Costantino Thanos (Project Manager)
Costantino Thanos (born 1942) holds a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pisa.
Since 1970 he has worked at CNR-IEI and is currently head of the ``Advanced Information Processing Techniques'' department. His research activities include: Project Coordinator of an Italian nation wide project on Distributed Data Bases: DATANET (1980-1984); Coordinator of the Working Group ``Multimedia Information Retrieval- MIRO'' (ESPRIT Basic Research Actions Working Group No.6576, 1992-1994); Responsible for CNR teams participating in a number of international projects: (a) Evaluation and Implementation of Database Systems, (b) Performance Evaluation of Concurrency Control Mechanisms in a System for Distributed Databases using Broadcast Networks employing Satellites, (c) Architecture for Heterogeneous European Distributed Data Bases, (d) Mixed Mode Message Filing System (1984 - ESPRIT pilot project), (e) Multimedia Office Server (ESPRIT project No. 28, 1985-1989), (f) Tools for Designing Office Information Systems (ESPRIT project No. 813, 1986-1988), (g) Construction and Management of Distributed Office Systems (ESPRIT project No. 834, 1986-1988), (h) Formally Integrated Data Environment (ESPRIT Basic Research Actions project No. 3070, 1989-1992).
He has also been appointed: Associate Editor of the international journal ``The Computer Journal'' published by the Oxford University Press; Member of the Editorial Board of the international journal ``Computer Standards &Interfaces'' published by the North Holland Publishing Company; Member of the Executive Committee of the ``European Research consortium for Informatics and Mathematics - ERCIM''; Member of the evaluation team for the ESPRIT Program- pilot phase, phase II, phase III in the Office and Business Systems Area; Member of the evaluation team for the Specific Programme and Technology Development in the field of Telematic Systems of General Interest, area 6 - Linguistic Research and Engineering (LRE) (1992); Member of the Basic Research Working Group-Computer Science (ESPRIT Program) (1990,1992); Reviewer of ESPRIT projects: ADKMS,.INDOC, INBAS, TOOTSI, MIPS, DOCS; Member of the PC of the International Conference ``Very Large Data Bases'' in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990; Member of the PC of the International Conference ``Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering- CAiSE'' in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993; Member of the PC of the International Conference ''International Conference on Multimedia Information Systems'', Singapore, 1991; Member of the PC of the International Conference ``Visual Database Systems'', Budapest, 1991; Member of the PC of the International Conference ``Database and Expert Systems Applications-DEXA'' 1991, 1992, 1993.
Recent Publications:
Foundations of knowledge Base Management. Springer-Verlag Topics in Information Systems, Heidelberg, FRG, 1989 (edited with J.W. Schmidt).
Multimedia Office Filing: The MULTOS Approach. North Holland Series in Human Factors in Information Technology No. 6, Amsterdam, NL, 1990 (editor).
Conceptual Document Modelling and Retrieval. Computers Standards and Interfaces, 11(3):195-213, 1990/1991 (with C. Meghini and F. Rabitti).
Conceptual Modeling of Multimedia Documents. IEEE Computer, 24(10):23-30, 1991 (with C. Meghini and F. Rabitti).
A Model of Information Retrieval based on a Terminological Logic. In Proceedings of SIGIR-93, 16th International Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, Pittsburgh, PA, 1993, pp. 298-307. (with C. Meghini, F. Sebastiani and U. Straccia).
Carlo Meghini (Work Part 1 Leader)
Carlo Meghini (born 1956) graduated in Computer Science at the University of Pisa in 1979; until the end of 1979 he worked at the Computer Science Department of the University of Pisa, and in 1981 at the Mathematics Department, supported by an IBM Research Grant.
Since 1984 he has been a member of the research staff at CNR-IEI in Pisa, working in the area of distributed database management systems, conceptual modelling and logic-based retrieval. From September 1984 to December 1985 he was a visiting Research Scientist at the Computer Science Department of the University of Toronto, where he worked in the Knowledge Representation group led by Prof. John Mylopoulos on topics concerning the use of Knowledge Representation in the design of Information Systems and Conceptual Modelling.
Since 1986 he has been involved in several ESPRIT projects, funded by the European Economic Community, in the area of office systems (MULTOS, TODOS, COMANDOS). He has also participated in the FIDE project, as part of the ESPRIT II Basic Research program and is currently responsible of the modelling retrieval team in the MIRO Working Group (No. 6576).
