the <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center / University of Hannover recently and is now working under<br />
the supervision of Prof. Wolfgang Nejdl. He holds a M.Sc. from the University of Udine in Italy. Prior to graduation, he was a<br />
world fi nalist of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2005 competition presenting the TellMe project. In his Master thesis entitled “Evaluation<br />
in Information Retrieval”, he tested and analyzed an Evaluation Metric for the Information Retrieval (ADM). His current<br />
work within the European Integrated Project NEPOMUK, one of many international research projects at <strong>L3S</strong>, includes research<br />
and development of the Beagle++ search engine.<br />
79
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PROJECTS NEWS AND EVENTS<br />
Best Student Paper Award at WWW<strong>2006</strong><br />
Browser interfaces need to catch up with current Web usage<br />
A paper on the results of a long-term client-side Web usage study won<br />
the Best Student Paper Award at the World Wide Web <strong>2006</strong> Conference in<br />
Edinburgh. The results show that although user interaction with the Web<br />
has changed dramatically in the past decade, these changes have not been<br />
incorporated into current browser interfaces. Since the latest comparable<br />
study is several years old, this study was long overdue.<br />
Between late 2004 and early 2005 the Web activities of twenty-fi ve users<br />
were logged for an average period of three months. In addition to the basic<br />
page access data, detailed user interface actions have been recorded by a<br />
proxy server and an instrumented version of the Firefox browser. The paper<br />
reports on three aspects of Web navigation.<br />
Among the prominent results is the increased use of multiple windows and browser tabs. This strategy is often used for comparing<br />
search results side by side. However, users often have diffi culty managing the number of open windows or tabs; further, in<br />
order to backtrack, they need to remember what actions were performed in which window.<br />
It became apparent that the Web has evolved from a mainly static hypertext system to an interactive system, in which people<br />
carry out activities such as shopping and travel planning. The communication protocols used for these activities often disrupt<br />
the functionality of the back button. Moreover, subjectively important pages – such as travel plans and cash receipts – are volatile;<br />
they will get lost upon closing of the browser window.<br />
From the speed of navigation actions, it becomes clear that users mainly scan pages, and that the speed of the Web is still not<br />
suffi cient to meet current user interface standards. Data on user scrolling behavior provides new input for the still heated debate<br />
to what extent scroll bars are acceptable in Web page design. Several further fi ndings and design implications are reported<br />
in the paper. Even though many observations might seem obvious from casual introspection of Web usage, these specifi c fi ndings<br />
provide important pointers for breakthroughs in Web user interface design.<br />
The study was carried out by four Ph.D. students: Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf and Matthias Mayer from the University<br />
of Hamburg, and Eelco Herder from the University of Twente in the Netherlands; since March 1, <strong>2006</strong>, Eelco works as a postdoc<br />
at the <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center.<br />
Stud.IP developer workshop<br />
The Leibniz University Hannover is one of the biggest universities in the Stud.IP project and the <strong>L3S</strong> Research Center is responsible<br />
for the support and service of the local Stud.IP-system. <strong>L3S</strong> has done tremendous work<br />
to successfully connect Stud.IP with the offi cial course management system HIS-LSF.<br />
In early June, the 3rd Stud.IP developer workshop was held at the Leibniz University<br />
Hannover. Besides the communication between developers and interested people from<br />
different locations, the workshop aided in informing participants about the current successes<br />
and future developments of the Stud.IP learning and course management system.<br />
The main focus of the workshop was the discussion of systems interfaces and the<br />
new challenges in course management (e.g. modularization of study courses) and new<br />
technologies for Stud.IP.<br />
The workshop was oriented towards those who will work on the further technical developments<br />
of Stud.IP.<br />
Topics of the single workshops were:<br />
- mapping of modular study courses<br />
- connection of Stud.IP to HIS-LSF and other systems<br />
- development of a SOAP interface<br />
- Roll out of a centralised help for all locations<br />
- plugin interface<br />
- virtual exams with ViPs<br />
- highly available Stud.IP server<br />
The developer workshop was a big success. More than 50 interested people took part in sharing their opinions and ideas. Also,<br />
taking with them, the new ideas and concrete decisions made with, and on behalf of, the Stud.IP open source community.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
European Projects Join Forces<br />
in Professional Learning<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
NEWS AND PROJECTS EVENTS<br />
http://www.professional-learning-cluster.org<br />
More than 50 top research institutes and companies join forces to advance research and application of technology enhanced<br />
learning in companies and continuing education. The new Professional Learning Cluster PRO-LC bundles the work of four major<br />
European projects (the PROLEARN Network of Excellence and the Integrated Projects PROLIX, TENCompetence and APOSDLE)<br />
as well as several specifi c targeted research projects such as COOPER and iCAMP. The projects are funded through the 6th framework<br />
programme of the EC/IST unit on Learning and Cultural Heritage with a joint budget of more than 50 Million Euro. Initiated<br />
by the PROLEARN Network of Excellence, the cluster members focus on integrating technology enhanced learning, knowledge<br />
management and business process management in professional learning environments. PROLIX will provide solutions for the<br />
modular combination of eLearning environments with business process modeling tools, TENCompentence will support lifelong<br />
competence development of individuals, teams and organizations by developing a service-based and open source European<br />
infrastructure. APOSDLE will enhance knowledge worker productivity by supporting informal learning activities in the context of<br />
knowledge workers‘ everyday work processes and within their computational work environments.<br />
Prof. Wolfgang Nejdl, coordinator of PROLEARN and director of the <strong>L3S</strong> research center, stresses the need for integration: “European<br />
companies need to consolidate technology enhanced learning solutions and integrate them with the rest of their IT and<br />
business process infrastructures. The PRO-LC cluster projects will give Europe a competitive advantage in this important area.”<br />
PRO-LC will serve as one stop shop for information, competencies and solutions for Europe‘s companies and research organizations<br />
in the emerging fi eld of Technology Enhanced (Professional) Learning.<br />
The PRO-LC Cluster will facilitate and strengthen the close cooperation between all involved research institutes and companies,<br />
enable sharing of results and infrastructures, and identify emerging research issues in technology enhanced learning relevant for<br />
future initiatives and programs. PRO-LC member will jointly work on European and world-wide standardization efforts, e.g. at<br />
CEN/ISSS and IEEE standardization bodies.<br />
81
PROJECTS WORK & COLLABORATION<br />
challenges spring is when winter is over meetings fl<br />
publications s t r a w b e r r y i c e c r e a m w i t h n u t s chances sunr<br />
membership shark alarm in the underground internatio<br />
tahiti is great for skiing advisory board river in the moun<br />
sunshine today in the kitchen conferences favourite son<br />
82<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER
WORK & COLLABORATION<br />
y ing behind the rainbow investigation mickey mouse<br />
se at lunchtime papers beach beauty program committee<br />
al partners early espresso at six industry collaboration<br />
tains work together travel around the world projects no<br />
g on the radio consult with her aunt and uncle discuss<br />
+++ The most important criteria to measure the success<br />
of a research center like <strong>L3S</strong> are quality and quantity<br />
of publications and valuable partnerships. <strong>L3S</strong> has<br />
published more than 100 articles and has strong and<br />
important partnerships with research and industrial<br />
institutions. +++<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
83
84<br />
PROJECTS INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS<br />
• Acklin B.V., Wallwijk, Niederlande<br />
• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg<br />
• Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Rumänien<br />
• Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus<br />
• Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Thessaloniki,<br />
Griechenland<br />
• Cognium Systems, Paris, Frankreich<br />
• ComLinx IT Services, Kassel<br />
• Deutsches <strong>Forschungszentrum</strong> für Künstliche Intelligenz<br />
GmbH (DFKI), Germany<br />
• Deutsches <strong>Forschungszentrum</strong> für Künstliche Intelligenz,<br />
Kaiserslautern, Deutschland<br />
• École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Lausanne, Schweiz<br />
• Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Schweiz<br />
• École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland<br />
• EDGE-IT / Mandriva, Paris, Frankreich<br />
• Eigenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland<br />
• Federal University of Amazonas, Manaus, Brasilien<br />
• <strong>Forschungszentrum</strong> Informatik, Universität Karlsruhe,<br />
Deutschland<br />
• Foundation of Research and Technology – Hellas Heraklion, GR<br />
• France Telecom, Cesson Sévigné, Frankreich<br />
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten<br />
Forschung e.V. (FHG), Germany<br />
• Fundació Barcelona Media Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain<br />
• GIUNTI Interactive Labs s.r.l., Italy<br />
• Hautes Etudes Commerciales, France<br />
• Helsinki University of Technolog, Finland<br />
• Heriott-Watt University Edinburgh, UK<br />
• Högskolan i Skövde, SE<br />
• HP Galway, Irland<br />
• IBM Galway, Irland<br />
• Il Centro per la ricerca scientifica e tecnologica, Italien<br />
• information multimedia communication AG, Germany<br />
• Innofinity GmbH, Kassel<br />
• Inria Loria Nancy, FR<br />
• INRIA Rocquencourt Paris, FR<br />
• Inst. National de Recherche en Informatique et<br />
en Automatique, Montbonnot, Frankreich<br />
• Institut National des Télécommunications, France<br />
• Institute of Communication and Computer Systems,<br />
National University of Athens, Griechenland<br />
• Institutul National de ercetare-Dezvoltare in Informatica<br />
Bucharest, RO<br />
• Instytut Podstaw Informatyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk Warsaw, PL<br />
• Irion Management Consulting, Kaiserslautern, Deutschland<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
• Irion Management Consulting, Kaiserslautern, Deutschland<br />
• Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia<br />
• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven / ARIADNE Foundation,<br />
Belgium<br />
• Kungl. Tekniska Högskolan, Sweden<br />
• Kungliga Teksnika Hoegskolan (KTH), Stockholm, Schweden<br />
• Libera Università di Bolzano, Bozen, Italien<br />
• Linköpings Universitet Linköping, SE<br />
• LogicaCMG, Netherlands<br />
• Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München<br />
