I started my professional research carrer in the FRODO project where I realized the weakly structured workflow paradigm. The workflow management system (WfMS) was realized in form of a multi-agent system. New agents fulfilling new tasks could be integrated easily into the system, e.g., information agents can be plugged in that way.
The information processed by the agents were formed using multiple ontologies which enabled sophisticated inferencing.
We started implementing a graphical user interface (GUI) called FRODO TaskMan. Although this GUI was a powerful research tool a short user study showed that it is too overloaded for a normal knowledge worker. The problem is, that the GUI provided direct access to all workflow modeling aspects. I worked out possibilities to reduce some of the main cumbersome interactions with the WfMS. One of them lead to the research in the follow-up project EPOS:

In the EPOS project I investigated the automatic elicitation of a knowledge worker's context using user observation. One of the goals was to utilize the estimated user context to identify potentially relevant workflow tasks. That way we can realize an implicit workflow management interface: If the system can guess which workflow task is currently processed by the user (and the user aknowledges that), the main workflow interaction is just a question of one or two mouse clicks. Instead of manually viewing the whole work item pool (workflow inbox) and looking which tasks have to be processed, the system proposes relevant workflow tasks matching his current context.
Another important - and actually the most important - goal for estimating the knowledge worker's context is the realization of context-aware assistance. We enriched a simple note taking tool with a context annotation facility. Notes taken down by the user are annotated with the user's current context. This creation context can be used for context-sensitive retrieval, filtering, or pro-active delivery. A multi-criterial, pro-active, context-sensitive information delivery has been realized in the EPOS Assistant Bar which shows documents, topics, organizational entities, and workflow tasks which are estimated as relevant for the user's current context.

MyMory is an upcoming project, that is, it will start January 2006. My main research goals will be the detection of context switches plus providing assisted transitions from one context to another.
We will, furthermore, extend our current user observation methodology towards incorporation of multi-modal user (inter)actions and elaborate and/or integrate technologies to recognize the user's attentional state and focus.

On a modern personal computer there are thousands of documents, emails, photos and music songs stored. Their number increases as we all download new files, send and receive emails, meet people. While we do all this, we use a multitude of different applications for our different goals. This is good, but in the future, it will be better.

Imagine that you can browse your files, friends, and photos like they were in a tiny little World Wide Web, using browsers and search engines. You can bookmark everything, link everything and enjoy surfing your data.

If we have some RDF graph representing instances of these RDF Schema classes, we can map these to a graph of Java objects, whereas the Java objects are instances of the Java classes representing the same RDF Schema classes. The Java objects contain the same properties as the RDF instances. They are stored in member variables and are accessible via getters and setters/putters. Of course, that also work the other way round. We can also "export" some Java objects (graph) to some RDF graph.

Just recently, we added a package called jena2java, which eventually allows to work on a live RDF model. The Java objects are just wrappers working on the RDF model, which means, that the RDF model always represents the one and only place where data is stored. No import/export is needed any more. The Java objects are just a convenient form of accessing the RDF data.

rdf2java is now available as an open-source project. Currently, it is maintained by Malte Kiesel and Sven Schwarz. Documentation, download, etc. can be found here: http://rdf2java.opendfki.de/

Never more duplicate the information in your bibtex, FOAF file, etc. by manually coding ugly and complicated HTML by hand! Let rdfhomepage create it for you!

What is that rdfhomepage actually? It consists of a set of PHP files. Using Chris Bizer's RAP (RDF API for PHP) these PHP files first read several RDF data sources, such as, your FOAF or your BIBTEX file. The information therein plus interesting relations are then rendered in HTML.

Besides an easy editing of your homepage and a consistent look, you eventually have a real-life use case for your RDF data. Editing your FOAF file is not a freak's job any more. It has become necessary and every additional information you enter will be used directly by your homepage. The PHP files of your homepage always use the most up to date information you provide. You will also want to enter your accepted conference/workshop paper as soon as possible, because then it will appear directly on your homepage in the publications section.

The DragonTalk project provides some extensions for Thunderbird and Firefox. These extensions were developed during the EPOS project to get information about the user activities at these applications.

Currently available extensions are:
DragonTalk userobservation for Thunderbird
DragonTalk userobservation for Firefox
DragonTalk semi-automatic mail classification for Thunderbird
DragonTalk quickopen for Thunderbird