Recent Publications:
The Complexity of Operations on a Fragmented Relation. ACM Transactions on Database Systems, 16(1):56-87, 1991 (with C. Thanos).
Conceptual Document Modelling and Retrieval. Computers Standards and Interfaces, 11(3):195-213, 1990/1991 (with C. Thanos and F. Rabitti).
Conceptual Modeling of Multimedia Documents. IEEE Computer, 24(10):23-30, 1991 (with C. Thanos and F. Rabitti).
Multimedia Document Handling. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Multimedia Computer and Communication: Technology, Application and Enterprise, (invited paper), Bombay-India, 1992 (with C. Thanos).
A Model of Information Retrieval based on a Terminological Logic. In Proceedings of SIGIR-93, 16th International Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, Pittsburgh, PA, 1993, pp. 298-307. (with F. Sebastiani, U. Straccia and C. Thanos).
Cornelis Joost van Rijsbergen (Work Part 2 Leader)
Cornelis Joost van Rijsbergen (born l943) holds a BSc and a Dip NAAC from the University of Western Australia, and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Appointments: l966-68, Tutor in Mathematics, Mathematics Department University of Western Australia; l969-72, Senior Research Officer King's College Research Centre, Cambridge; l973-75 Lecturer Department of Computer Science Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; l975-79 Royal Society Scientific Computer Laboratory Information Research Fellow, University of Cambridge; l978 Spring Visiting Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of California at Berkeley; l980-86 Professor and Head of Department of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Ireland; l986-89 Professor, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Scotland; 1990-93 Head of Department, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Scotland.
Professional Activities: Associate Editor (Europe) for Information Processing and Management (including Information Technology), Pergamon Press; Editor-in-Chief for The Computer Journal Oxford University Press; Editor of Intelligent Systems Engineering (IEE); General Series Editor for Cambridge Tracts in Theoretical Computer Science, Cambridge University Press; General Series Editor for Workshops in Computing, Springer-Verlag; General Series Editor for Distinguished Dissertations in Computer Science, Cambridge University Press; Advisor to GMD; Director of Itext Ltd, Inforythmics Ltd (IT mutimedia companies).
Recent Publications:
NRT (News Retrieval Tool). Electronic Publishing: Origination, Dissemination and Design, 4(4):205-217, 1991 (with M. Sanderson).
Hypermedia and Free Text Retrieval. Information Processing and Management, 11, 1992 (with M.D. Dunlop).
Probabilistic Retrieval Revisited. The Computer Journal, 35(3):291-298, 1992.
A Logical Model of Information Retrieval based on Situation Theory. In Proceedings of BCS 14th Information Retrieval Colloquium, Lancaster, UK, 1992 (with M. Lalmas).
The state of information retrieval: logic and information. The Computer Bulletin, 5(1):18-20, 1993.
Yves Chiaramella (Work Part 3 Leader)
Yves Chiaramella (born 1945) is an Ingenieur de l'Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts et Metiers (1969), and holds a Diplome d'Etudes Approfondies en Informatique (Grenoble, 1970) and a Doctorat d'Etat en Informatique, Universite de Grenoble (1981)
Since 1983 he is a Professor in Computer Science at the Université Joseph Fourier de Grenoble, and since 1976 he is an Assistant professor in Computer Science at the Université des Sciences Sociales in Grenoble.
Major University and Department activities: director of the Laboratoire de Genie Informatique, Grenoble (since 1989); member of the University Board since 1986.
Major Professional Service: member of the Computer Journal Editorial Board; member of the Information Processing and Management Editorial Board; member of the Intelligent Systems Engineering Editorial Board; chairman of the 11th ACM-SIGIR International Conference on Research and Developments in Information Retrieval (Grenoble, June 13-15, 1988); chairman of the Organizing Committee of the RIAO85 international Conference (Recherche d'Information Assitee par Ordinateur), Grenoble, March 1985; member of the ACM-SIGIR International Conference's Program Committee since 1986.
Recent Publications:
About Retrieval Models and Logic. The Computer Journal. Special issue on Information Retrieval, 35(3): 233-242, 1992, (with J.P. Chevallet).