• Max-Plank Institut für Informatik, Saarbrücken, Deutschland<br />
• National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Greece<br />
• National University of Ireland, Galway, Irland<br />
• National University of Irland, Galway, Irland<br />
• Open Universiteit Nederland, The Netherlands<br />
• Open University, United Kingdom<br />
• Politecnico di Milano, Italy<br />
• Politehnica Universität Bukarest, Rumänien<br />
• Poznan University of Ecomonics<br />
• PRC Group, Athen, Griechenland<br />
• Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence of the Romanian<br />
Academy, Bukarest, Rumänien<br />
• Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen,<br />
Germany<br />
• SAP Deutschland<br />
• Software de Base, S.A, Spain<br />
• Stad Antwerpen, Belgium<br />
• Stanford University, USA<br />
• Stichting Telematica Instituut, Niederlande<br />
• SURF, Netherlands<br />
• Synergetics, Belgium<br />
• Technische Universität Dresden<br />
• Technische Universität Eindhoven, Niederlande<br />
• Technische Universität München, Deutschland<br />
• Technische Universität Wien, AT<br />
• Technische Universität Wien, Österreich<br />
• Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Netherlands<br />
• Thales Research and Technology, Paris, Frankreich<br />
• The Open University, Milton Keynes, Großbritannien<br />
• The University of Manchester, UK<br />
• UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education<br />
• Universidad Alcala de Henares, Spanien<br />
• Universidad Polictécnica de Madrid, Spain<br />
• Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spanien<br />
•<br />
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spanien
• Universidade Nova de Lisboa, PT<br />
• Università Ca‘ Foscari Venezia, IT<br />
• Università degli Studi di Torino, IT<br />
• Università degli Studi di Trento, Trient, Italien<br />
• Università di Napoli, IT<br />
• Universität Duisburg-Essen, Deutschland<br />
• Universität für Bodenkultur, Zentrum für Soziale Innovation,<br />
Austria<br />
• Universität Göttingen<br />
• Universität Hannover<br />
• Universität Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Österreich<br />
• Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spanien<br />
• Universität St. Gallen, CH<br />
• Universität Swizzera Italiana, Lugano, Schweiz<br />
• Universität Zürich, CH<br />
• University of Economics, Prag, Tschechien<br />
• University of Liverpool, Liverpool, Großbritannien<br />
• University of Malta, MT<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
INDUSTRY PARTNERS PROJECTS<br />
• University of Manchester, Manchester, Großbritannien<br />
• University of Sheffield, Sheffield, Großbritannien<br />
• University of Warwick, United Kingdom<br />
• University of Zurich, Schweiz<br />
• Unversity of Aberdeen, Großbritannien<br />
• Unversity of Eindhoven, Niederlande<br />
• Unversity of Surrey, Großbritannien<br />
• Vrije Universität Amsterdam, Niederlande<br />
• Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Niederlande<br />
• Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brüssel, Belgien<br />
• Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Austria<br />
•<br />
Yahoo! Research, Barcelona, Spanien<br />
85
86<br />
PROJECTS PUBLICATIONS<br />
Publications <strong>2006</strong><br />
1. Abel, F.; Brunkhorst, I.; Henze, N.; Krause, D.; Mushtaq, K.;<br />
Nasirifard, K.; Tomaschewski, K.: Personal Reader Agent:<br />
Personalized Access to Configurable Web Services. ABIS <strong>2006</strong> -<br />
14th Workshop on Adaptivity and User Modeling in Interactive<br />
Systems, Hildesheim, October 9-11 <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
2. Ackermann, Markus; Berendt, Bettina; Grobelnik, Marko;<br />
Hotho, Andreas; Mladenic, Dunja; Semeraro, Giovanni;<br />
Spiliopoulou, Myra; Stumme, Gerd; Svatek, Vojtech; van<br />
Someren, Maarten: Semantics, Web and Mining. Springer,<br />
Heidelberg, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
3. Alrifai, Mohammad; Dolog, Peter; Nejdl, Wolfgang:<br />
Learner Profile Management for Collaborative Adaptive<br />
eLearning Application. APS‘<strong>2006</strong>: Joint International Workshop<br />
on Adaptivity, Personalization and the Semantic Web at the<br />
17th ACM Hypertext Conference, Odense, Denmark, August<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. ACM Press.<br />
4. Alrifai, Mohammad; Dolog, Peter; Nejdl, Wolfgang:<br />
Transaction Concurrency Control in Web Service Environment.<br />
ECOWS‘<strong>2006</strong>: The 4th European Conference on Web Services.<br />
December <strong>2006</strong>. IEEE Press.<br />
5. Alves, Miguel; Viegas Damasio, Carlos; Olmedilla, Daniel;<br />
Nejdl, Wolfgang: A distributed tabling algorithm for rule based<br />
policy systems. In 7th IEEE International Workshop on Policies<br />
for Distributed Systems and Networks (POLICY <strong>2006</strong>), London,<br />
Ontario, Canada, June <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
6. Grigoris Antoniou, Matteo Baldoni, Piero A. Bonatti,<br />
Wolfgang Nejdl, and Daniel Olmedilla. Rule-based policy<br />
specification. In Ting Yu and Sushil Jajodia, editors, Secure Data<br />
Management in Decentralized Systems. Springer, 2007.<br />
7. Aroyo, Lora; Dolog, Peter; Houben, Geert-Jan; Kravcik,<br />
Milos; Naeve, Ambjoern; Nilsson, Mikael; Wild, Fridolin:<br />
Interoperability in Personalized Adaptive Learning. Educational<br />
Technology & Society 9(2): 4-18 (<strong>2006</strong>).<br />
8. Van Assche, Frans; Duval, Erik; Massart, David; Olmedilla,<br />
Daniel; Simon, Bernd; Sobernig, Stefan; Ternier, Stefaan; Wild,<br />
Fridolin: Spinning interoperable applications for teaching &<br />
learning using the simple query interface. Educational<br />
Technology & Society. Special Issue (April <strong>2006</strong>) on<br />
Interoperability of Educational Systems, 9(2):51-67, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
9. Baldoni, M.; Baroglio, C.; Brunkhorst, I.; Henze, N.;<br />
Marengo, E.; Patti, V.: A Personalization Service for Curriculum<br />
Planning. ABIS <strong>2006</strong> - 14th Workshop on Adaptivity and User<br />
Modeling in Interactive Systems, Hildesheim, October 9-11 <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
10. Balke, W.-T.; Thaden, U.; Diederich, J.: The Semantic<br />
GrowBag Demonstrator for Automatically Organizing Topic<br />
Facets, in Proceedings of the SIGIR<strong>2006</strong> Workshop on Faceted<br />
Search, Seattle, USA, August <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
11. Balke, W.-T.; Diederich, J.: A Quality- and Cost-based<br />
Selection Model for Multimedia Service Composition in Mobile<br />
Environments, ICWS <strong>2006</strong>, Chicago, USA.<br />
12. Balke, Wolf-Tilo; Guentzer, Ulrich; Siberski, Wolf:<br />
Exploiting Indifference for Customization of Partial Order<br />
Skylines. Proceedings of the 10th International Database<br />
Engineering & Applications Symposium (IDEAS), Delhi, India,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
13. P. Barahona, F. Bry, E. Franconi, N. Henze, U. Sattler (Eds.):<br />
Reasoning Web. Springer, <strong>2006</strong>, ISBN 3-540-38409-X.<br />
14. Barji, A., Hagge, N., and Wagner, B.: Comparative Study of<br />
Using CNet, IEC61499, and Statecharts for Behavioral Models of<br />
Real-time Control Applications. 11th IEEE International<br />
Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation<br />
(ETFA <strong>2006</strong>), September 20-22, <strong>2006</strong>, Prague, Czech Republic.<br />
15. Belizki, Jürgen; Costache, Stefania; Nejdl, Wolfgang:<br />
Application Independent Metadata Generation. In Proceedings<br />
of the International ACM Workshop on Contextualized<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
Attention Metadata: Collecting, Managing and Exploiting of<br />
Rich Usage Information, CAMA, Arlington, Virginia, USA,<br />
November, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
16. Bonatti, Piero A.; Duma, Claudiu; Fuchs, Norbert; Nejdl,<br />
Wolfgang; Olmedilla, Daniel; Peer, Joachim; Shahmehri, Nahid:<br />
Semantic web policies - a discussion of requirements and<br />
research issues. In 3rd European Semantic Web Conference<br />
(ESWC), volume 4011 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science,<br />
Budva, Montenegro, June <strong>2006</strong>. Springer.<br />
17. Bonatti, Piero A.; Ding, Li; Finin, Tim; Olmedilla, Daniel<br />
(editors). Proceedings of the ISWC‘06 2nd International<br />
Semantic Web Policy Workshop (SWPW), Athens, Georgia, USA,<br />
November <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
18. Bonatti, Piero; Olmedilla, Daniel; Peer, Joachim: Advanced<br />
policy explanations. In 17th European Conference on Artificial<br />
Intelligence (ECAI <strong>2006</strong>), Riva del Garda, Italy, Aug-Sep <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
IOS Press.<br />
19. Bongio, Aldo; van Bruggen, Jan; Ceri, Stefano; Cristea,<br />
Valentin; Dolog, Peter; Hoffman, Andreas; Matera, Maristella;<br />
Mura, Marzia; Taddeo, Antonio; Zhou, Xuan: COOPER: Towards<br />
A Collaborative Open Environment of Project-centred Learning,<br />
Proceedings of the First European Conference on Technology<br />
Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong>), Crete, Greece.<br />
20. Brase, Jan; Bertelmann, Roland; Diepenbroek, Michael;<br />
Grobe, Hannes; Hueck, Heinke; Lautenschlager, Michael;<br />
Schindler, Uwe; Sens, Irina; Waechter, Joachim: Data<br />
publication in the Open Access initiative, Data Science Journal,<br />
Volume 5 (<strong>2006</strong>), pp.79-83, ISSN: 1683-1470.<br />
21. Breitner, M.H.; Bruns, B.; Lehner, F.: Neue Trends im<br />
ELearning - Aspekte der Betriebswirtschaftslehre und<br />
Informatik, Fachbuch, Physica/Springer Verlag, Heidelberg<br />
Sommer <strong>2006</strong><br />
22. Breitner, M.H.; Fandel, G.: ELearning Geschäftsmodelle<br />
und Einsatzkonzepte (PDF-Datei, 0.2 MB), ZfB Special Issue<br />
2/<strong>2006</strong>, Gabler Verlag <strong>2006</strong>, Februar <strong>2006</strong><br />
23. Breuer, F.; Breitner, M.H.: Presentation of an eLearning<br />
Marketing Concept for Adult Education Institutions, in:<br />
Breitner, M. H.; Bruns, B.; Lehner, F. (Hrsg.): Neue Trends im<br />
ELearning - Aspekte der Betriebswirtschaftslehre und<br />
Informatik, Fachbuch, Physica/Springer Verlag, Heidelberg<br />
Sommer <strong>2006</strong><br />
24. Brüggemann, T.; Breitner, M.H.: Mobile<br />
Preisvergleichsdienste am Scheideweg. In:<br />
Wirtschaftsinformatik, Heft 6, <strong>2006</strong>, S. 430 - 436. Dezember<br />
<strong>2006</strong><br />
25. Brunkhorst, Ingo; Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Costache,<br />
Stefania; Gaugaz, Julien; Ioannou, Ekaterini; Iofciu, Tereza;<br />
Minack, Enrico; Nejdl, Wolfgang; Paiu, Raluca: The Beagle++<br />
Toolbox: Towards an Extendable Desktop Search Architecture.<br />
Semantic Desktop Workshop <strong>2006</strong>, Nov. <strong>2006</strong>, Athens, GA,<br />
USA.<br />
26. Brunkhorst, Ingo; Olmedilla, Daniel: Interoperability for<br />
peer-to-peer networks: Opening p2p to the rest of the world.<br />
In European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-<br />
TEL), Heraklion, Greece, Oct <strong>2006</strong>. Springer.<br />
27. Bruns, C.; Jobmann, K.: Evaluation of Server Performance<br />
in VANETs in Single-Hop Scenarios 3rd International Workshop<br />
on Intelligent Transportation, WIT <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
28. Burgos, Daniel; Memmel, Martin; Olmedilla, Daniel; Ras,<br />
Eric; Weibelzahl, Stephan; Wolpers, Martin (editors): Joint<br />
International Workshop on Professional Learning, Competence<br />
Development and Knowledge Management, Heraklion, Greece,<br />
October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
29.<br />
Carvalho, Andre; Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; de Moura,<br />
Edleno; Calado, Pavel; Nejdl, Wolfgang: Site Level Noise<br />
Removal for Search Engines. In Proceedings of the 15th<br />
International World Wide Web Conference, Edinburgh, UK,<br />
May, <strong>2006</strong>.
30. Chen, H., Wulf, O. and Wagner, B.: A Mixed Reality based<br />
Human-Robot Interface for Object Detection. EGVE‘06, 12th<br />
Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments, 8th - 10th<br />
May <strong>2006</strong>, Lisbon, Portugal<br />
31. Chen, H., Wulf, O. and Wagner, B.: Object Detection for a<br />
Mobile Robot Using Mixed Reality. Interactive Technologies and<br />
Sociotechnical Systems, Lecture Notes in Computer Science,<br />
Volume 4270/<strong>2006</strong>, pp. 466-475, Springer Berlin/Heidelberg<br />
<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
32. Chen, Ling; Bhowmick, Sourav S; Li, Jinyan: COWES:<br />
Clustering Web Users Based on Historical Web Sessions.<br />
DASFAA <strong>2006</strong>: 541-556.<br />
33. Chen, Ling; Bhowmick, Sourav S.; Li, Jinyan: Mining<br />
Temporal Indirect Associations. PAKDD <strong>2006</strong>: 425-434.<br />
34. Cheniti-Belcadhi, Lilia; Henze, Nicola; Braham, Rafik:<br />
Implementation of a Personalized Assessment Web Service.<br />
ICALT <strong>2006</strong>: 586-590.<br />
35. Chernov, Sergey; Iofciu, Tereza; Nejdl, Wolfgang; Zhou,<br />
Xuan: Extracting Semantic Relationships between Wikipedia<br />
Categories. 1st International Workshop: „SemWiki<strong>2006</strong> - From<br />
Wiki to Semantics“ (SemWiki<strong>2006</strong>), co-located with the<br />
ESWC<strong>2006</strong> in Budva, Montenegro, June 12, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
36. Chernov, Sergey; Kohlschütter, Christian; Nejdl, Wolfgang:<br />
A Plugin Architecture Enabling Federated Search for Digital<br />
Libraries. In Proceedings of 9th International Conference on<br />
Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL <strong>2006</strong>), Kyoto, Japan, November<br />
27-30, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
37. Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Firan, Claudiu S.; Nejdl,<br />
Wolfgang: Summarizing Local Context to Personalize Global<br />
Web Search. In Proceedings of the 15th Conference on<br />
Information and Knowledge Management, Arlington, Virginia,<br />
US, November, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
38. Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Firan, Claudiu S.; Nejdl,<br />
Wolfgang: Pushing Task Relevant Web Links down to the<br />
Desktop. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM International<br />
Workshop on Web Information and Data Management,<br />
Arlington, US, November, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
39. Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Costache, Stefania; Nejdl,<br />
Wolfgang; Paiu, Raluca: Beagle++: Semantically Enhanced<br />
Searching and Ranking on the Desktop In Proceedings of the<br />
3rd European Semantic Web Conference, ESWC, Budva,<br />
Montenegro, June, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
40. Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Nejdl, Wolfgang: Analyzing User<br />
Behavior to Rank Desktop Items. In Proceedings of the 13th<br />
International Symposium on String Processing and Information<br />
Retrieval (SPIRE), Glasgow, United Kingdom, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
41. Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Gaugaz, Julien; Costache,<br />
Stefania; Nejdl, Wolfgang: Desktop Context Detection Using<br />
Implicit Feedback. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Personal<br />
Information Management held at the 29th ACM International<br />
SIGIR Conf. on Research and Development in Information<br />
Retrieval, Seattle, United States, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
42. Cho, SungRan; Koudas, Nick; Srivastava, Divesh: Metadata<br />
indexing for XPath location steps. In Proceedings of the<br />
ACM SIGMOD Conference, Chicago, IL, USA, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
43. Cristea, Alexandra; Nejdl, Wolfgang: Adaptive Authoring<br />
of Adaptive Courses on the Semantic Desktop via Malleable<br />
Schemas. E-Learn‘06 Conference, Honululu, Hawaii, October<br />
<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
44. Datta, Anwitaman; Nejdl, Wolfgang; Aberer, Karl: Optimal<br />
caching for first-order query load-balancing in decentralized<br />
index structures. DBISP2P‘06, Workshop at VLDB‘06, Seoul,<br />
Korea, September <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
45. Juri L. De Coi, Eelco Herder, Arne Koesling, Christoph Lofi,<br />
Daniel Olmedilla, Odysseas Papapetrou, and Wolf Siberski. A<br />
model for competence gap analysis. In WEBIST 2007,<br />
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
PUBLICATIONS PROJECTS<br />
Information Systems and Technologies: Internet Technology /<br />
Web Interface and Applications, Barcelona, Spain, Mar 2007.<br />
INSTICC Press.<br />
46. Demartini, Gianluca; Mizzaro, Stefano: A Classification of<br />
IR Effectiveness Metrics. In Proceedings of the 28th European<br />
Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR), London, United<br />
Kingdom, pp. 488-491, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
47. Demidova, Elena; Nejdl, Wolfgang: Integrating RDF<br />
Querying Capabilities into a Distributed Search Infrastructure.<br />
In ASWC <strong>2006</strong> Workshops Proceedings, Beijing, China,<br />
September <strong>2006</strong>, ISBN 7-5601-3528-5.<br />
48. Elena Demidova, Stefaan Ternier, Daniel Olmedilla, Erik<br />
Duval, Michele Dicerto, Krassen Stefanov, and Naiara Sacristán.<br />
Integration of heterogeneous information sources into a<br />
knowledge resource management system for lifelong learning.<br />
In The 2nd TENCompetence Workshop: Service Oriented<br />
Approaches and Lifelong Competence Development<br />
Infrastructures, Manchester, United Kingdom, January 2007.<br />
49. Diederich, J.; Iofciu, T.: Finding Communities of Practice<br />
from User Profiles Based On Folksonomies, in TEL-CoPs‘06, colocated<br />
with EC-TEL, Crete, Greece, October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
50. Diederich, J; Nejdl, W.;Tolksdorf, R.: EASE: The European<br />
Association for Semantic Web Education, in Proceedings of the<br />
Semantic Web Education and Training Workshop (SWET‘06),<br />
co-located with the First Asian Semantic Web Conference<br />
(ASWC <strong>2006</strong>), Beijing, China, September <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
51. Dolog, Peter; Stuckenschmidt, Heiner; Wache, Holger:<br />
Robust Query Processing for Personalized Information Access<br />
on the Semantic Web. FQAS <strong>2006</strong>: 343-355.<br />
52. Finin, Tim; Kagal, Lalana; Olmedilla, Daniel: Report on the<br />
Models of Trust for the Web Workshop (MTW’06). Sigmod<br />
Record Report, Dec. <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
53. Finin, Tim; Kagal, Lalana; Olmedilla, Daniel, editors.<br />
Proceedings of the WWW‘06 Workshop on Models of Trust for<br />
the Web, volume 190 of CEUR Workshop Proceedings,<br />
Edinburgh, Scotland, May <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
54. Galler, S.; Schroeder, J.; Rahmatollahi, G.; Kyamakya, K.;<br />
Jobmann, K.: Analysis and practical comparison of Wireless LAN<br />
and Ultra-Wideband technologies for advanced localization<br />
presented at Position, Location and Navigation Symposium -<br />
PLANS, San Diego, USA, <strong>2006</strong><br />
55. Gietz, P.; Grimm, C.; Pfeiffenberger, H.; Rauschenbach, J.;<br />
Schroeder, R.: DFN-AAI: Technische und organisatorische<br />
Voraussetzungen an das Identity Management, DFN-<br />
Mitteilungen, Nr. 71, Dezember <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
56. Grimm, C.: Technische Infrastrukturen für eScience an<br />
Hochschulen, Proc. 1. eTeaching & eScience Tagung, Hannover,<br />
November <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
57. Grimm, C.; Pattloch, M.; Reiser, H.: Sicherheit in Grids, In:<br />
PIK Praxis der Informationsverarbeitung und Kommunikation,<br />
Saur–Verlag, July <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
58. Grimm, C.; von Voigt, G.: Security als Service. In: O.<br />
Rienhoff, U. Sax (Eds.), Grid-Computing in der biomedizinischen<br />
Forschung – Datenschutz und Datensicherheit,<br />
Urban & Vogel GmbH, Dezember <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
59. Grimm, C.; Piger, S.; Wiebelitz, J.: Evaluation von Security-<br />
Mechanismen in Grid-Umgebungen, 20. DFN-Arbeitstagung<br />
über Kommunikationsnetze, Heidelberg, June <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
60. Hagge, N. and Wagner, B.: Applying the Handler-based<br />
Execution Model to IEC 61499 Basic and Composite Function<br />
Blocks. IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics<br />
(INDIN‘06), August 16-18, <strong>2006</strong>, Singapore.<br />
61.<br />
Hagge, N. und Wagner, B.: Konsistentes Verschalten Petri-<br />
Netz-basierter Steuerungskomponenten in CNet. in E.Schnieder<br />
(Hrsg.) Entwurf komplexer Automatisierungssysteme - EKA<br />
<strong>2006</strong>, 9. Fachtagung, 29.-31.5.<strong>2006</strong> in Braunschweig<br />
87
88<br />
PROJECTS PUBLICATIONS<br />
62. Härke, S.; Krüger, M.; Breitner, M.-H.; Jobmann, K.:<br />
Geschäftsmodelle für Multimediaräume in Hochschulen In:<br />
Breitner, M. H., Bruns, B. und Lehner, F.: ELearning ? Eine<br />
ganzheitliche Betrachtung. Physica/Springer Verlag,<br />
Heidelberg, <strong>2006</strong><br />
63. Heinrich; Feldmann, S.: Capacity and Fairness Evaluation<br />
of IEEE 802.11-based Ad Hoc Networks with Multi-Hop Traffic<br />
IEEE GLOBECOM Technical Conference, San Francisco,<br />
California, USA, 27 November - 1 December <strong>2006</strong><br />
64. Heinrich;Feldmann, S.: Capacity of IEEE 802.11-based Ad<br />
Hoc Networks with Fairness Constraints IEEE International<br />
Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio<br />
Communications (PIMRC <strong>2006</strong>), Helsinki, 11-14 September<br />
<strong>2006</strong><br />
65. Hentschel. M., Wulf, O. and Wagner, B.: A Hybrid Feedback<br />
