Inforbix Cracks Next Generation Search for SolidWorks Users
February 13, 2012
Search means advertising to most Google users. In an enterprise—according to the LinkedIn discussions about enterprise search—the approach is anchored in the 1990s. The problem is that finding information requires a system which can handle content types that are of little interest to lawyers, accountants, and MBAs running a business today.
Without efficient access to such content as engineering drawings, specifications, quality control reports, and run-of-the-mill office information—costs go up. What’s worse is that more time is needed to locate a prior version of a component or locate the supplier who delivered on time and on budget work to the specification. So expensive professionals end up performing what I call Easter egg hunt research. The approach involves looking for colleagues, paging through lists of file names, and the “open, browse, close” approach to information retrieval.
Not surprisingly, the so called experts steer clear of pivotal information retrieval problems. Most search systems pick the ripe apples which are close to the ground. This means indexing Word documents, the versions of information in a content management system, or email.
I learned today that Inforbix, a company we have been tracking because it takes search to the next level, has rolled out two new products. These innovations are data apps which seamlessly aggregate product data from different file types, sources, and locations. The new Inforbix apps will help SolidWorks’ users get more out of their product data and become more productive while improving decision-making. Plus, Inforbix said that it would expand the data access to SolidWords EPDM, making it possible for SolidWords customers to get more from data managed by their PDM system.
The two products are Inforbix Charts and Inforbix Dashboard. Both complement Inforbix Tables which was released in October 2011.
Oleg Shilovitsky, founder of Inforbix, told me:
Manufacturing companies are drowning in the growing amount of product data generated and found within different file types, sources, and company data-silos. They are increasingly using a mix of vendor packages and solutions, all which generate, contain, manage, or store product data, creating a hodgepodge of resources to be combed through. Product data generated in a typical manufacturing company can be both unstructured (valuable BOM and assembly information spread out across different CAD drawings) and structured (CAD drawings within a PDM or PLM system). Our apps are tools that address specific product data tasks such as finding, re-using, and sharing product data. Inforbix can access product data within PDM systems such as ENOVIA SmarTeam and Autodesk Vault and make it available in meaningful ways to CAD and non-CAD users.
When I reviewed the system, I noted that Inforbix’s apps utilize product data semantic technology that automatically infer relationships between disparate sources of data. For example, Inforbix can semantically connect or link a SolidWorks CAD assembly found within EPDM with a related Excel file containing a BOM table stored on a file server in another department.
Inforbix Charts visualizes and presents data saved from Inforbix Tables. The product data is presented in charts that include information to help engineers better manage and run processes by identifying trends and patterns and improving data control. For example, Inforbix Charts visually presents the approval statuses of CAD and ECO documents by author, date approved, last modified date, etc.
Inforbix Dashboard dynamically collects and presents important statistics about engineering and manufacturing data and processes, such as how many versions of a particular CAD drawing currently exist, how many design revisions did it take to complete a CAD drawing, or the number of ECOs processed on time. Easy and intuitive to use, Inforbix Dashboard is an ideal tool for project managers.
SolidWords users can access Inforbix apps and their product data online. Current Inforbix customers can immediately begin using the Inforbix iPad app, available for free on the Apple App Store at http://www.inforbix.com/inforbix-mobile-search-for-cad-and-product-data-on-the-ipad/. Account access taps existing Inforbix credentials. New users are encouraged to register with Inforbix to enable the iPad app to access product data within their company. The apps soon will be available on Android devices.
A video preview of the iPad app is posted at http://www.inforbix.com/inforbix-ipad-app-first-preview/. For more information on Inforbix apps, visit http://www.inforbix.com.
Inforbix is a company on the move.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
NASA and Technical Information Search
February 2, 2012
I recall a Popular Science feature called “The Top 10 Failed NASA Missions.” I dug through my files and the story ran in March 2009. You can find a version of the article online, at least today, February 2, 2012, at 8 30 am Eastern. Tomorrow? Who knows.
A happy quack to The Doctor Weighs In.
Among the flops mentioned were:
- The Orbiting Carbon Observatory. I thought that the test lasted 17 minutes was interesting.
- Helios. This solar powered flying wing thing managed a 30 minute flight before crashing.
