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Bussola - Specialized search engine on disability-related issues
Record number: 513
Last update: September 2022
Type of document: Projects
Last update: September 2022
Type of document: Projects
Funding body: Università degli Studi di Milano / Fondazione Invernizzi
Partners: Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus, Milano (capofila), Don Gnocchi Sistemi SRL, Milano
Year of publication: 2008
Project start date: 01/05/2008
Project end date: 31/05/2010
Project state: Ended
F.d.G. Team: Polo Tecnologico: Renzo Andrich (responsabile), Serafino Tutino, Marco Giorgianni. Don Gnocchi Sistemi: Roberto Poggi, Alessandro Carbone
Abstract:
The project Bussola has led to the creation of a first Prototype of on-line search engine on disability-related issues. The first and main aim was a product easy to use and to understand that can help the user to find the adequate resources on web. The service is addressed primarily at people with disabilities and their families, with the aim to facilitate the retrieval of information necessary to solve the multiple problems posed by disabilities in everyday life. For this reason, the service aims to be a landmark for all those websites focused on specific issues in order to guide the user in searching the most varied information he needs, dealing with issues of various kinds: from tax relief to help working, from travels to transports, from the contacts with associations dealing with assistive devices to the participation to forums and those phenomena of social networks that allow a direct exchange between users. Unlike many popular search engines in the network, Bussola uses a "smart" way of understanding the natural language because selects the documents containing exactly the term you entered in the search and moreover permits to analyze the documents from a conceptual point of view, including all the terms that are part of the concept expressed by the term entered. For example, a traditional search engine will search all the documents that contain a specific word; Bussola can perform semantic-conceptual analysis of all documents in the network and identify those dealing with the specific issues even if the specific word is not present in the document. The prototype we made is now able to make a specific search and get relevant results presented in the order of greatest relevance. Each found result is presented indicating: the name of the document, the date on which it is acquired by the system , the text relating to the search query, the site of origin, the relevance (expressed by the stars) and TAG indicate the Topics covered in the text In order to make Bussola even more effective, two filters were placed for the search results. The first activated by selecting one of the topics that arise at the end of each result, the second able to select only the documents from sources on specific topics. A system upgrade for users is also realized: once registered, user can save a search and receive email with a daily update of new results. This project is inserted in the historical labors that Foundation Don Gnocchi takes for decades about disability-related issues; so the Foundation has chosen to invest resources and energy - consistently with its "mission" - to enable people with disabilities and their families of every age and every type of need to increase the capacity to take care of people and contribute to their autonomy and social integration.
The project Bussola has led to the creation of a first Prototype of on-line search engine on disability-related issues. The first and main aim was a product easy to use and to understand that can help the user to find the adequate resources on web. The service is addressed primarily at people with disabilities and their families, with the aim to facilitate the retrieval of information necessary to solve the multiple problems posed by disabilities in everyday life. For this reason, the service aims to be a landmark for all those websites focused on specific issues in order to guide the user in searching the most varied information he needs, dealing with issues of various kinds: from tax relief to help working, from travels to transports, from the contacts with associations dealing with assistive devices to the participation to forums and those phenomena of social networks that allow a direct exchange between users. Unlike many popular search engines in the network, Bussola uses a "smart" way of understanding the natural language because selects the documents containing exactly the term you entered in the search and moreover permits to analyze the documents from a conceptual point of view, including all the terms that are part of the concept expressed by the term entered. For example, a traditional search engine will search all the documents that contain a specific word; Bussola can perform semantic-conceptual analysis of all documents in the network and identify those dealing with the specific issues even if the specific word is not present in the document. The prototype we made is now able to make a specific search and get relevant results presented in the order of greatest relevance. Each found result is presented indicating: the name of the document, the date on which it is acquired by the system , the text relating to the search query, the site of origin, the relevance (expressed by the stars) and TAG indicate the Topics covered in the text In order to make Bussola even more effective, two filters were placed for the search results. The first activated by selecting one of the topics that arise at the end of each result, the second able to select only the documents from sources on specific topics. A system upgrade for users is also realized: once registered, user can save a search and receive email with a daily update of new results. This project is inserted in the historical labors that Foundation Don Gnocchi takes for decades about disability-related issues; so the Foundation has chosen to invest resources and energy - consistently with its "mission" - to enable people with disabilities and their families of every age and every type of need to increase the capacity to take care of people and contribute to their autonomy and social integration.