Controller for Car-like Robots. Proceedings of the 3rd<br />
International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation<br />
and Robotics. (ICINCO <strong>2006</strong>), pp.445-450, August 1-5, <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
Setubal, Portugal.<br />
66. Henze, Nicola and Krause, Daniel: User Profiling and<br />
Privacy Protection for a Web Service Oriented Semantic Web.<br />
ABIS <strong>2006</strong> - 14th Workshop on Adaptivity and User Modeling in<br />
Interactive Systems, Hildesheim, October 9-11 <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
67. Henze, Nicola and Krause, Daniel: Personalized Access to<br />
Web Services in the Semantic Web. SWUI <strong>2006</strong> - 3rd<br />
International Semantic Web User Interaction Workshop,<br />
November 6, <strong>2006</strong>, Athens, Georgia, USA, collocated with ISWC<br />
<strong>2006</strong><br />
68. Henze, Nicola and Krause, Daniel: Scalable Matchmaking<br />
for a Semantic Web Service based Architecture - Workshop on<br />
Semantics for Web Services, December 4, <strong>2006</strong>, Zurich,<br />
Switzerland, collocated with ECOWS <strong>2006</strong><br />
69. Henze, Nicola: Personalisierbare Informationssysteme im<br />
Semantic Web. In T. Pellegrini, A. Blumauer (Hrsg.): Semantic<br />
Web: Wege zur vernetzten Wissensgesellschaft. Springer, <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
ISBN 3-540-29324-8.<br />
70. Henze, Nicola: A Definition of Adaptive Educational<br />
Hypermedia Systems. Article in the Encyclopedia of Multimedia.<br />
Springer, <strong>2006</strong>, ISBN: 0-387-24395-X.<br />
71. Henze, Nicola: Personalized eLearning in the Semantic<br />
Web. First International Conference on Interactive Mobile and<br />
Computer Aided Learning, Amman, Jordan, April 19-21 <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
72. Henze, Nicola: Personalized eLearning in the Semantic<br />
Web. Extended version of 4. International Journal of Emerging<br />
Technologies in Learning (iJET), Vol. 1, No. 1 (<strong>2006</strong>).<br />
73. Herder, Eelco; Weinreich, Harald; Obendorf, Hartmut; Mayer,<br />
Matthias: Much to Know About History. AH <strong>2006</strong>: 283-287.<br />
74. Herder, Eelco; Koesling, Arne; Olmedilla, Daniel; Hummel,<br />
Hans; Schoonenboom, Judith; Moghnieh, Ayman; Vervenne,<br />
Luk: European lifelong competence development:<br />
Requirements and technologies for its realisation. In Workshop<br />
on Learning Networks for Lifelong Competence Development,<br />
Sofia, Bulgaria, March <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
75. Hirakawa, S.; Katoh, G.; Reimers, U.; Whitacker, J.; Wu, Y.:<br />
Scanning the Issue. Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 94, No.1, S. 5-<br />
7, Januar <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
76. Hirakawa, S.; Reimers, U.; Whitacker, J.; Wu, Y.: Overview<br />
of Digital Television Development Worldwide. Proceedings of<br />
the IEEE, Vol. 94, No.1, S. 8-21, Januar <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
77. Hoppe, G.; Breitner, M.H.: Evaluation and Optimization of<br />
ELearning Scenarios, in: Breitner, M. H.; Fandel, G. (Hrsg.):<br />
ELearning Geschäftsmodelle und Einsatzkonzepte, ZfB Special<br />
Issue 2/<strong>2006</strong>, Gabler Verlag <strong>2006</strong>, S. 43-61, Februar <strong>2006</strong><br />
78. Hoser; Hotho, A.; Jäschke, R.; Schmitz, C.; Stumme, G.:<br />
Semantic Network Analysis of Ontologies. In Y. Sure, J.<br />
Domingue, editors, The Semantic Web: Research and<br />
Applications, LNAI 4011, 411-426, Springer, Heidelberg, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
79. Hotho, Andreas; Jäschke, Robert; Schmitz, Christoph;<br />
Stumme, Gerd: Information Retrieval in Folksonomies: Search<br />
and Ranking. Proceedings of the 3rd European Semantic Web<br />
Conference, 411-426, Budva, Montenegro, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
80. Hotho, Andreas; Jäschke, Robert; Schmitz, Christoph;<br />
Stumme, Gerd: BibSonomy: A Social Bookmark and Publication<br />
Sharing System. Proceedings of the Conceptual Structures Tool<br />
Interoperability Workshop at the 14th International Conference<br />
on Conceptual Structures, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
81. Andreas Hotho and Robert Jäschke and Christoph Schmitz<br />
and Gerd Stumme. Emergent Semantics in BibSonomy. Proc.<br />
Workshop on Applications of Semantic Technologies,<br />
Informatik <strong>2006</strong>, Dresden, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
82. Andreas Hotho and Robert Jäschke and Christoph Schmitz<br />
and Gerd Stumme. FolkRank: A Ranking Algorithm for<br />
Folksonomies. Proc. FGIR <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
83. Andreas Hotho and Robert Jäschke and Christoph Schmitz<br />
and Gerd Stumme. Trend Detection in Folksonomies. Proc. First<br />
International Conference on Semantics And Digital Media<br />
Technology (SAMT), Athens, Greece, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
84. Jäschke, Robert; Hotho, Andreas; Schmitz, Christoph;<br />
Stumme, Gerd: Wege zur Entdeckung von Communities in<br />
Folksonomies. Grundlagen von Datenbanken <strong>2006</strong>, 80 – 84.<br />
85. Robert Jäschke and Andreas Hotho and Christoph Schmitz<br />
and Bernhard Ganter and Gerd Stumme. TRIAS - An Algorithm<br />
for Mining Iceberg Tri-Lattices. Proc. 6th ICDM, Hong Kong,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
86. Predrag Knezevic, Andreas Wombacher, and Thomas Risse<br />
DHT-based Self-adapting Replication Protocol for Achieving<br />
High Data Availability In Proc. of 2nd International Conference<br />
on Signal-Image Technology and Internet-Based Systems (SITIS<br />
<strong>2006</strong>)<br />
87. Köhncke, Benjamin; Balke, Wolf-Tilo: Personalized Digital<br />
Item Adaptation in Service-Oriented Environments, in:<br />
Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Semantic<br />
Media Adaptation and Personalization (SMAP <strong>2006</strong>), Athens,<br />
Greece, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
88. Köller, F.; Breitner, M.H.: Optimierung von<br />
Warteschlangensystemen durch Approximation mit Neuronalen<br />
Netzen, in: Haasis, H.-D.; Kopfer, H.; Schönberger, J. (Eds.):<br />
Operations Research Proceedings 2005, Selected Papers of the<br />
Annual International Conference of the German Operations<br />
Research Society (GOR), Bremen, September 7-9, 2005,<br />
Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, S. 263-268 15.08.<strong>2006</strong><br />
89. Kohlschütter, Christian; Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Nejdl,<br />
Wolfgang. Using Link Analysis to Identify Aspects in Faceted<br />
Web Search. SIGIR <strong>2006</strong> Workshop on Faceted Search.<br />
90. Kohlschütter, Christian; Chirita, Paul-Alexandru; Nejdl,<br />
Wolfgang: Efficient Parallel Computation of PageRank. In<br />
Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information<br />
Retrieval (ECIR), London, United Kingdom.<br />
91. Lecking, D., Wulf, O., and Wagner, B.: Variable Pallet Pickup<br />
for Automatic Guided Vehicles in Industrial Environments.<br />
11th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies<br />
and Factory Automation (ETFA <strong>2006</strong>), September 20-22, <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
Prague, Czech Republic.<br />
92. Martin, Gunnar; Leyking, Katrina; Wolpers, Martin:<br />
Business Process-driven Learning. IST-Africa <strong>2006</strong> Conference<br />
and Exhibition, Pretoria, South Africa, May <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
93.<br />
Maske, P.; Breitner, M.H.: Qualification of Top and Middle<br />
Managers with Special (M)obileLearning Scenarios, in:<br />
Breitner, M. H.; Bruns, B.; Lehner, F. (Hrsg.): Neue Trends im<br />
ELearning - Aspekte der Betriebswirtschaftslehre und<br />
Informatik, Fachbuch, Physica/Springer Verlag, Heidelberg<br />
Sommer <strong>2006</strong>
94. Mertens, R.; Friedland, G.; Krüger, M.: To See or Not To<br />
See: Layout Constraints, the Split-Attention Problem and their<br />
Implications for the Design of Web Lecture Interfaces.<br />
Proceedings of the World Conference on ELearning in<br />
Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education.<br />
Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii, Oct. 13-17, <strong>2006</strong><br />
95. Della Mea, Vincenzo; Demartini, Gianluca; Di Gaspero,<br />
Luca; Mizzaro, Stefano: Experiments on Average Distance<br />
Measure. In Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on<br />
Information Retrieval (ECIR), London, United Kingdom, pp 492-<br />
495, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
96. Naeve, A.; Lytras, M.; Nejdl, W.: Advances of the Semantic<br />
Web for eLearning: expanding learning frontiers, in: British<br />
Journal of Educational Technology 37 (3), May <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
97. Najjar, Jehad; Wolpers, Martin; Duval, Erik: Towards<br />
Effective Usage-Based Learning Applications: Track and Learn<br />
from User Experience(s). 6th IEEE International Conference on<br />
Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT <strong>2006</strong>), July <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
Kerkrade, The Netherlands.<br />
98. Najjar, Jehad; Wolpers, Martin; Duval, Erik: Attention<br />
Metadata: Collection and Management, WWW<strong>2006</strong> workshop<br />
on Logging Traces of Web Activity: The Mechanics of Data<br />
Collection, Edinburgh, Scotland, May 23, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
99. Nejdl, Wolfgang; I. Cristea, Alexandra; Hendrix, Maurice:<br />
Automatic and Manual Annotation Using Flexible Schemas for<br />
Adoption on the Semantic Desktop, EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong>, 88 – 102<br />
100. Nejdl, Wolfgang; Tochtermann, Klaus (Eds.): Innovative<br />
Approaches for Learning and Knowledge Sharing: First<br />
European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-<br />
TEL <strong>2006</strong>, Crete, Greece, October 1-4, <strong>2006</strong>, Springer Lecture<br />
Notes in Computer Science.<br />
101. Nejdl, Wolfgang: Innovative Information and Knowledge<br />
Infrastructures -- How do I find what I need? ADVIS‘06, Izmir,<br />
Turkey, October <strong>2006</strong>, Invited Talk.<br />
102. Nejdl, Wolfgang: Innovative Information and Knowledge<br />
Infrastructures -- How do I find what I need? ICALT‘06,<br />
Kerkrade, Netherlands, July <strong>2006</strong>, Invited Talk.<br />
103. Niederberger, R.; Allcock, W.; Gommans, L.; Grünter, E.;<br />
Metsch, T.; Monga, I.; Volpato, G. L.; Grimm, C.: Firewall Issues<br />
Overview, GFD-I.083 Firewall Issues Research Group - Open<br />
Grid Forum, August <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
104. Nüchter, A., Lingemann, J., Hertzberg, J. Wulf, O., Wagner,<br />
B., Pervölz, K., Surmann, H. und Christaller, Th.: The RoboCup<br />
Rescue Team Deutschland1. KI - Künstliche Intelligenz Heft<br />
2/<strong>2006</strong>, S.24-29, ISSN 0933-1875, Böttcher IT Verlag, Bremen<br />
105. Olmedilla, Daniel; Saito, Nobuo; Simon, Bernd (editors):<br />
Educational Technology & Society. Special Issue (April <strong>2006</strong>) on<br />
Interoperability of Educational Systems, volume 9, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
106. Olmedilla, Daniel: Security and privacy on the semantic<br />
web. In Milan Petkovic and Willem Jonker, editors, Security,<br />
Privacy and Trust in Modern Data Management. Springer,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
107. Papadopoulos, George A.; Stavrou Aristos; Papapetrou,<br />
Odysseas: An Implementation Framework for Software<br />
Architectures Based on the Coordination Paradigm, in: Science<br />
of Computer Programming (SCP journal), March <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
108. Piger, S.; Grimm, C.; Wiebelitz, J.; Gröper, R.: An Approach<br />
to Restricted Delegation of User Rights based on the gLite<br />
Middleware, Proc. Cracow Grid Workshop 06, Cracow, Poland,<br />
October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
109. Prieß, A.; Schubert, C.; Zietz, C.; Breitner, M.H.:<br />
Zweistufige Wirtschaftsinformatik-Ausbildung mit SAP-<br />
Software am Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik (IWI) der<br />
Universität Hannover: Historie, Konzept, Erfolgsfaktoren und<br />
Ausblick, in: Krcmar, H.; Rautenstrauch, C.; Wittges, H.;<br />
Schrader, H. (Hrsg.): Wirtschaftsinformatik-Ausbildung mit<br />
SAP-Software, Reader zum Track der Multikonferenz<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
PUBLICATIONS PROJECTS<br />
Wirtschaftsinformatik <strong>2006</strong> in Passau, EUL Verlag, Köln <strong>2006</strong>, S.<br />
233-262, September <strong>2006</strong><br />
110. Reimers, U.: Perspektiven des terrestrischen Hör-, Fernsehund<br />
Datenrundfunks. Fernseh- und Kinotechnik 60 (<strong>2006</strong>), Heft<br />
3, S. 93-102.<br />
111. Reimers, U.: DVB- The Family of International Standards<br />
for Digital Video Broadcasting. Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 94,<br />
No.1, S. 173-182, Januar <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
112. Reimers, U.: DVB-H und IP Datacast - Datenrundfunk und<br />
hybride Kommunikationsnetze für mobile Endgeräte. VDE-<br />
Kongress <strong>2006</strong>, Tagungsband.<br />
113. Rieger, S.; Gersbeck-Schierholz, B.; Mönnich, J.; Wiebelitz,<br />
J.: Self-Service PKI-Lösungen for eScience, 13. DFN Workshop<br />
„Sicherheit in vernetzten Systemen“, Hamburg, Germany,<br />
March <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
114. Rückemann, C.-P.; Müller, W.; von Voigt, G.: Comparison<br />
of Grid Accounting Concepts for D-Grid, In: Proceedings of the<br />
Cracow Grid Workshop, CGW‘06, Cracow, Poland, October<br />
<strong>2006</strong>.<br />
115. v. Voigt, G.; Rückemann, C.-P.; Müller, W.: Development of<br />
a Billing Framework for D-Grid, Cracow Grid Workshop 06,<br />
Cracow, Poland, October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
116. Schmitz; Hotho, A.; Jäschke, R.; Stumme, G.: Kollaboratives<br />
Wissensmanagement. In T. Pellegrini, A. Blumauer, editors,<br />
Semantic Web – Wege zur vernetzten Wissensgesellschaft, 273-<br />
290, Springer, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
117. Schmitz, Christoph; Hotho, Andreas; Jäschke, Robert;<br />
Stumme, Gerd: Content Aggregation on Knowledge Bases using<br />
Graph Clustering. Proceedings of the 3rd European Semantic<br />
Web Conference, Budva, Montenegro, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
118. Christoph Schmitz and Andreas Hotho and Robert Jäschke<br />
and Gerd Stumme. Mining Association Rules in Folksonomies.<br />
In V. Batagelj and H.-H. Bock and A. Ferligoj and A. _iberna,<br />
editor(s), Data Science and Classification. Proceedings of the<br />
10th IFCS Conf., 261--270, Springer, Heidelberg, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
119. Siberski, Wolf; Pan, Jeff Z.; Thaden, U.: Querying the<br />
Semantic Web with Preferences. “Best Student Paper Award”,<br />
Proceedings of the 5th International Semantic Web Conference<br />
(ISWC), Athens, GA, USA, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
120. Simon, Bernd; Sobernig, Stefan; Wild, Fridolin; Aguirre,<br />
Sandra; Brantner, Stefan; Dolog, Peter; Neumann, Gustaf;<br />
Huber, Gernot; Klobucar, Tomaz; Markus, Sascha; Miklos,<br />
Zoltan; Nejdl, Wolfgang; Olmedilla, Daniel; Salvachua, Joaquin;<br />
Sintek, Michael; Zillinger, Thomas: Building blocks for the<br />
educational web: Elena‘s smart space for learning. In IEEE<br />
International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies<br />
(ICALT <strong>2006</strong>), Kerkrade, The Netherlands, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
121. Tedesco, Roberto; Dolog, Peter; Nejdl, Wolfgang:<br />
Distributed Bayesian Networks for User Modeling. E-Learn‘06<br />
Conference, Honululu, Hawaii, October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
122. Tondl, P.; Jobmann, K.: Informationssysteme für die<br />
Nutzung im Kraftfahrzeug - Fahrzeug-Fahrzeug-<br />
Kommunikation in „Niccimon - Das Niedersächsische<br />
Kompetenzzentrum Informationssysteme für die mobile<br />
Nutzung“, Shaker Verlag Aachen <strong>2006</strong>, ISBN 3-8322-5228-2.<br />
123. Voigtländer, C.; Breitner, M.H.: Dynamic Alliances in<br />
Further Education – Strategies to Increase Value Creation, in:<br />
Breitner, M. H.; Bruns, B.; Lehner, F. (Hrsg.): Neue Trends im<br />
ELearning - Aspekte der Betriebswirtschaftslehre und<br />
Informatik, Fachbuch, Physica/Springer Verlag, Heidelberg<br />
Sommer <strong>2006</strong><br />
124.<br />
Voigtländer, C.; Breitner, M.H.: Dynamic Webs in Further<br />
Education and the Role of ELearning Technologies in:<br />
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on<br />
Technology Supported Learning & Training (Online Educa),<br />
Berlin, November 29 - December 1, <strong>2006</strong> November <strong>2006</strong><br />
89
90<br />
PROJECTS PUBLICATIONS<br />
125. Voigtländer, C.; Breitner, M.H.: Hochschulen als<br />
Weiterbildungspartner im Corporate Learning - Empirische<br />
Ergebnisse und Kooperationsszenarien in: Proceedings der<br />
GMW <strong>2006</strong> „Alltagstaugliche Innovationen“, ETH Zürich, 19. -<br />
22.9.06, S. 226-237. September <strong>2006</strong><br />
126. v. Holdt, U., Schneider, H., and Wagner, B.: Analyse von<br />
Studienverläufen und Studienabbrüchen in den<br />
Bachelorstudiengängen Informatik an der Leibniz Universität<br />
Hannover. HDI <strong>2006</strong>: Hochschuldidaktik der Informatik, in: GI-<br />
Edition Lecture Notes in Informatics - Proceedings, 7.-8.<br />
Dezember <strong>2006</strong>, München, Germany<br />
127. v. Mettenheim, H.-J.; Breitner, M.H.: Distributed<br />
Neurosimulation, in: Haasis, H.-D.; Kopfer, H.; Schönberger, J.<br />
(Eds.): Operations Research Proceedings 2005, Selected Papers<br />
of the Annual International Conference of the German<br />
Operations Research Society (GOR), Bremen, September 7-9,<br />
2005, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, S. 747-752 15.08.<strong>2006</strong><br />
128. v. Mettenheim, H.-J.; Breitner, M.H.: Dynamic Games with<br />
Neurosimulators and Grid Computing: The Game of Two Cars<br />
Revisited in: Proceedings of the 12th International ISDG<br />
Symposium on Dynamic Games and Applications, July 3 - 6,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>, Sophia Antipolis/Riviera 03.07.<strong>2006</strong><br />
129. Volpato, G.; Grimm, C.: Dynamic Firewalls and Service<br />
Deployment Models for Grid Environments, Cracow Grid<br />
Workshop 06, Cracow, Poland, October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
130. Wagner, B.: Autonomous Vehicle for European Land-Robot<br />
Trial. Robotics Today, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 4th<br />
Quarter <strong>2006</strong>, Volume 19 No. 4<br />
131. Wagner, B.: Graphic Course Design for Engineers.<br />
International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEE-<br />
<strong>2006</strong>), July 23-28, <strong>2006</strong>, San Juan, Puerto Rico.<br />
132. Wang, Hui; Srivastava, Divesh; Lakshmanan, V.S.; Cho,<br />
SungRan; Amer-Yahia, Sihem: Optimizing Tree Pattern Queries<br />
Over Secure XML Databases. Security in Decentralized data<br />
Management, Springer, 15 December <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
133. Weinreich, Harald; Obendorf, Hartmut; Herder, Eelco;<br />
Mayer, Matthias: Off the beaten tracks: exploring three aspects<br />
of web navigation. WWW <strong>2006</strong>: 133-142. Best Student Paper<br />
Award.<br />
134. Weinreich, Harald; Obendorf, Hartmut; Mayer, Matthias;<br />
Herder, Eelco: Der Wandel in der Benutzung des World Wide<br />
Webs. Proc. Mensch und Computer <strong>2006</strong>, <strong>2006</strong>. This paper<br />