A retrieval model based on an extended modal logic and its application to the RIME experimental approach. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Research and Developments in Information Retrieval, pages 25-43, Brussels, Belgium, 1990 (with J. Nie).
Indexing medical reports in a multimedia environment: the RIME experimental approach. In Proceedings of SIGIR-89, 21th ACM Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, pages 25-28, Boston, MA, 1989, (with C. Berrut).
A prototype of an Intelligent System for Information Retrieval: IOTA. Information Processing and Management, 23(4):285-303, 1987, (with B. Defude).
IOTA: A prototype of an information retrieval system. In Proceedings of SIGIR-86, 9th ACM Conference on research and Development in Information Retrieval, pages 207-213, Pisa, I, 1986 (with B. Defude, D. Kerkouba, and M.-F. Bruandet).
Fabrizio Sebastiani (Work Part 4 Leader)
Fabrizio Sebastiani (born 1960) graduated in Computer Science at the University of Pisa in 1986. Up to 1988 he worked as an associate researcher at the Department of Linguistics of the University of Pisa.
Since 1988 he has been a member of the research staff at CNR-IEI in Pisa, working in the area of knowledge representation and reasoning in artifical intelligence, and logic-based information retrieval. From September 1989 to August 1990 he was a Visiting Research Scientist at the Computer Science Department of the University of Toronto, where he worked in the Knowledge Representation group led by Prof. John Mylopoulos on topics concerning noonmonotonic reasoning and its computational tractability. From September 1993 to August 1994 he will be a Visiting Research Scientist at the Computer Science Department of the University of Glasgow, where he will work in the Information Retrieval group led by Prof. C.J. van Rijsbergen.
Since 1986 he has been involved in research projects funded by the European Economic Community in the area of natural language processing (CFID, PROMETHEUS). He has also participated in the FIDE project, as part of the ESPRIT II Basic Research program.
Recent Publications:
A fully model-theoretic semantics for model-preference default systems (extended version). Studia Logica, Kluwer Academic Publishers (forthcoming).
A terminological default logic. Computers and Artificial Intelligence (forthcoming - with U. Straccia).
A Model of Information Retrieval based on a Terminological Logic. In Proceedings of SIGIR-93, 16th International Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, Pittsburgh, PA, 1993, pp. 298-307. (with C. Meghini, U. Straccia and C. Thanos).
Norbert Fuhr (Work Part 5 Leader)
Norbert Fuhr (born 1956) holds a diploma and a doctorate degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
From 1980-87, he worked as scientific assistant and from 1987-91 as assistant professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt. Since 1991, he is professor in the computer science department of the University of Dortmund, Germany.
He is the current chair of the IR specialist group of the German computer society (GI) and treasurer of European IR specialist group CEPIS-IRSG. He has been member on Program Committees of major international IR and database conferences.
In research, he has worked on the development of an automatic indexing system for a controlled vocabulary and he developed and evaluated several probabilistic retrieval models. For materials databases, he performed a study on user-friendly design and appropriate retrieval mechanisms. In order to show that IR approaches are useful for non-textual databases, too, he developed a probabilistic retrieval model for vague queries and imprecise data in databases. Based on this work a model for the integration of IR and database systems was devised.
Recent Publications:
Probabilistic Information Retrieval as Combination of Abstraction, Inductive Learning and Probabilistic Assumptions. To appear in: ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 1993 (with U. Pfeifer).
A Probabilistic Relational Model for the Integration of IR and Databases. To appear in: Proceedings of SIGIR-93, 16th ACM Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, 1993.
Integration of Probabilistic Fact and Text Retrieval. In: Belkin, N.; Ingwersen, P.; Pejtersen, M. (eds.): Proceedings of SIGIR-92, 15th ACM Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, pages 211-222, 1992.
AIR/X - a Rule-Based Multistage Indexing System for Large Subject Fields. In: Proceedings of the RIAO'91, Barcelona, Spain, April 2-5, 1991, pages 606-623, 1991 (with S. Hartmann, G. Knorz, G. Lustig, M. Schwantner, and K. Tzeras).
A Probabilistic Framework for Vague Queries and Imprecise Information in Databases. In: McLeod, D.; Sacks-Davis, R.; Schek, H. (eds.): Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Very Large Databases, pages 696-707. Morgan Kaufman, Los Altos, CA, 1990.