- Genesis. After catching “pieces of the sun” as Popular Science phrased it, the parachute did not open, but scientists were able to pick up pieces from the Utah desert. Progress!
- SBIRS. This was a passel of surveillance satellites. I don’t know much about SBIRS beyond the $10 billion cost overrun. According the Popular Science, one government official described SBIRS as a “useless ice cube.”
I was curious about post 2009 NASA activities. I could not locate a historical run down of alleged missteps, but I found “NASA Glory Mission Ends in Failure”, published by the BBC. The article asserted:
The Glory satellite lifted off from California on a quest to gather new data on factors that influence the climate. But about three minutes into the flight, telemetry indicated a problem. It appears the fairing – the part of the rocket which covers the satellite on top of the launcher – did not separate properly… Exactly the same problem befell NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) in 2009. It too launched on a Taurus XL rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, and again the fairing failed to separate properly.
Wow. Exactly the same failure. The “Mishap Investigation Board” tackled the problem and apparently failed to fix the flop. I did a bit of poking around, and I learned that the NASA Safety Center analyzes system failures. In fact, there is a Web page called “System Failure Case Studies.” There are some interesting analyses, but I could not spot too many which focused on NASA’s own boo boos.
Curious about this apparent omission, I ran a query for NASA failure on www.usa.gov and www.science.gov. What did I learn? The top hit was from ASK magazine, a source which was new to me. The magazine’s “real” name is Ask the Academy, and it seems to be a Web site. What is interesting is that the top hit on USA.gov was “Success, Failure, and NASA Culture.” I read the article which was published originally in 2008. My hunch is that budget cuts are trimming the staff required to create original content. Recycling is a way to save some tax payer greenbacks I surmise. The 2008 write up republished on January 26, 2012 stated:
Improvement in system reliability came with increased bureaucracy, as systems engineering put a variety of crosschecks and reviews in place. System dependability improved, but these processes and technologies increased the cost of each vehicle. Eventually, and in response to pressures to decrease costs, engineers and managers cut back on safety and reliability measures.
The idea, I think, means that if something worked, then by eliminating the quality processes, the system which works is going to fail. I may not have that correct, but it seems that bureaucracy and efficiency help ensure failure. I never considered this management notion before, and frankly I am rejecting it.
In my experience, the processes which delivered success should be integrated into the work flow. Processes which do not contribute to success become the candidates for rationalization. In short, one engineers to deliver consistent success. One does not make decisions which deliver consistent failure.
The top hit on Science.gov was to “Failure Is Not an Option.” The hit was fascinating because it showed the Apollo 13 flight director in 1970. I did not recall this 1970 mission because I was indexing Latin sermons at some fourth rate university at the time. Wikipedia reminded me:
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST. The lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command Module depended. Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water and the critical need to jury-rig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth on April 17.
Okay, I suppose success means getting the crew back, which was a solid achievement in the midst of a mission failure.
So what?
Well, NASA is not exactly the government agency which resonates with consistent technology decisions. When it comes to search, much of the commercial scientific and technical search effort is a result of NASA’s need for an online index. That was in the 1970s, Apollo 13 time too.
Important developments in information access at NASA have been less frequent and, I would assert, few and far between. Today, NASA has a preference for Microsoft SharePoint, and we have learned has concluded its expensive procurement of an automated content indexing system. We are not sure which vendor is prepared to cope with exogenous complexity in the NASA environment.
We would assert that if NASA continues along its present course, successes will blended with some failures. One hopes that when it comes to search and retrieval, NASA makes informed decisions, not choices based on budget limitations, expediency, or overlooking exogenous factors such as complexity.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Brainware Receives Rave Reviews
February 2, 2012
According to The Sacramento Bee article “Healthcare Payments Automation Summit (HPAS 2012) to Feature Brainware Customer Success Stories” Brainware Inc. is on display at the Healthcare Payments Automation Summit (HPAS 2012). Charles Kaplan, Vice President of Marketing for Brainware, brings attention to the excessive amount of unnecessary time that the healthcare industry spends pushing papers and states:
The success of providers like Mayo Clinic, Gundersen Lutheran and Resurrection offer resounding proof that intelligent data capture technology is the key to freeing those resources, turning slow, error-prone, manual data entry routines into efficient, transparent, well-oiled machines for generating profit and opportunity in healthcare.
