Knowledge-Based Information Systems in Research of Regional History DH-2008, Oulu, Aleksey Varfolomeyev, Henrihs Soms, Aleksandrs Ivanovs
Regional (local) history embraces and reflects national and global history makes image of the past concrete promotes attractive public image of a region
Specific features of regional historical research it is conducted by both professional historians and amateurs it deals with fragmentary historical information Thus, a special scholarly information infrastructure should be created on the basis of IT
A typical pattern of representation of regional information Latgales Dati ( ) Calendar
Latgales Dati Events on a certain day (January 1)
Latgales Dati Persons
Latgales Dati Events
Latgale region - one of historical regions of Latvia
Functions and technologies preservation of historical information visiting-card of a region coordination of research activities within a certain Web- community DBMS CMS, etc. Web 2.0, Artificial Intelligence
Other functions: linkage of data retrieved from similar regional historical Web sites elaboration and verification of interpretations of historical evidences and hypothetical reconstructions of historical facts
Web publications Web publications (editions) of historical records are essential components of scholarly information infrastructure Principal approaches: texts are supplemented with images of documents; employing XML and other technologies, editions are provided with research tools (for internal and external criticism, textual analysis, visualization, etc.)
Missive from the Polotsk Town Council to the Riga Magistrate (Moscowitica-Ruthenica collection)
Monasterium.net Project
Historical Semantic Network (HSN) Historical objects - documents and narratives, persons, historical monuments and buildings, institutions and organizations, geographical sites, etc. Timeline-objects (points or intervals on axis of time) Links between these objects (relations within a set of objects)
Historical Semantic Network as a hyper-graphbipartite graph
Values of truth for links Descriptions of facts provided on the basis of links are logical statements Fuzziness of historical information Therefore, different values of truth should be used
Values of truth (vector-valued logic)
Operations within HSN search for similar (or interconnected) historical objects comparison of evidences in order to reveal and evaluate contradictory information historical synthesis in order to remove contradictions identification of historical objects, which are described (reflected) in diverse historical sources
Resource Description Framework (RDF) RDF provides opportunities for data capturing in the form of triplets: subject-predicate-object E.g., a statement a person X was born in a town Y on a certain day Z should be divided into two triplets: a person X was born in a town Y and a person X was born on a certain day Z
Ontological Web Language (OWL) Designing HSN, it is necessary to provide descriptions of sets of historical objects of certain types that possess certain identification values. In this case, formalized notions of ontology can be used, in particular, Ontological Web Language
Wiki-technologies Pages created using Wiki-technology contain references to other pages Moreover, these pages can form definite categories – hierarchical systems of pages, which represent hierarchical distribution of objects described by the Wiki-system
Linkage of data from different HSN Potentialities of HSN can be realized due to interaction of different systems (sets) of historical objects For this purpose, HSN should be designed on the basis Web-services technology This technology provides that standardized patterns of data description and representation on Web sites should be used and that Web-service as such should be registered in a special register of services
Characteristic features of HSN principle role assigned to such historical objects as documentary records and narratives fuzziness of almost all aspects of information