Advanced search system, 3-17-2008
Expert System, provider of semantic technology, which discovers, classifies and interprets text information, has announced today that the Italian Ministry of Culture and Heritage has chosen Cogito Semantic Search to improve and simplify the search of online content.
Like ENI, Telecom Italia, and The Ministry of Innovation and Technology, The Italian Ministry of Culture and Heritage will rely on Cogito to offer users a more advanced search system. The ministry was determined to find a supplier that could exceed the current limitation of standard keyword search engines and found the capability in Expert System’s Cogito technology platform.
The finished application will analyze the contents of the ministries portal, recognizing the meaning of each word, and supports users in the retrieval of information, allowing searches based on concepts that best express the goal of the search. For example, the search for “abstract art” can find the texts where the term “abstractionism” is found, while the search “image bank” can find also documents where only “photo archive” appears.
The innovative search engine also supports requests in natural language (for example: “What hours will the Van Gogh exhibition be open today?”) recognizing and interpreting the meaning of the sentence entered by the user.
Maurizio Mencarini, Account Manager of Expert System says “A technology that ‘understands’ the meaning of the requests improves the results of traditional search engines providing fewer and more precise results. The possibility to perform queries in natural language represents a decisive step forward in improving the usability of information and provides citizens with a quality public administration experience.”
Relying on semantic technology for information search, the new engine enables the Italian Ministry of Culture and Heritage to proved precise and selective answers to the millions of users that consult the portal to obtain information on the Italian artistic and cultural heritage.