However, Brainware’s technology could be considered backwoods to some. None of Brainware’s software platforms use taxonomies, indexing or any other type of tagging methods. This is in direct contrast to others such as Access Innovations who pride themselves in offering a full range of tagging features to produce more accurate results. Some might wonder if Brainware and trigrams really are a step in the right direction.
April Holmes, February 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Exogenous Complexity 1: Search
January 31, 2012
I am now using the phrase “exogenous complexity” to describe systems, methods, processes, and procedures which are likely to fail due to outside factors. This initial post focuses on indexing, but I will extend the concept to other content centric applications in the future. Disagree with me? Use the comments section of this blog, please.
What is an outside factor?
Let’s think about value adding indexing, content enrichment, or metatagging. The idea is that unstructured text contains entities, facts, bound phrases, and other identifiable entities. A key word search system is mostly blind to the meaning of a number in the form nnn nn nnnn, which in the United States is the pattern for a Social Security Number. There are similar patterns in Federal Express, financial, and other types of sequences. The idea is that a system will recognize these strings and tag them appropriately; for example:
nnn nn nnn Social Security Number
Thus, a query for Social Security Numbers will return a string of digits matching the pattern. The same logic can be applied to certain entities and with the help of a knowledge base, Bayesian numerical recipes, and other techniques such as synonym expansion determine that a query for Obama residence will return White House or a query for the White House will return links to the Obama residence.
One wishes that value added indexing systems were as predictable as a kabuki drama. What vendors of next generation content processing systems participate in is a kabuki which leads to failure two thirds of the time. A tragedy? It depends on whom one asks.
The problem is that companies offering automated solutions to value adding indexing, content enrichment, or metatagging are likely to fail for three reasons:
First, there is the issue of humans who use language in unexpected or what some poets call “fresh” or “metaphoric” methods. English is synthetic in that any string of sounds can be used in quite unexpected ways. Whether it is the use of the name of the fruit “mango” as a code name for software or whether it is the conversion of a noun like information into a verb like informationize which appears in Japanese government English language documents, the automated system may miss the boat. When the boat is missed, continued iterations try to arrive at the correct linkage, but anyone who has used fully automated systems know or who paid attention in math class, the recovery from an initial error can be time consuming and sometimes difficult. Therefore, an automated system—no matter how clever—may find itself fooled by the stream of content flowing through its content processing work flow. The user pays the price because false drops mean more work and suggestions which are not just off the mark, the suggestions are difficult for a human to figure out. You can get the inside dope on why poor suggestions are an issue in Thining, Fast and Slow.
Wordmap Introduces Taxonomy Connectors
January 30, 2012
According to the Wordmap.com article “Wordmap Taxonomy Connectors for SharePoint and Endeca” , users will be able to use its new Taxonomy Connectors directly with Endeca. Endeca Taxonomy Connector users will have the ability to use Wordmap to handle “all of their daily management tasks.”
A few notable benefits of the Taxonomy connector are,
No configuration needed for consuming systems. It can manage the taxonomy centrally and push out only relevant sections for indexing, navigation and search and taxonomy is seamlessly integrated into the content lifecycle.
The Wordmap Taxonomy platform definitely seems to be a viable tool when it comes to managing Endeca systems and seems like a no brainer for those using the platform. However, a few questions do come to mind. If Open Source connectors enter the scene will there still be a market for Wordmap connectors or what if Oracle decides to become a little stingier with its system access policies?
Users could still find that the Wordmap Taxonomy Connectors hit the spot or they could find the platform too cumbersome and go elsewhere. Guess it depends on “Which way the wind blows.”
We have heard of a push to make open source connectors available. With some firms charging as much as $20,000 for a connector, lower cost options or open source connectors could have a significant impact on the content processing sector.
April Holmes, Janaury 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Synaptica Independent Taxonomy Resource
January 27, 2012
Synaptica started out as Synapse Corporation under founders Trish Yancey and Dave Clarke. The company offered taxonomies, software solutions, and professional lexicography and indexing services for businesses and organizations based on its Synaptica product, a knowledge management and indexing software application, which enables enterprises in managing taxonomies, thesauri, classification schemes, authority control files, and indexes. In 2005, the company, renamed Synaptica, was acquired by Dow Jones and placed in its Factiva unit. Clarke has subsequently regained control of Synaptica.
