Service-oriented Architecture of Intelligent Environment for Historical Records Studies

Nowadays, such socio-technical systems as virtual research environments are increasingly employed in the studies of textual heritage. The paper presents a modular platform based on a combination of Web services that provide tools for historical records publishing and research. A promising approach is the creation of semantic networks that encompass marked up texts of records (in this case, medieval documents preserved at Latvian State Historical Archives) and corresponding meta-information. The authors describe the prototype of a software system, which maps XML markup into ACE (Attempto Controlled English) statements; these statements can be automatically translated into OWL (Ontological Web Language), visualized as semantic networks, or queried by means of Web services of Attempto Project. This system is designed as an intelligent environment for collaborative research.