A Domain-Adaptable Heterogeneous Information Integration Platform: Tourism and Biomedicine Domains

Rafael Muñoz Gil,Diego Gachet Páez,Esteban García-Cuesta,Manuel De Buenaga Rodríguez,Fernando Aparicio Galisteo

doi:10.3390/info12110435

Abstract

In recent years, information integration systems have become very popular in mashup-type applications. Information sources are normally presented in an individual and unrelated fashion, and the development of new technologies to reduce the negative effects of information dispersion is needed. A major challenge is the integration and implementation of processing pipelines using different technologies promoting the emergence of advanced architectures capable of processing such a number of diverse sources. This paper describes a semantic domain-adaptable platform to integrate those sources and provide high-level functionalities, such as recommendations, shallow and deep natural language processing, text enrichment, and ontology standardization. Our proposed intelligent domain-adaptable platform (IDAP) has been implemented and tested in the tourism and biomedicine domains to demonstrate the adaptability, flexibility, modularity, and utility of the platform. Questionnaires, performance metrics, and A/B control groups’ evaluations have shown improvements when using IDAP in learning environments.

Highlights

Information integration is the method by which integral access is provided to distributed, heterogeneous information sources with different formats [1], affording users with the sensation of examining a centralized, homogeneous information system [2]
All the individuals received a 15-minute presentation to explain to them the platform in order to make them aware that it was an information integration system extended with a personalized recommendation system
The architecture of the platform adheres to Semantic Web standards according to W3C criteria

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Information integration is the method by which integral access is provided to distributed, heterogeneous information sources with different formats (structured, semistructured, and unstructured) [1], affording users with the sensation of examining a centralized, homogeneous information system [2]. A major problem of access to digital information is its heterogeneity, a consequence of the notable growth it has experienced in recent years. This has given rise to a wide variety of interfaces, such as Open Database

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