The company has also has revamped its informational website, Taxonomy Warehouse – a free online resource that has answers enquiries about taxonomies. Named as one of KM World magazine’s “Trend-Setting Products of 2011,” Synaptica is an editorial tool designed for use by professional taxonomists. In 2011, the company added a complementary suite of front-end publication tools that make it easy for any taxonomy or ontology to be presented to end-users. The Ontology Publishing Suite gives administrators better control over which parts of a master ontology are exposed to end-users, as well as how they are laid out on-screen. Other parts of the Synaptica product suite include Synaptica Enterprise, the behind-the-firewall solution for larger organizations; Synaptica Express, a cloud-computing solution for individuals or small-business users; Synaptica IMS, a complementary suite of tools designed to support the human indexing of content using taxonomies stored in Synaptica; and Synaptica SharePoint Integration, an add-on module enabling taxonomies being managed within Synaptica to be applied as meta-tags to content being stored in SharePoint document libraries, as well as allowing for those same taxonomies to be used for search.
The technology has found a home in corporate, pharmaceutical, government, and e-commerce markets. Clients include Verizon, ProQuest, the BBC, and Harvard Business Publishing. Competitors LexisNexis, Dun & Bradstreet, and InsideView. (I would not include Concept Searching or Ontoprise in this short list due to exogenous complexity factors.)
Stephen E Arnold, January 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Sinequa bottles up Pernod Ricard
January 26, 2012
Leading global beverage distributor and producer Pernot Ricard has selected Sinequa to handle its growing data management needs, informs “Pernod Ricard Uses Sinequa to Offer All Its Employees Unified Access to Group Information” at Minesto.
Each separate division of Pernod Ricard, and there are many, has its own intra- or extra- net, and many also have their own Web sites. The press release asserts,
Sinequa was chosen for its ability to implement a solution offering multilingual natural language search and ability to connect quickly with all sources of documents. Indexing, classification and organization of documents of any type and any size has facilitated access for users and administrators with information present in multiple intranets and extranets.
In the future, Pernod Ricard intends to integrate Sinequa tools into its business applications. Sounds like they are happy with their choice.
Pernot Ricard is a global behemoth, producing and distributing many of the top inebriants, like Absolut vodka, Glenlivet scotch whisky, Beefeater gin. . . the list goes on and on. See here for their US page.
Sinequa’s 25 years in the semantics business uniquely equips them for such large-scale projects. In fact, their world-wide customer base includes a number of huge private and public organizations. The company prides itself on crafting intuitive solutions.
Cynthia Murrell, January 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Intellisophic: Formerly Indraweb
January 26, 2012
Founded in 1999 as Indraweb and changing its name in 2055, Intellisophic, Inc., is a privately-funded technology company that is the world’s largest provider of taxonomic content. Its technology, originating from the work of founders Henry Kon, PhD., George Burch, and Michael Hoey, is based on the premise that concepts within unstructured information can be systematically derived by leveraging the trusted taxonomies of the reference book community. Within this core idea, Intellisophic developed and patented the Orthogonal Corpus Indexing algorithm for extracting and using taxonomies from reference and education books.
During a stint as principal investigator for MIT’s Context Interchange, CTO Kon researched and implemented methodologies for enterprise integration of structured and semi-structured data over independently managed and disparate schema databases. He researched, designed, and prototyped integration engines for distributed multi-database query and caching over heterogeneous, distributed, and partially connected databases. As a member of MIT’s Composite Information Systems Laboratory, Kon published on multi-database integration engines and the use of ontology for bridging database schema. With Intellisophic, he has pioneered innovation in the conceptual management of unstructured information and in the integration of structured, semi-structured and unstructured content.
Intellisophic content is machine-developed, leveraging knowledge from respected referenceworks. The taxonomies are unbounded by subject coverage and are cost-effective to create. The taxonomy library covers several million topic areas defined by hundreds of millions of terms. In addition to taxonomic content, the company offers intelligent solutions, such as enterprise search and retrieval, business intelligence, categorization and classification, compliance management, portal infrastructure, social networking, content and knowledge management, electronic discovery, data warehousing, and government intelligence.
