A Multi-Agent Framework for Storage and Retrieval of Documents from Distributed XML Collections

摘要

A distributed and dynamic multi-agent system for integrated performing of gathering, processing, and retrieval of highly heterogeneous XML documents' collections is presented. Collections of XML documents are assumed to be distributed among nodes of a network. The management process consists of a few steps: documents in each node are clustered, clusters' representatives are computed and stored in metadata repository, queries are confronted with metadata repository, distributed retrieval is carried out over relevant clusters, retrieval results are integrated and final answer is presented to an end user. Major functions of such strategy were designed and implemented on JADE platform. Actual implementations of the proposed multi-agent system can vary, depending on applied models of XML documents' clustering, indexing and retrieval.