Allegient is pleased to announce a key milestone in the development of its Big Data analytics practice. Developers from Allegient and IUPUI’s School of Informatics have created SURAAK (Semantic Understanding Research in the Automatic Acquisition of Knowledge). SURAAK was developed through an $844k grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging to help caregivers of geriatric patients easily find health care solutions, increase the speed of doing research, and increase confidence in their analysis.

The innovative web based application uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques and visualization approaches to analyze the unstructured data found in published healthcare articles in the area of geriatrics and senior care. SURAAK a unique, Big Data, software application mines PDF’s and maps articles enabling researchers to answer questions, make new discoveries, and create new value in a fraction of the time compared to traditional research approaches.

“Allegient’s new system dramatically improves the process and efficiency of research,” remarked Allegient Vice President of Service Delivery, Eric Tinsley. “The tool will allow people to draw knowledge from volumes of information otherwise impractical to read manually, resulting in more complete knowledge, and better decision making.” Tinsley says, “The knowledge, skills, and techniques built in SURAAK are applicable to any Big Data application focused on the extracting information from free format text such as clinical notes, social media like Twitter or Facebook, published articles, or documents.”

Due to the success of the application in the senior care field, Allegient also conducted test cases in other areas of research. The system has great potential in aiding research in other industries such as healthcare, legal, pharmaceuticals, military, government, and education.

Dr. Mathew Palakal Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research at IUPUI’s School of Informatics commented, “The partnership between Allegient and the School of Informatics has allowed us to translate research in new and existing NLP approaches into a real-world application. It’s very exciting to see these ideas realized in a commercial application.”

If you are interested in learning more about the system please go to http://www.youtube.com/Allegient to watch a video discussion and demonstration.

About Allegient

Allegient, LLC is a business information technology consulting firm based in Indianapolis, IN. Focused on translating business challenges into technology solutions, Allegient delivers proven results to clients by leveraging cutting-edge technologies and adhering to uniquely disciplined methodologies. As a Gold-certified Microsoft Partner, Allegient has been the consultant of choice for many of Indiana’s leading organizations, since 2001.

Original Release: InsideIndianaBusiness

Image: Courtesy Allegient