Its strategic alliance partners include Mark Logic, DataLever, SchemaLogic, DFI International, and Mosaic, Inc. Competitors Sandpiper, Intellidimension, and HighFleet. The depth and breadth of Intellisophic’s taxonomies, along with its support of the leading text mining, search, and categorization applications, make it a good solution for many industries. (I would not include Concept Searching or Ontoprise in this short list due to exogenous complexity factors.)
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
MegaSearch: Looking for Excitement?
January 19, 2012
Short honk: Search systems for underground or dark net content such as credit card numbers come and go. If you are interested in this particular type of search excitement, you will want to read “‘MegaSearch’ Aims to Index Fraud Site Wares.” The service points and does not store certain information such as credit card information. We learned:
MegaSearch said that when his site first launched at the end of 2011 and began indexing the five card shops he’s now tracking, those shops had some 360,000 compromised accounts for sale, collectively. Since then, those shops have moved more than 200,000 cards. The search engine currently has indexed 352,000 stolen account numbers that are for sale right now in the underground.
For more information, see “Underground Credit Card Store Operators Aggregate Their Stolen Data.” The link, which may be blocked by certain systems, is MegaSearch.cc. Explore but understand the risks.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Temis, Spammy PR, and Quite Silly Assertions
January 11, 2012
I am working on a project related to semantics. The idea is, according to that almost always reliable Wikipedia resource is:
the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata.
Years ago I studied at Duquesne University, a fascinating blend of Jesuit obsession, basketball, and phenomenological existentialism. If you are not familiar with this darned exciting branch of philosophy, you can dig into Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint by Franz Brentano or grind through Carl Stumpf’s The Psychological Origins of Space Perception, or just grab the Classic Comic Book from your local baseball card dealer. (My hunch is that many public relations professionals feel more comfortable with the Classic approach, not the primary texts of philosophers who focus on how ephemera and baloney affect one’s perception of reality one’s actions create.)
But my personal touchstone is Edmund Husserl’s body of work. To get the scoop on Lebenswelt (a universe of what is self-evident), you will want to skip the early work and go directly to The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. For sure, PR spam is what I would call self evident because it exists, was created by a human (possibly unaware that actions define reality), to achieve an outcome which is hooked to the individual’s identify.
Why mention the crisis of European thought? Well, I received “American Society for Microbiology Teams Up With TEMIS to Strengthen Access to Content” in this morning’s email (January 10, 2012). I noted that the document was attributed to an individual identified as Martine Fallon. I asked to be removed from the spam email list that dumps silly news releases about Temis into my system. I considered that Martine Fallon may be a ruse like Betty Crocker. Real or fictional, I am certain she or one of her colleagues, probably schooled in an esoteric discipline such as modern dance, agronomy, and public relations are familiar with the philosophical musings of Jean Genet.
You can get a copy of Born to Lose at this link.
I recall M. Genet’s observation:
I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.
Temis, a European company in the dicey semantic game, surely appreciates the delicious irony of explaining a license deal as a “team”. The notion of strengthening access to content is another semantic bon mot. The problem is that the argument does not satisfy my existential quest for factual information; for example, look at the words and bound phrases in bold:
Temis, the leading provider of Semantic Content Enrichment solutions for the Enterprise, today announced it has signed a license and services agreement with the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the oldest and largest life science membership organization in the world.
Do tell. Leading? Semantic content enrichment. What’s that?
The “leading” word is interesting but it lacks the substance of verifiable fact. Well, there’s more to the news story and the Temis pitch. Temis speaks for its client, asserting:
To serve its 40,000 members better, ASM is completely revamping its online content offering, and aggregating at a new site all of its authoritative content, including ASM’s journal titles dating back to 1916, a rapidly expanding image library, 240 book titles, its news magazine Microbe, and eventually abstracts of meetings and educational publications.
I navigated to the ASM Web site, did some poking around, and learned that ASM is rolling in dough. You can verify the outfit’s financial status at this page. But the numbers and charts allowed me to see that ASM has increasing assets, which is good. However, this chart suggests that since 2008, revenue has been heading south.
Source: http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/DC/American-Society-For-Microbiology.html
In my limited experience in rural Kentucky, not-for-profits embrace technology for one of three reasons. Let me list them and see if we can figure out what causes the estimable American Society for Microbiology.
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