X-Search is a configurable meta-search engine that reads the description of an underlying search source (OpenSearch compatible), queries that source, analyzes the returned results in various ways, and also exploits the availability of semantic repositories. Specifically, it offers the following functions:
- Named Entity Extraction. Configurable Named Entity Extraction is performed over the textual snippets or the full contents of the returned results using the X-Link framework. The identified entities are ranked according to their importance in the search context.
- Textual Clustering. Clustering can be performed on the textual snippets or the full contents of the returned results.
- Metadata-based Grouping. The results can be grouped according to their static metadata values (in case the underlying search system provides them).
- Faceted search-like exploration. The results of named entity extraction, clustering, and metadata-based grouping are visualized and exploited according to the faceted exploration interaction paradigm: when the user clicks on an entity or cluster, the results are restricted to those that contain that entity or cluster.
- On-click semantic exploration of the identified entities. X-Search provides the necessary linkage between the mined entities and semantic information. In particular, by exploiting appropriate Knowledge Bases (e.g., DBpedia) the user can retrieve more information about an entity by querying and browsing at real-time over these Knowledge Bases.
- Entity discovery and exploration during plain Web browsing. X-Search also offers entity discovery and exploration while the user is browsing on the Web. Specifically, the user is able to inspect the entities of a particular Web page by clicking a bookmarklet (a special bookmark) and then to further retrieve more information about an entity by querying a Knowledge Base. Namely, the user can exploit the proposed functionality (at real-time) while browsing.
-
X-Search for the marine domain (over Bing and the MarineTLO-based Warehouse): X-Search Marine Demo
This prototype runs on top of Bing Web search engine and analyzes the snippets of the top-K results (the default value of K is 50). In order to provide the linkage with semantic resources it exploits the MarineTLO-based Warehouse (through its SPARQL endpoint). It also supports the analysis of more results (i.e. top 100, 200), as well as the analysis over the whole contents of the results (rather than just the snippets) upon user request. It is fully configurable in terms of the underlying Web search engine (OpenSearch compatible) or the Knowledge Bases that are used, the categories of the mined entities, the clustering algorithm, etc.
-
X-Search for the marine domain (within gCube e-Infrastructure): https://i-marine.d4science.org (restricted access)
In the context of the iMarine Project, an X-Search portlet has been developed for offering advanced search services within gCube e-Infrastructure. The X-Search portlet communicates with a corresponding X-Search service, searches several marine resources (registered in the infrastructure), and offers entity mining and textual clustering over the top search results. Again, the MarineTLO-based Warehouse is exploited for enriching and exploring the identified entities.
-
In Professional Search
X-Search can be used for offering advanced exploratory search services over a corpus. Its extended configurability allows its application in any domain. It can also be used as a meta-search system over classical (textual) search results. Please contact for more information.
tzitzik at ics.forth.gr.
Institution:
Information System Laboratory (ISL),
Institute of Computer Science (ICS),
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
Contact Person:
Yannis Tzitzikas
Email: tzitzik at ics.forth.gr
Personal Web page: http://users.ics.forth.gr/~tzitzik/
Acknowledgements:
This work was partially supported by:
