This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the problem of integrating advanced computational and curation techniques. Curated knowledge resources are important in fields like genomics, but have not yet made a significant impact in other fields like renewable energy. The purpose of a curated knowledge product is to provide comprehensive, non-redundant, concise, and unbiased information in a field where information is otherwise scattered and hard for users to gather objectively. Garbrook has built an encyclopedic knowledge base, the Advanced Biofuels Resource, to organize scientific, commercial, and policy-related information for the Biofuels community. This proposal will develop automated methods to produce multiple targeted information products from such a resource.
For many users of technical, commercial, and policy information, the information landscape is cluttered and confusing. The Internet now contains a wide variety of newsletters, trade association sites, blogs, and other media reports, in addition to scholarly publications, consulting reports, white papers from policy organizations, and government sites. The solution to this problem is not more sites, but a new standard for curated knowledge resources to reduce the clutter. Garbrook proposes to build technology to automatically segment curated matter to establish a comprehensive resource into targeted knowledge products suitable for various sectors of the community. Combining its computational technology and its ability to train agent curators, Garbrook is positioned to build additional knowledge products in the future for topics related to energy and the environment.
