Newsletter Issue 5

Editorial | ECDL 2005 | DELOS Award Winner | Other Autumn Research Exchanges | European Digital Library: Catalyst for Great Change | DELOS Clusters to Contribute to a Joint Prototype | Support for Library Education in Digital Resources | TEL and DELOS Confer on Common Interests

Newsletter Interview with Winner of the DELOS Young Researcher Award

The Newsletter is delighted to print excerpts from an e-mail interview with Christos Tryfonopoulos who as lead author of LibraRing: An Architecture for Distributed Digital Libraries Based on DHTs (co-authored by Stratos Idreos and Manolis Koubarakis) was awarded the prize of DELOS Research Exchange Award at ECDL 2005 in Vienna for the best paper by a young researcher.

Christos Tryfonopoulos (left) receives the congratulations of Prof. Andreas Rauber, ECDL 2005 Program Chair

DELOS Newsletter: Which aspects of your work do you think may have won you the Young Researcher Award?
Christos Tryfonopoulos:
I think the novel architecture proposed in the paper was clearly one of the reasons. The paper was written as a visionary statement for future digital libraries. However, it also contained a full protocol specification, and an experimental evaluation, which made it a self-contained work that touched upon an important problem.

DELOS NL: What was your personal reaction to winning the award?
Christos:
I was really happy, because it is always nice when other researchers value your work. The conference committee was made up of world-renowned researchers, and the fact that these people found my work interesting was of itself very rewarding.

DELOS NL: Has the award brought benefits to you or your research already?
Christos:
Apart from the exchange which was an invaluable experience, I believe that an award always gives more visibility to your work inside a research community.

DELOS NL: What was the work you did in the context of your exchange?
Christos:
I worked on incorporating information filtering functionality in Minerva, a P2P system developed at MPII that aims at P2P IR. Specifically, we worked on supporting approximate information filtering in a P2P context by utilising a network-agnostic architecture and new peer selection techniques suitable for a filtering scenario. These techniques view per-peer IR stats as time series data, and utilise statistical analysis to predict peer behaviour in a dynamic setting.

DELOS NL: With whom did you work at MPII?
Christos:
I collaborated with the Director of the Databases and Information Systems Group, Professor Gerhard Weikum. Initially we discussed our research interests, and found a stimulating area in which to work with other researchers from his group. From this point on, we had regular meetings that helped us to understand the problem and work towards an efficient solution. I also worked closely with Christian Zimmer and Klaus Berberich, PhD students in Prof. Weikum's group. Discussing the work with Christian offered me a clear insight of the Minerva approach to P2P IR and helped me to understand the philosophy of the system, while Klaus contributed more to the prediction and statistical analysis part of the work.

DELOS NL: What were the main benefits of your stay at MPII with regard not only to your work but also from the personal point of view?
Christos:
It was an excellent opportunity to work with one of the leading groups in P2P and IR in Europe and to make new research contacts. The stay at MPII has been very productive, and will surely be the basis for further and closer co-operation. We have already submitted a joint poster paper that highlights our ideas and we plan to extend this work to a full paper submission by the end of this spring. In fact I visited MPII again a few weeks ago to carry this work forward, an indication in itself, in my view, of the success of the research exchange.

From a personal perspective, it was an invaluable experience. I had the chance to spend a period of time in an attractive city in Germany and meet new people. Gerhard was an excellent host, and that was not only research-wise! He made me feel part of the team and he devoted a lot of his time to helping me get acquainted with the group's interests. I would also like to thank Georgiana Ifrim and Fabian Suchanek, the students with whom I shared an office for making me feel so welcome. It was an invaluable experience, one I would happily repeat!

Finally, I would also like to thank the DELOS Network of Excellence for funding this exchange and providing me with such a welcome opportunity.

<previous   -   next>