Institute Name:  AIFB (Institute for Applied Computer Science and Formal Description Methods)
                            Knowledge Modelling and Knowledge Based Systems

Description: The group headed by Prof. Studer is now working for several years in the areas 'Knowledge Engineering', 'Knowledge Discovery in Databases' (KDD) and 'Intelligent Information Integration'.

In Knowledge Engineering the group has been developing the MIKE approach (Model-based and Incremental Knowledge Engineering) which puts emphasis on task modeling, task decomposition as well as reuse of problem-solving methods and domain knowledge. Due to the relatedness of Knowledge Engineering and Requirements Engineering, the group participates in a working group that analyses scenario use in real industrial development projects. Within the area of Knowledge Discovery in Databases the group is working on user guidance for developing KDD applications for intelligent analysis of available data sources. This includes support for the preprocessing of the available data sources and for building up KDD processes by reusing formerly successfully applied KDD processes. Within Intelligent Information Integration methods and tools are developed for a semantics based query and inference service in the World Wide Web. Another research topic in this area is the development of an intelligent brokering service which is able to build up a problem solver from components which are stored in different libraries in the Internet. Among others this includes the selective access to library components based on an appropriate characterization of the users' needs.

The research group has been and is involved in several related research projects, among others WORKS (Work Oriented Design of Knowledge Systems, funded by German Ministry of Research and Technology), KARO (Knowledge Acquisition Environment with Reusable Ontologies) funded by IBM Germany, User Guidance for Developing KDD Applications, funded by Daimler-Benz AG, and IBROW3 (An Intelligent Brokering Service for Knowledge-Component Reuse on the World-Wide Web), funded as EC Long Term Research Project. The Institue AIFB is also an associate node of the European Network of Excellence in Machine Learning.

Researchers associated with the project:

Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer; Dipl.-Inform. Michael Erdmann; Dr. Dieter Fensel

Brief CVs of Key Researchers:

Name: Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer

Nationality: German

Academic Qualifications & Experience:
Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer obtained a Diploma in Computer Science at the University of Stuttgart in 1975. In 1982 he was awarded a Doctor's degree in Mathematics and Computer Science (Dr. rer. nat.) at the University of Stuttgart, and in 1985 he obtained his Habilitation in Computer Science at the University of Stuttgart. From January 1977 to June 1985 he worked as a research scientist at the University of Stuttgart, Institute of Computer Science. From July 1985 to October 1989 he was project leader and manager at IBM Germany Scientific Centre, Institute of Knowledge-based Systems. Since November 1989 he is a full professor in 'Applied Computer Science', Institut für Angewandte Informatik und Formale Beschreibungsverfahren (AIFB), University of Karlsruhe. He is also speaker of the special interest group 'Knowledge Engineering' of the German Computer Society (GI) and a founding member of the IFIP WG 12.5 'Knowledge Oriented Development of Applications'.

Name: Dipl.-Inform. Michael Erdmann

Nationality: German

Academic Qualifications & Experience:
M. Erdmann gained his Master Degree in Computer Science from the University of Koblenz (Germany) in 1995. Since October 1995 he works in Prof. Studer's group as a junior researcher. His current interests lie in the relationship of the two disciplines Knowledge Engineering and Requirements Engineering. He is especially interested in scenario-based techniques for acquiring requirements, and in adapting existing techniques from RE to the field of Knowledge Engineering for the acquisition of expert knowledge. He is further interested in using ontologies to enable intelligent access to unstructured (and possibly distributed) information such as documents in the WWW or requirements documents.

Name: Dr. Dieter Fensel

Nationality: German

Academic Qualifications & Experience:
Dr. D. Fensel joined the research group of Rudi Studer in 1989 after studying mathematics, sociology and computer science in Berlin. His major subject was knowledge engineering and his PhD thesis in 1993 was about a formal specification language for knowledge-based systems. He is a senior researcher at the Institute AIFB and his research topics are verification tools for knowledge-based systems and the development of brokering services to access heterogeneous knowledge sources and software components. He set up the 'Knowledge Acquisition Initiative of the Knowledge Acquisition Community', an international initiative to support intelligent access to Web documents of the Knowledge Acquisition Community.

Selected Publications:

J. Angele, D. Fensel and R. Studer (1996): Domain and Task Modeling in MIKE. In  A.G. Sutcliffe et al., Eds., Domain Knowledge for Interactive System Design, Proc. IFIP WG 8.1/13.2. Joint Working Conf., Geneva, Chapman & Hall.

V. R. Benjamins, E. Plaza, E. Motta, D. Fensel, R. Studer, B. Wielinga, G. Schreiber and Z. Zdrahal (1998): An Intelligent Brokering Service for Knowledge-Component Reuse on the World-WideWeb. In Proc. of the 11th Workshop on Knowledge Acquisition, Modeling, and Management (KAW'98), Banff, Canada

S. Decker, M. Daniel, M. Erdmann, and R. Studer: An Enterprise Reference Scheme for Integrating Model-Based Knowledge Engineering and Enterprise Modelling. in: Proceedings of the 10th European Workshop on Knowledge Acquisition, Modeling, and Management (EKAW'97), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1319, Springer-Verlag, 1997.

R. Engels, G. Lindner and R. Studer (1997): A Guided Tour through the Data Mining Jungle. In Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. on Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD'97), Newport Beach, USA.

M. Erdmann and R. Studer (1998): Use-Cases and Scenarios for Developing Knowledge Based Systems. To appear in Proceedings of Information Technology and KNOWledge Systems (IT&KNOWS), a part of the 15th IFIP World Computer Congress, Vienna/Budapest, 1998.

D. Fensel, S. Decker, M. Erdmann and R. Studer (1998): Ontobroker: The very high idea. In Proc. of the 11th FLAIRS Conference (FLAIRS-98), Sanibel Island, Florida. May 1998.

D. Landes, R. Studer: The Treatment of Non-Functional Requirements in MIKE. In: W. Schaefer et al. (eds.): Proc. of the 5th European Software Engineering Conf. (ESEC'95), Barcelona, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 989, Springer, 1995.

Contact Details:

Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Rudi Studer

Address: University of Karlsruhe, Institute for Applied Informatics and Formal Description Techniques (AIFB), Kaisetstrasse 12, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

Telephone number: +49-721-608-3923

Telefax number: +49-721-693717

EMail: studer@aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de

List of Members