received the Best Paper Award from Mensch und Computer.<br />
135. Weinreich, Harald; Obendorf, Hartmut, Herder, Eelco.<br />
Data Cleaning Methods for Client and Proxy Logs. Proc.<br />
Workshop Logging Traces of Web Activity: The Mechanics of<br />
Data Collection, at WWW<strong>2006</strong>, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
136. Wolpers, Martin; Martin, Gunnar: Integrating Research in<br />
Professional Learning. International Journal of Knowledge and<br />
Learning (IJKL), Vol. 2 Issue (3&4), Inderscience, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
137. Wolpers, Martin; Hofer, Margit; Martin, Gunnar:<br />
Professional Learning in Europe and beyond - Structures for<br />
sustainable TEL-Research, Proc. 1st European Conference on<br />
Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong>), Crete, Greece,<br />
October <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
138. Wolpers, Martin; Martin, Gunnar; Najjar, Jehad; Duval,<br />
Erik: Attention Metadata in Knowledge and Learning<br />
Management, Proc. 6th International Conference on<br />
Knowledge Management, Graz, Austria, September <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
139. Wolpers, Martin; Martin, Gunnar: Advances in Technology<br />
Enhanced Professional Learning - state of the art and future<br />
trends, 28. International Exhibition-Congress on Chemical<br />
Engineering, Environmental Protection and Biotechnology<br />
(ACHEMA<strong>2006</strong>), Frankfurt am Main, Germany, May <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
140. Wulf, O., Lecking, D., and Wagner, B.: Robust Self-<br />
Localisation in Industrial Environments based on 3D Ceiling<br />
Structures. IROS <strong>2006</strong>, October 9-14, Beijing, China<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
141. Wulf, O. and Wagner, B.: Navigation Mobile Robots with<br />
3D Laser Data in Real Time. Workshop at the International<br />
Conference Spatial Cognition, September 25, <strong>2006</strong>, Bremen,<br />
Germany.<br />
142.<br />
Zhou, Xuan; Nejdl, Wolfgang: Priority Based Load<br />
Balancing in a Self-interested P2P Network, Proceedings of the<br />
Fourth International Workshop on Databases, Information<br />
Systems and Peer-to-Peer Computing (DBISP2P <strong>2006</strong>), Seoul,<br />
Korea.
Program Committee Memberships <strong>2006</strong><br />
• ADALE - International Workshop on Adaptive Learning and<br />
Learning Design, at the Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive<br />
(Nejdl)<br />
• International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI),<br />
Sydney, Australia, Jan. 29 to Feb. 01, <strong>2006</strong>. (Henze)<br />
• 4th International Conference on Formal Concept Analysis,<br />
Dresden, 13.-17. Feb. <strong>2006</strong> (Stumme)<br />
• International Conference Applied Computing <strong>2006</strong> (IADIS<br />
<strong>2006</strong>), 25-28 February <strong>2006</strong>, San Sebastian, Spain (Risse)<br />
• Workshop on Productive Knowledge Work, Management<br />
and Technological Challenges held in conjunction with the 4th<br />
International Conference on Professional Knowledge Management,<br />
Potsdam, Germany, March 28 – 30, <strong>2006</strong> (Chirita)<br />
• Workshop Learning Networks for Lifelong Competence<br />
Development March, 30-31, <strong>2006</strong>, Sofia, Bulgaria (Nejdl)<br />
• 1st International Workshop on Security and Trust in Decentralized/Distributed<br />
Data Structures (STD3S <strong>2006</strong>) in conjunction<br />
with the 22nd International Conference on Data Engineering<br />
(ICDE‘06) April 3-7, <strong>2006</strong>, Atlanta, GA, USA (Risse)<br />
• Daniel Olmedilla, Nobuo Saito, and Bernd Simon, editors.<br />
Special Issue (April <strong>2006</strong>) of the Journal of Educational<br />
Technology and Society (endorsed by IEEE Technical Committee<br />
on Learning Technology) on Interoperability of Educational<br />
Systems, volume 9, April <strong>2006</strong>. Guest Editor (Olmedilla)<br />
• 11th Intl. Conference on Database Systems for Advanced<br />
Applications, Singapore, April 12 - 15, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• The IEEE 20th International Conference on Advanced<br />
Information Networking and Applications (AINA <strong>2006</strong>),Vienna<br />
University of Technology, Austria, April 18 - 20, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 5th International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer<br />
Computing (AP2PC <strong>2006</strong>), 8 - 12 May <strong>2006</strong>,Hakodate, Japan.<br />
(Risse)<br />
• 1st International Workshop on Managing Context Information<br />
and Semantics in Mobile Environments (MCISME <strong>2006</strong>) in<br />
conjunction with the 7th International Conf erence on Mobile<br />
Data Management (MDM‘06), Nara, Japan, May 9-12, <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
(Nejdl, Risse)<br />
• Models of Trust for the Web, at the 15th Intl. World Wide Web<br />
Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, May 22 - 26, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 15th Intl. World Wide Web Conference, Semantic Web Track,<br />
Edinburgh, Scotland, May 22 - 26, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 15th Intl. World Wide Web Conference, E* Applications Track,<br />
Edinburgh, Scotland, May 22 - 26, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• MTW Workshop at the WWW conference <strong>2006</strong>, May, 23 -26,<br />
<strong>2006</strong> (Diederich)<br />
• IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS<br />
<strong>2006</strong>). Special session on Advances in semantic multimedia<br />
analysis for personalised content access, Island of Kos, Greece,<br />
May <strong>2006</strong>. (Olmedilla)<br />
• Models of Trust for the Web Workshop (MTW) in conjunction<br />
with the 15th International World Wide Web Conference,<br />
Edinburgh, UK, May <strong>2006</strong>. Co-Organizer (Olmedilla)<br />
• Reasoning on the Web Workshop (RoW<strong>2006</strong>) in conjunction<br />
with the 15th International World Wide Web Conference,<br />
Edinburgh, UK, May <strong>2006</strong>. (Olmedilla)<br />
• IEEE International workshop on Context Aware Ubiquitous<br />
Learning (CAUL <strong>2006</strong>), Taichung, Taiwan June 5, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 1st Canadian Semantic Web Working Symposium <strong>2006</strong>, June,<br />
6, <strong>2006</strong>. (Henze)<br />
• 3rd European Semantic Web Conference, Budva, Montenegro,<br />
June 11 - 14, <strong>2006</strong> (Diederich, Nejdl, Olmedilla, Henze, Stumme)<br />
PROGRAM COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
• Semantic Web Personalization auf der ESWC <strong>2006</strong>, June,<br />
11-14, <strong>2006</strong>. (Henze)<br />
• Co-Chair of the ESWC Workshop on Semantic Network<br />
Analysis, Budva, Montenegro. 12. Juni <strong>2006</strong> (Stumme)<br />
• Semantic Web Services Challenge <strong>2006</strong>, Stanford University,<br />
Phase I: March 13-14, <strong>2006</strong>, Phase II: June 15-16, <strong>2006</strong> (Risse)<br />
• Web-Based Systems Conference, June 20th, <strong>2006</strong>, Dublin,<br />
Ireland (Nejdl)4th Intl. Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia<br />
and Adaptive Web-Based Systems, June 20 - June 23, <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
Dublin, Ireland (Nejdl)<br />
• Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems <strong>2006</strong>,<br />
Dublin, Ireland, June 21 - 23, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• Data Engineering Issues in E-Commerce and Services, Second<br />
International Workshop, San Francisco, USA, June 26, <strong>2006</strong><br />
(Nejdl)<br />
• 4th International Workshop on Distributed and Mobile<br />
Collaboration (DMC <strong>2006</strong>), Manchester, UK, June 26-28, <strong>2006</strong><br />
(Nejdl, Risse)<br />
• 1st Int. Workshop on Semantic Technologies in Collaborative-<br />
Applications at IEEE WETICE <strong>2006</strong>, 26-28 June <strong>2006</strong>. (Henze)<br />
• 2nd Intl. Workshop on Data Engineering Issues in E-Commerce<br />
,San Francisco, June 26-29, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• ED-Media World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia<br />
and Telecommunications, June, 26-30, <strong>2006</strong>. (Henze)<br />
• TeaConc’<strong>2006</strong> - Workshop on Teaching Concurrency, 27 June<br />
<strong>2006</strong> (Wagner)<br />
• KnowledgeWeb PhD Symposium, Budva, Montenegro, June<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. Scientific Advisor (Olmedilla)<br />
• 3th European Semantic Web Conference, Lecture Notes in<br />
Computer Science, Budva, Montenegro, June <strong>2006</strong>. Springer.<br />
(Olmedilla)<br />
• European Semantic Web Conference Tutorial on Semantic<br />
Web Policies: Where are we and What is still missing?, Budva,<br />
Montenegro, June <strong>2006</strong>. Presenter (Olmedilla)<br />
• 4th Workshop on Principles and Practice of Semantic Web<br />
Reasoning, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Budva, Montenegro,<br />
June <strong>2006</strong>. Springer. Referee (Olmedilla)<br />
• 26th International Conference on Distributed Computing<br />
Systems, Lisboa, Portugal, July 4 - 7, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI‘06)<br />
Boston, Massachusetts, July 16-20, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• Editorial Board of the 14th Intl. Conference on Conceptual<br />
Structures (ICCS 2007), Aalborg, Dänemark, 16.-21. Juli <strong>2006</strong><br />
(Stumme)<br />
• ICINCO <strong>2006</strong> - International Conference on Informatics in<br />
Control, Automation & Robotics, 1-5 August <strong>2006</strong> (Wagner)<br />
• 1st Intl. Conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering and<br />
