Managing Nuclear Knowledge with Semantic Technologies

The nuclear sector is knowledge driven and depends on sharing information and experiences in designing, constructing, operating and decommissioning nuclear facilities amongst all stakeholders. It is a major challenge to adapt a systematic approach to nuclear knowledge and make it accessible to all relevant parties and organisations on a local, as well as on an international scale. Currently, many nuclear organisations host their knowledge on portals which act as central repositories for thousands of documents with little or no metadata – of the type of data that describes and provides information on the primary resource. Without metadata, it is difficult to search and gain access to the information required. Even greater difficulty would be to establish links between diverse information resources.

The use of different standards and specifications belonging to semantic technology could provide a solution to this challenge by establishing a shared language within the nuclear community, developing a knowledge organisation system, or further building upon existing ones such as the IAEA INIS Thesaurus. It could also help in integrating different data sources together, automating indexing and much more. By capturing meaning from unstructured data and interlinking various available sources of information, semantic technology can improve the sustainability of managing nuclear’s complex and interdisciplinary systems.

“Using semantic technology in nuclear knowledge management can help build knowledge models and combine disparate information sources to support applications and services based on them,” said Gladyshev.

The use of this technology by the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research in Kalpakkam, India is a valuable example for how semantic technology can benefit the nuclear sector. To effectively utilise and preserve its decades of nuclear research, the Centre built a knowledge management portal. The portal was developed with features which allow relevant groups to capture tacit knowledge and obtain, store, share and use information in publications, projects, activities and much more.

“Our knowledge management system implemented with application of computational intelligence technologies has enabled us to organise memory, convert knowledge into intellectual capital, improve productivity and communication as well as create efficiency and improved safety of nuclear power plant operations,” said R. Jehadeesan, Head of the Computer Division at the Centre.

As a proof-of-concept, the IAEA also developed a pilot repository platform for knowledge and learning objects. The project revealed that as more educational organisations publish information in the repository, the richer the metadata becomes, allowing for complex queries to be asked from the data and filtering it to meet the needs of the user.

Semantic technology includes a wide range of tools, standards and methodologies, allowing for the processing of information based on its context and meaning. To encode semantics – the meaning of a word, phrase, or text –technologies such as Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL) could be successfully used to codify the metadata.

This technology allows information to be stored and managed in a way which can generate correlations and links between different pieces of data and different information resources.

“Generally speaking, information is usually confined to one system within a single organisation,” said Gladyshev. “Semantic technology, however, is invaluable because it allows systems from multiple organisations to be connected. Using a semantic-based system, users can access relevant information on their topic of interest from various sources.”

Semantic technology is used in many fields to improve organisational efficiency and help manage information to make access from various platforms easier. This means you do not have to know and search individual sources to find the information needed. Because the nuclear knowledge base is extremely large and complex, the use of this technology in the nuclear field can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its management, retrieval, and use.

Learn more about the use of sematic technologies and the ways they are being explored to better manage nuclear knowledge in: Exploring Semantic Technologies and Their Application to Nuclear Knowledge Management.