Briefs

From WebQL Press Release, 21 Apr 2005.

The number of victims was staggering. Following the Southeast Asia tsunami, wives were desperate for word of their husbands and parents for news of their children. Reports of the missing and the dead were gathered by numerous sources but the database at Thailand's Department of Disaster Prevention didn't talk to the Red Cross database and the database of the Central Institute of Forensic Science wasn't even open to the public. Each was an island of information isolated from the others.

Trin Tantsetthi, president of Internet Thailand, was understandably frustrated. He needed a tool to consolidate the lists of casualties - the injured and the missing - into a single, comprehensive database that could be searched both by forensic teams and the public. He needed to access databases directly and through web interfaces - autopsy records, DNA and dental and narrative records stored in a bewildering variety of formats. He needed the data frequently updated, close to real time. And he needed to automate the entire process. He needed WebQL.

With WebQL, QL2 Software data mining tool, Trin was able to reconcile 10,159 missing person reports, eliminating 1,180 cross-registrations, duplicate records, and resolved cases. His team at Internet Thailand built a publicly available search engine that retrieves records based upon the latest information culled by WebQL from 18 different sources.

For more information, visit www.ql2.com/unstructured_data_tool.php