Management, Guilin City, China, August 5 - 8, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 4th International IEEE Conference on Industrial Informatics,<br />
16-18 August <strong>2006</strong>, Singapore (Wagner)<br />
• IFIP International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications<br />
and Innovations, Santiago, Chile, 20.-22. Aug. <strong>2006</strong><br />
(Stumme)<br />
• The 3rd International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence<br />
and Computing (UIC-06), Wuhan, China, Sep 2-6, <strong>2006</strong>, (Nejdl)<br />
• Mensch & Computer <strong>2006</strong>, 3. bis 6. September <strong>2006</strong>, Fachhochschule<br />
Gelsenkirchen in Gelsenkirchen-Buer. (Henze)<br />
• 1st Asian Semantic Web Conference (ASWC<strong>2006</strong>), Beijing,<br />
China, September 3 - 7, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
•<br />
8th International Conference on Data Warehousing and its<br />
Applications (DaWaK <strong>2006</strong>), Krakau, Polen, 4.-8. Sept. <strong>2006</strong><br />
(Stumme)<br />
91
92<br />
PROJECTS PROGRAM COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS<br />
• 7th International Conference on Knowledge Management,<br />
Graz, September 5-7, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 6th International Conference on Knowledge Management,<br />
Graz, Austria, September 6 - 8, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 4th Intl. Workshop on Databases, Information Systems and<br />
Peer-to-Peer Computing, held at VLDB <strong>2006</strong>, Seoul, Korea,<br />
September 11, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 2nd VLDB Workshop on Ontology Based Techniques for<br />
Databases and Information Systems, Seoul, Korea, 11. Sept.<br />
<strong>2006</strong> (Stumme)<br />
• eLearning Fachtagung Informatik der GI, TU Darmstadt,<br />
September 11 - 14, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence:<br />
Methodology, Systems, Applications (AIMSA <strong>2006</strong>), Varna,<br />
Bulgarien, 13.-15. Sept. <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl, Stumme)<br />
• 10th European Conference on Research and Advanced<br />
Technology for Digital Libraries <strong>2006</strong> (ECDL <strong>2006</strong>), September<br />
17-22, <strong>2006</strong>, Alicante, Spain (Risse)<br />
• 17th European Conference on Machine Learning/10th<br />
Eurpean Conference on Principles and Practice of Knowledge<br />
Discovery in Databases (ECML/PKDD <strong>2006</strong>), Berlin, 18.-22.<br />
Sept. <strong>2006</strong> (Stumme)<br />
• 11th IEEE International Conference on, Emerging Technologies<br />
and Factory Automation, September 20-22, Prague, Czech<br />
Republic (Wagner)<br />
• 1st Workshop on Digital Library Goes eScience: Perspectives<br />
and Challenges. September, 21, <strong>2006</strong>. Alicante, Spain;<br />
Workshop in conjunction with ECDL <strong>2006</strong> (Risse, Niederée,<br />
Organizing Committee)<br />
• Semantic Web Education and Training Workshop, collocated<br />
with the first Asian Semantic Web Conference (ASWC), Beijing,<br />
China, September <strong>2006</strong>. (Diederich)<br />
• 7th IEEE International Conference on Grid Computing,<br />
Barcelona, Spain, September <strong>2006</strong>. (Olmedilla)<br />
• Berliner XML Tage <strong>2006</strong> (BXML‘06), Berlin, Germany, September<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. (Olmedilla)<br />
• Workshop on Security and Trust Management (STM) in<br />
conjunction with the 11th European Symposium On Research In<br />
Computer Security (ESORICS), Hamburg, Germany, September<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. (Olmedilla)<br />
• Journal of Web Semantics. Elsevier, <strong>2006</strong>. Reviewer (Olmedilla)<br />
• Journal of Systems and Software. Elsevier, <strong>2006</strong>. Reviewer<br />
(Olmedilla)<br />
• Journal of Web Semantics. Special Issue on Semantic Grid.<br />
Elsevier, <strong>2006</strong>. Reviewer (Olmedilla)<br />
• ABIS <strong>2006</strong> - 14th Workshop on Adaptivity and User Modeling<br />
in Interactive Systems, LWA Workshop Series, Hildesheim,<br />
Germany, October 1-4, <strong>2006</strong>, PC Chair (Herder)<br />
• Crete, Greece - October 1-4, <strong>2006</strong>, First European Conference<br />
on Technology Enhanced Learning, PC Chair (Nejdl)<br />
• 1st European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning,<br />
Crete, Greece, October 1 - 7, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl, Henze)<br />
• 15th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering<br />
and Knowledge Management (EKAW <strong>2006</strong>), Prag, Tschechische<br />
Republik, 2.-6. Okt. <strong>2006</strong> (Stumme)<br />
• Bildung von Sozialen Netzwerken in Anwendungen der<br />
Sozialen Software, Workshop at Informatik <strong>2006</strong>, Dresden, 6.<br />
Okt. <strong>2006</strong> (Stumme)<br />
• 1st International Workshop on Applications of Semantic<br />
Technologies, Workshop at Informatik <strong>2006</strong>, Dresden, 6. Okt.<br />
<strong>2006</strong> (Stumme)<br />
• The 7th International Conference on Web Information Systems<br />
Engineering, Wuhan, China, October 23-26,<strong>2006</strong>, (Nejdl)<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
• E-Learn <strong>2006</strong>, World Conference on ELearning in Corporate,<br />
Government, Healthcare & Higher Education, Honolulu, Hawaii,<br />
US, Oct 13-17, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• International Conference on Web Information Systems and<br />
Technologies, Wuhan, China, October 23-26,<strong>2006</strong>. (Henze)<br />
• 5th International Conference on Ontologies, Databases and<br />
Applications of Semantics, Montpellier, France, October 29<br />
- November 3 <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• 14th International Conference on Cooperative Information<br />
System, Montpellier, France, October 29 - November 3 <strong>2006</strong><br />
(Nejdl)<br />
• 2nd International Conference on Semantics, Knowledge and<br />
Grid, Guilin, China, Oct 30 - Nov 01, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• Joint International Workshop on Professional Learning, Competence<br />
Development and Knowledge Management, Heraklion,<br />
Greece, October <strong>2006</strong>. Co-Organizer (Olmedilla)<br />
• The 5th International Semantic Web Conference, Athens, GA,<br />
USA, November 5 - 9, <strong>2006</strong>, (Nejdl, Stumme)<br />
• Semantic Web User Interaction auf der ISWC <strong>2006</strong>, Nov., 5-9,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. (Henze)<br />
• First European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning<br />
(EC-TEL <strong>2006</strong>). Organizing Committee Member (Thaden)<br />
• 2nd International Semantic Web Policy Workshop, (Nejdl)<br />
• Semantic Desktop and Social Semantic Collaboration<br />
Workshop, at the International Semantic Web Conference, 6<br />
November <strong>2006</strong>, Athens, US (Nejdl)<br />
• 32nd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics<br />
Society, Paris, France, November 7-10, <strong>2006</strong> (Wagner)<br />
• Second International Conference on Rules and Rule Markup<br />
Languages for the Semantic Web, Nov., 10-11, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• Workshop on Information Retrieval in Peer-to-Peer Networks,<br />
at the ACM 15th Conference on Information and Knowledge<br />
Management, Arlington, US, November 11, <strong>2006</strong> (Nejdl)<br />
• Workshop „Applications of Semantic Technologies“<br />
(AST<strong>2006</strong>) (Thaden)<br />
• ACM Workshop on Contextualized Attention Metadata:<br />
Collecting, Managing and Exploiting Rich Usage Information,<br />
at the 15th ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge<br />
Management, November 11, <strong>2006</strong>, Arlington, US (Nejdl)<br />
• Workshop on Information Retrieval in Peer-to-Peer-Networks<br />
(P2PIR <strong>2006</strong>); Arlington, VA; November 11, <strong>2006</strong> (Risse)<br />
• 31th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks<br />
(LCN <strong>2006</strong>), Tampa, Florida, 14-16 November <strong>2006</strong>. (Diederich)<br />
• Semantics <strong>2006</strong> conference, Vienna, 28-30 November <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
(Diederich)<br />
• RuleML International Conference Tutorial on Semantic Web<br />
Policies: Where are we and What is still missing?, Athens,<br />
Georgia, USA, November <strong>2006</strong>. Presenter (Olmedilla)<br />
• International Conference on Systems and Networks Communications<br />
(ICSNC06), Tahiti, French Polynesia, November <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
(Olmedilla)<br />
• 2nd Semantic Web Policy Workshop (SWPW) in conjunction<br />
with the 5th International Semantic Web Conference, Athens,<br />
Georgia, USA, November <strong>2006</strong>. Co-Organizer (Olmedilla)<br />
• 2nd International Workshop on Engineering Service-Oriented<br />
Applications: Design and Composition (WESOA <strong>2006</strong>), December<br />
4th <strong>2006</strong>, Chicago, USA (Risse)<br />
• 4th International Conference on Service Oriented Computing<br />
(ICSOC <strong>2006</strong>); Chicago, USA, December 4-7, <strong>2006</strong> (Risse)<br />
•<br />
5th International Conference on Ontologies, Databases and<br />
Applications of Semantics (ODBASE <strong>2006</strong>), Montpellier, France,<br />
<strong>2006</strong> (Risse)
• International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing<br />
and Applications (ISPA <strong>2006</strong>), Lecture Notes in Computer<br />
Science, Sorrento, Italy, December <strong>2006</strong>. Springer. (Olmedilla)<br />
• 3rd Italian Semantic Web Workshop on Semantic Web Applications<br />
and perspectives (SWAP), Pisa, Italy, December <strong>2006</strong>.<br />
(Olmedilla)<br />
• The IEEE / WIC / ACM Intl. Conference on Web Intelligence,<br />
December 18-22, <strong>2006</strong>, Hong Kong, China (Nejdl)<br />
