Schema matching, the matching of concepts describing the meaning of data in heterogeneous distributed data sources is one of the basic operations required for data and knowledge sharing. Due to the cognitive complexity of this matching process it has traditionally been performed by human experts. For obvious reasons, manual concept reconciliation in dynamic environments (with or without computer-aided tools) is inefficient to the point of being infeasible, and so cannot provide a general solution for semantic reconciliation. The move from manual to semi-automatic schema matching has therefore been justified in the literature using arguments of scalability and by the need to speed-up the matching process. Researchers also argue for moving to fully-automatic (that is, unsupervised) schema matching in settings where a human expert is absent from the decision process. In particular, such situations characterize numerous emerging applications triggered by the vision of the Semantic Web and machine-understandable Web resources.

The amount of data available on the corporate knowledge systems, in organizations and enterprises is multiplying. Search has become the default way of interacting with data and by 2008, 50% of applications are predicted to include a search facility as a primary interface for end users and employees. In addition, data is increasingly becoming multimedia, including images, video, and audio files. The ever-increasing data complexity leads to the necessity of a coherent approach to the growing variety of formats, standards and tools. Users find themselves overwhelmed by the multitude of new audiovisual search tools, while businesses are at loss for stable direction. Digital data is the greatest value that many organizations possess and the ability to use it, rather than just store it, will be one of the most important aspects of strategy in the coming decade. Access to digital data is the front window and the operational backbone for most organizations. The growth of data volume is rapidly shifting to audiovisual content, yet the technologies that allow processing and retrieval of this content are either mainly experimental, or only vaguely capable of handling true queries and content.
Audiovisual search is therefore one of the major challenges for organizations and businesses today, and search-based technologies which can provide contextually relevant, integrated and scalable access to distributed and heterogeneous collections of information is essential.
The PHAROS Integrated Project (IP), funded from 2007-2009, aims at developing an innovative audiovisual technology platform, which will enable consumers, businesses and organizations to unlock the values found in audiovisual content, a platform that will take user and search requirements as key design principles and which will be deeply integrated with user and context technologies. The developed technology will sustain itself in the future by enabling new players to build on top of the platform. To achieve this ambitious task, PHAROS mobilizes 13 strong technological players, research institutions and user groups, all sharing common goals.

Businesses and organizations are characterized by an increasing portion of knowledge-intensive work. Knowledge management instruments as combinations of organizational and information and communication technological measures can be used to improve productivity of knowledge-intensive work. If designed accordingly, knowledge portals can offer suitable platforms for the implementation of knowledge management instruments.
The development of knowledge portals involves substantial requirements for accessing and integrating data, documents and services. The consequent realization of these requirements leads to enterprise knowledge infrastructures. Implementation of both, instruments and infrastructurs, requires adequate modeling techniques that consider the specifics of modeling context in knowledge work, skills and competences of individuals, teams and communities, types and maturity levels of knowledge, processes and composition of knowledge management services.
The presentation reflects on characteristics of knowledge work, knowledge management instruments, knowledge portals and knowledge infrastructures and identifies key concepts for designing IT-based infrastructural solutions aimed at supporting organizational efficiency in handling knowledge.