Using the Semantic Enhancement Server web service

Semantic Enhancement Server is More than an Ontology API

An organization could take the XML output report from a taxonomy/ ontology management tool and reference it with x-path queries in their code.  However, this approach has many limitations. Semantic Enhancement Server manages the process of extracting the ontology on a scheduled basis and delivers the information via an XML interface.  SES allows:

• Query of the ontology and return of only the relevant XML.  This means that the applications will respond quickly as it is specifically designed for high throughput (queries per second) utilizing the available server capacity,
• Use of services that ‘understand’ the taxonomy structure like ‘browse’ which makes the process of rendering a hierarchy easy.
• Running of a fuzzy search over the taxonomy–the ‘concept map’ service runs the equivalent of a free-text phrase search over the ontology matching synonyms and parts of preferred terms making it much more effective than a basic keyword search.
• Control of the content that is displayed. The SES index can maintain a count of content items in Solr, FAST or GSA indexes, so the application (for example the Search Application Framework) will only display a term if there is content associated with it.

Improve the Search Experience with Navigational Aids and Real-time Taxonomy-querying

The service is implemented as a REST-based web service. The services that can be called include:

• Browse
  returns the term hierarchy from a given point
• Term
  returns all the information on a specified term
• Concept Map
  returns a free-text search match of any terms in the ontology that match a specified query string
• A-Z
  returns all terms flagged for display in an "A to Z" by letter.

For example, The Term service is called by a CGI string such as:

http://hostname/cgi-bin/select.exe?TBDB=taxonomy_index&TEMPLATE=service.xml&SERVICE=term&TERM=Employment%20regulations

This service returns different information for a specified taxonomy term (or terms):

• Term ID, the unique identifier for the term, as displayed in the Ontology Manager
• Term Name, the “value” of the term
• The list of all hierarchically related terms (parents and children)
• The list of paths to the term
• The list of associated (related) terms
• The list of attributes
• The list of metadata values
• The frequency of the term (the number of documents classified under that term)

The XML generated by the Search Enhancement Server XML API templates adhere to the XML 1.0 specification (as detailed by the World WIde Web Consortium, W3C, Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Third Edition): http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/). The XML generated has an associated DTD to which the XML also complies.

The following is some sample output for a call to this service:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SEMAPHORE>
<PARAMETERS>
<PARAMETER NAME="ID">6127</PARAMETER>
<PARAMETER NAME="SERVICE">term</PARAMETER>
<PARAMETER NAME="TBDB">taxonomy_index</PARAMETER>
<PARAMETER NAME="TEMPLATE">service.xml</PARAMETER>
</PARAMETERS>
<TERMS>
<TERM>
<NAME>Employment regulations</NAME>
<ID>6127</ID>
<DISPLAY_NAME>Employment regulations</DISPLAY_NAME>
<FREQUENCY>34</FREQUENCY>
<PATH>
<FIELD FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FREQ="0" ID="981" NAME="term">Employment, jobs and careers</FIELD>
<FIELD FACET1="Business and industry" FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FREQ="0" ID="6127" NAME="term">Employment regulations</FIELD>
</PATH>
<PATH>
<FIELD FACET0="Business and industry" FREQ="0" ID="692" NAME="term">Business and industry</FIELD>
<FIELD FACET0="Business and industry" FREQ="0" ID="488" NAME="term">Business practice and regulation</FIELD>
<FIELD FACET0="Business and industry" FREQ="0" ID="704" NAME="term">Regulation and deregulation</FIELD>
<FIELD FACET1="Business and industry" FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FREQ="0" ID="6127" NAME="term">Employment regulations</FIELD>
</PATH>
<HIERARCHY TYPE="Is Narrower Than" ABBR="BT">
<FIELD FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FREQ="0" ID="981" NAME="term">Employment, jobs and careers</FIELD>
<FIELD FACET0="Business and industry" FREQ="0" ID="704" NAME="term">Regulation and deregulation</FIELD>
</HIERARCHY>
<HIERARCHY TYPE="Is Broader Than" ABBR="NT">
<FIELD NAME="term" FACET1="Business and industry" FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FACET2="Public order, justice and rights" FREQ="0" ID="7281">TUPE regulations</FIELD>
<FIELD NAME="term" FACET1="Business and industry" FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FACET2="International affairs and defence" FREQ="0" ID="4759">Work permits</FIELD>
<FIELD FACET1="Business and industry" FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FREQ="0" ID="7933" NAME="term">Working time regulations</FIELD>
</HIERARCHY>
<ASSOCIATED TYPE="Related To" ABBR="RT">
<FIELD FACET1="Public order, justice and rights" FACET0="Employment, jobs and careers" FREQ="0" ID="6097" NAME="term">Employment rights</FIELD>
</ASSOCIATED>
<FACETS>
<FACET NAME="Employment, jobs and careers"/>
<FACET NAME="Business and industry"/>
</FACETS>
<ATTRIBUTE>
<FIELD NAME="Internal">1</FIELD>
<FIELD NAME="Use for concept mapping">1</FIELD>
<FIELD NAME="Use for classifying content">1</FIELD>
</ATTRIBUTE>
<METADATA>
<FIELD NAME="Added In Version">1.00</FIELD>
<FIELD NAME="Last Updated In Version">1.00</FIELD>
</METADATA>
<SYNONYMS TYPE="Use" ABBR="USE">
<SYNONYM ID="16185">employees rights</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16198">employees statutory</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16200">employment acts</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16196">employment byelaws</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16197">employment bylaws</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16194">employment laws</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16193">employment legislation</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16202">employment regs</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16201">employment regulatory</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16199">employment statutory</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16203">Work Regs</SYNONYM>
<SYNONYM ID="16195">work regulations</SYNONYM>
</SYNONYMS>
</TERM>
</TERMS>
</SEMAPHORE>