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University of Illinois Professor's Computer Search Work Turns Heads

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Jul. 5--We're drowning in data, whether it's an average Web user, a tech support person trying to manage the voluminous flow of questions from users, or a biologist working with new information about millions of genes.

No way we can look at all of it and put it together in the myriad ways that are meaningful and useful. We need help.

University of Illinois computer science Professor ChengXiang Zhai wants to throw us a life preserver. And his ideas about how to get computerized search and information management systems to be better partners, even collaborators, are attracting attention from the top.

Like the White House.

Zhai is one of 20 National Science Foundation-supported scientists and engineers selected for a 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The program recognizes researchers with potential to expand the frontiers of scientific knowledge.

"These ... are the young people who will lead our nation's progress in science and engineering," National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement Jr. said in a press release announcing the recipients.

Among other things, Zhai is a member of the interdisciplinary team for a $5 million project at the UI, funded by the science foundation, called BeeSpace. The idea is to create a computerized system that not only lets scientists work with masses of genetic data from bees, but also incorporates millions of scientific articles and hundreds of years of natural history observations. The goal: Use the new tool to do the first complete analysis of the normal behavior of an animal at the level of gene expression.

That's an example of a growing field known as bioinformatics, which has to do with managing and making sense of the oceans of data scientists are generating, for example, about genes, DNA, proteins and their actions and effects, as well as integrating the related text-based scientific literature, a focus of Zhai's.

"I envision that the problem will become more and more serious as we have more information," Zhai said last week.

Zhai, whose research focuses on such topics as text information management and bioinformatics, isn't forgetting the information overload confronting the rest of us, and our need to search the Web in particular quickly and accurately. For one thing, he and UI students Xuehua Shen and Bin Tan already are developing a tool to make our Google searches better by personalizing them.

Type in Java if you're an adventuresome tourist and you're probably looking for information on the island, Zhai said. Type in Java if you're a computer geek and it's probably information on the programming language you want. A search engine doesn't know the difference because it knows little, if anything, about you.

Zhai's tool, "UCAIR" it stands for user-centered adaptive information retrieval gets you two acquainted. If you type in bass, and click on a link about fishing, the system remembers that, tailors the succeeding results accordingly and keeps refining as it goes along. Likewise, if you type in bass and click on links about guitars, or about upright basses.

Google is in the early stages of something like this and other search systems are likely to follow. But the idea already has raised privacy concerns. Do you want Google or another company keeping a complete record of your Web use? The system from Zhai and colleagues has an advantage in that way. Your log resides only on your computer.

UCAIR is just the tip of an iceberg of things Zhai has in mind a search that serves up material appropriate for a child's age; that organizes customer service queries, and answers, into logical themes; that summarizes information you request and makes a table of contents; that knows you well enough to go out and get stuff you want without being asked.

He's excited about the possibilities, and about the presidential award and the federal funding for his research.

"This is a great honor for me," Zhai said. "I'm glad the research work that I'm doing has been recognized as being important. I'm looking forward to developing truly useful tools that would benefit everybody in the society."

The award also recognizes his teaching work, which has included creating new courses at the UI in information retrieval and bioinformatics. He's also developed online learning tools in the fields for use by students.

With his wife Mei Zou looking on, Zhai received his award in a White House ceremony last month and got to meet President Bush in the Oval Office.

Things went fine, but he had a ready source of advice on presidential meetings. His son Alex, a 14-year-old University Laboratory High School sophomore, met Bush last year as part of the national champion MATHCOUNTS team from Illinois. The program promotes mathematics achievement.

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Source: The News-Gazette

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