Main Research Topics

The chair of distributed information systems develops intelligent systems for gathering, representing, and processing distributed information in the context of data intensive multimedia applications.

Our research deals with fundamental as well as applied research projects in the following areas:

In cooperation with the research group of Prof. Lionel Brunie at the INSA Lyon and Prof. Ernesto Damiani at the university of Milan, the German-French doctoral college MDPS deals with research topics in the context of multimedia systems (e.g. semantic video adaptation, geo-based automatic image annotation), pervasive/mobile systems and applications (e.g. replication in mobile ad-hoc networks), distributed systems and databases (e.g. tuning of distributed multimedia databases, robustness of publish/subscribe architectures), IT_security (secure video dissemination in opportunistic networks). 8 cotutelle-doctoral students (double-PhD), as well as 4 associated doctoral students are currently employed in MDPS.
The working group Interoperable Multimedia Retrieval in Distributed Systems (I.R.I.S.) concentrates on the standardization of the MPEG Query Format, the standardization of interoperable image retrieval in JPEG (JPSearch Project).
Enhancement of information systems, so that they better take into account human features and affinities, as well as recent technological trends (mobile context).
We are bootstrapping a modular JavaScript Framework named RDFjs, which provides a new approach of displaying RDF metadata information (including ontology templating & semantic zooming). In addition, the framework allows processing, editing and querying of RDF data on client-side.
The chair implements a multimedia extension to the Oracle database management system. Our aim is to develop a SQL-operator, which is capable to perform similarity-based selection- and join-queries on any type of multimedia data (image, video, audio). The query evaluation is based on a high scalable information-retrieval-framework, that distributes the execution process to an arbitrary number of nodes of a computer cluster.
Another current project at our chair is the implementation of a research map. This project allows the visualisation of past and current projects in the fields of research and education. Every single project is connected with the two main cities or rather their research-facilities and displayed in a aggregated geo-aware manner highlighting the main details of the projects.
On the basis of an external PhD working at Salzburg Research, the chair is involved in projects dealing with multimedia knowledge management in the domain of Linked Open Data. Here, specific components for Apache projects Marmotta and Stanbol are developed.

Specific subpages give detailed information on funded projects:

The EEXCESS project aims to develop a completely novel approach to information dissemination in order to link web content, such as images, videos, infographics, statistics or texts from social media channels and blogs, with cultural, educational and scientific content in a personalised and contextualised manner.
The CODE project investigates how facts can be extracted from 40 million research papers, visualized, and interlinked with existing knowledge bases on the Web. The principle of crowd sourcing will foster a unique knowledge base fuelled by facts and findings contained in scientific literature.
Mobile multimedia assistance systems for technical applications in SMEs are developed in the MobileTechTeach project. Through the mobile devices it is possible to take instructions in video form right to the place of installation. Training can thus take place directly at the particular device. First test partners are SMEs in the region. Development of the SIVA Suite, which was implemented in previous projects is continued.
The PassauAPP project deals with the development of a mobile application for geo-spatial data in the context of Passau. The scientific goals are the integration of heterogeneous information systems as well as a efficient presentation in the mobile domain.