Web semantics for intelligent and dynamic information retrieval illustrated within the mental health domain

Abstract

Much of the available information covering various knowledge domains is distributed across various information resources. The issues of distributed and heterogeneous information that often come without semantics, lack an underlying knowledge base or autonomy, and are dynamic in nature of are hindering efficient and effective information retrieval. Current search engines that are based on syntactic keywords are fundamental for retrieving information often leaving the search results meaningless. Increasing semantics of web content (web semantics) would solve this problem and enable the web to reach its full potential. This would allow machines to access web content, understand it, retrieve and process the data automatically rather then only display it. In this paper we illustrate how the ontology and multi-agent system technologies which underpin this vision can be effectively implemented within the mental health domain. The full realisation of this vision is still to come.