• ACM Journal on Transactions on Internet Technology. ACM,<br />
<strong>2006</strong>. Reviewer (Olmedilla)<br />
• IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Special Issue<br />
on Peer-to-Peer Communications and Applications (Chirita)<br />
• Wiley SPE Journal on Software: Practice and Experience<br />
(Chirita)<br />
• Künstliche Intelligenz <strong>2006</strong>.(Henze)<br />
• International Network for Engineering Education and<br />
Research, (Wagner)<br />
• International Journal of Engineering Education, Editorial<br />
Advisory Board (Wagner)<br />
PROGRAM COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS PROJECTS<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
•Program<br />
Committee Memberships 2007<br />
• 33rd International Conference on Current Trends in Theory<br />
and Practice of Computer Science (SOFWEM 2007), Harrachov,<br />
Tschechische Republik, 20.-26. Jan. 2007 (Stumme)<br />
• 5th Intl. Conference on Formal Concept Analysis, Clermont-<br />
Ferrand, Frankreich, 12.-16. Februar 2007 (Stumme)<br />
• International Conference on Semantic Web and Digital Libraries,<br />
February 21-23, 2007, Bangalore, India (Nejdl)<br />
• 3rd International Conference on Web Information Systems<br />
and Technologies (WEBIST 2007), 3 - 6 March, 2007, Barcelona,<br />
Spain (Risse)<br />
• Workshop on Collaborative Knowledge Management,<br />
Potsdam, 28. März 2007 (Stumme)<br />
• 29th European Conference on Information Retrieval, Rome,<br />
Italy, April 2-5, 2007 (Chirita)<br />
• 12th International Conference on Databases for Advances<br />
Applications, Bangkok, Thailand, April 9-12, 2007 (Nejdl)<br />
• 3rd International Special Workshop on Databases for Next-<br />
Generation Researchers (SWOD2007) in conjunction with the<br />
23nd International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE‘07),<br />
April 2007, Istanbul, Turkey (Risse)<br />
• 2nd International Workshop on Managing Context Information<br />
and Semantics in Mobile Environments (MCISME 2007) in<br />
conjunction with the 8th International Conference on Mobile<br />
Data Management (MDM‘07), Mannheim, Germany, May 7-11,<br />
2007 (Chirita, Risse)<br />
• Member of the organising team of the WWW07 Workshop on<br />
Social and Collaborative Construction of Structured Knowledge,<br />
Banff, Kanada, 8. Mai 2007 (Stumme)<br />
• 16th International World Wide Web Conference, May 8-12,<br />
2007, Banff, Alberta, Canada, E* Applications Chair (Nejdl)<br />
• 16th Intl. WWW Conference, Banff, Canada, 8.-12. Mai 2007<br />
(Stumme)<br />
• I3: Identity, Identifiers, Identifications Entity-Centric Approaches<br />
to Information and Knowledge Management on the<br />
Web, WWW2007, May 8.-12.2007 (Stecher)<br />
• 2nd International Workshop on Adversarial Information<br />
Retrieval held in conjunction with the 16th International World<br />
Wide Web Conference, Banff, Canada, May 8-12, 2007 (Chirita)<br />
• 5th ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems<br />
and Applications (AICCSA 2007), May 13-16, 2007, Amman,<br />
Jordan (Risse)<br />
• 6th International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing<br />
(AP2PC 2007) in conjunction with 6th International Joint<br />
Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi Agent Systems,<br />
Honolulu, Hawaii, May 14-18, 2007 (Risse)<br />
• International Conference on Grid and Pervasive Computing<br />
(GPC), Paris, France, May 2007. (Olmedilla)<br />
• 2nd KnowledgeWeb PhD Symposium, Innsbruck, Austria,<br />
2-7th June 2007.. Scientific Advisor. (Olmedilla) Organizing<br />
Committee (Diederich)<br />
• 4th Annual European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC),<br />
Innsbruck, Austria, 2-7th June 2007. Organizing Committee<br />
(Diederich)<br />
• 4th European Semantic Web Conference, June 3-7, 2007,<br />
Innsbruck, Austria (Nejdl)<br />
• Workshop on Personalization, Policy and Usability Issues on<br />
the Semantic Web, June 6, Innsbruck, Austria, http://www.<br />
dai-labor.de/ESWC07/, held at the 4th European Semantic Web<br />
Conference, (Nejdl)<br />
•<br />
2nd INFOSCALE International Conference on Scalable Information<br />
Systems, Suzhou, China, June 6-8, 2007 (Chirita)<br />
93
94<br />
PROJECTS PROGRAM COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS<br />
• APWeb/WAIM‘07, joint 9th Asia-Pacific Web Conference<br />
and 8th International Conference on Web-Age Information<br />
Management, June 16-18, 2007, HuangShan, China, (Nejdl)<br />
• 5th International Workshop on Distributed and Mobile Collaboration<br />
(DMC 2007) June 19th, 2007, Paris, France, held at<br />
WETICE‘07, (Nejdl)<br />
• User Modeling 2007, Corfu, Greece, June 25-29, 2007 (Herder)<br />
• 4th European Semantic Web Conference, Lecture Notes in<br />
Computer Science, Inssbruck, Austria, June 2007. Springer.<br />
(Olmedilla)<br />
• The 4th International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence<br />
and Computing (UIC-07), Hong Kong, China, July 11-13, 2007,<br />
(Nejdl)<br />
• 22nd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 22-26,<br />
2007, Vancouver, Canada, (Nejdl)<br />
• 1st IEEE Intl. Conference on Research Challenges in Information<br />
Science, Ouarzazate, Morocco, 23.-26. Juli 2007 (Stumme)<br />
• International Workshops on Electronic Games and Personalized<br />
eLearning Processes (EGAEL), Niigata, Japan, July 2007.<br />
(Olmedilla)<br />
• International Workshops on Electronic Games and Personalized<br />
eLearning Processes (EGAEL), Nijmegen, The Netherlands,<br />
July 2007. (Olmedilla)<br />
• 4th International Conference on Autonomic and Trusted<br />
Computing (ATC-07), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Hong<br />
Kong, China, July 2007. Springer. (Olmedilla)<br />
• International Conference on Knowledge Management,<br />
Vienna, Austria, August 27-28, 2007 (Nejdl)<br />
• 5. eLearning Fachtagung Informatik 17-20. September 2007,<br />
Siegen, Germany (Nejdl)<br />
• Cyberworlds 2007, Oct 24-26, Hannover, Germany (Nejdl)<br />
• 7th Intl. Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing, September<br />
2-5, 2007, Galway, Ireland (Nejdl)<br />
• 18th International Conference on Database and Expert<br />
Systems Applications, Regensburg, Germany, September 3-7,<br />
2007 (Nejdl)<br />
• IEEE 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Computer<br />
Communication and Processing, September 6-8, 2007, Cluj-<br />
Napoca, Romania (Nejdl)<br />
• Second European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning,<br />
17-20 September 2007, Greece, http://www.ectel07.org/,<br />
General Chair (Nejdl)<br />
• 11th European Conference on Research and Advanced<br />
Technology for Digital Libraries 2007 (ECDL 2007), Budapest,<br />
Hungary,16-21 September 2007 (Risse)<br />
• 4th International Conference on Grid Service Engineering and<br />
Management (GSEM 2007), Leipzig, Germany, 24-26 September<br />
2007 (Risse)<br />
• Workshop on the Semantic Desktop held in conjunction with<br />
the International iSemantics Conference, Graz, Austria, September,<br />
2007 (Chirita)<br />
• 15th International Conference on Cooperative Information<br />
System, Lisbon, Portugal, October 28 - Nov 2, 2007 (Nejdl)<br />
• 6th International Conference on Ontologies, Databases and<br />
Applications of Semantics, Lisbon, Portugal, October 28 - Nov<br />
2, 2007 (Nejdl)<br />
• Second International Conference on Knowledge Science, Engineering<br />
and Management, November 28-30, 2007, Melbourne,<br />
Australia (Nejdl)<br />
• 8th International Conference on Web Information Systems<br />
Engineering (WISE 2007), Nancy, France, 3-7th December, 2007<br />
(Risse)<br />
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
• Journal of Educational Technology and Society (endorsed<br />
by IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology), 2007.<br />
Executive Peer-Reviewer. (Olmedilla)<br />
• Special Issue of Computers and Human Behavior Journal<br />
on Electronic Games and Personalized eLearning Processes.<br />
Elsevier, 2007. Editorial Board. (Olmedilla)<br />
• Special Issue of Simulation & Gaming Journal on eGames and<br />
Adaptive eLearning. A practical approach, 2007. Editorial Board.<br />
(Olmedilla)<br />
•<br />
13th International Conference on Databases for Advances<br />
Applications, Melbourne, Australia, March 19-22, 2008 (Nejdl)
FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM <strong>L3S</strong> · <strong>L3S</strong> RESEARCH CENTER<br />
PROJECTS<br />
95
Imprint:<br />
<strong>Forschungszentrum</strong> <strong>L3S</strong><br />
Appelstrasse 9a<br />
30167 Hannover / Germany<br />
Tel.: +49 (0)511 762 - 17714<br />
Fax: +49 (0)511 762 - 17779<br />
E-Mail: info@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
Representatives:<br />
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Nejdl (Executive Director)<br />
Dr. Uwe Thaden (Managing Director)<br />
Consultancy:<br />
Anna Stella Bonin<br />
Bonin Communication Affairs<br />
Heisenstr. 4<br />
30167 Hannover<br />
www.bonincomma.com<br />
Design & Layout:<br />
Dennis Kohlmetz<br />
Design für elektronische Medien<br />
Teichstr. 1<br />
30449 Hannover / Germany<br />
www.medienmogul.de<br />
Photos:<br />
Title: © Louise Gagnon - Fotolia,<br />
Project page PEER-TO-PEER: © ptlee - Fotolia<br />
Project page PEERTRUST: © Daniel Sainthorant - Fotolia<br />
Project page KnowledgeWeb: © Orla - Fotolia<br />
Project page REWERSE: © Patrick Hermans - Fotolia<br />
D-Grid: www.caida.org/tools/visualization/walrus/gallery1/<br />
News page PRO-LC: © Patrick Hermans - Fotolia<br />
News page EC-TEL: © Maria Bielikova<br />
All other photos: D. Kohlmetz
<strong>Forschungszentrum</strong> <strong>L3S</strong><br />
Appelstrasse 9a<br />
30167 Hannover/Germany<br />
contact: Dr. Uwe Thaden<br />
phone.: +49. (0)511. 762-17713<br />
fax: +49. (0)511. 762-17779<br />
email: thaden@<strong>L3S</strong>.de<br />
http://www.<strong>L3S</strong>.de