CAREER/EPSCoR: Cooperative Agents for Conceptual Search and Browsing of World Wide Web Resources

这个项目有四个目标：(1)研究支持Web分布式搜索代理的方法；(2)评估基于本体的Web浏览代理的有效性；(3)研究Web可视化代理的使用；(4)记录本体的变化，研究信息在Web上的变化情况。这种方法有以下优点：首先，分配搜索过程可以更公平地使用计算和网络资源，并允许定制搜索代理以反映本地兴趣和偏好。其次，基于本体的浏览代理允许对Web资源进行更偶然的访问。与当前的浏览结构（例如Yahoo）不同，这些浏览代理会自动将适当的资源与每个概念关联起来。本体可以随时间在各个站点上进行调整，从而允许浏览结构随着Web本身的发展而发展。第三，以更抽象的方式可视化Web的大部分的能力允许用户快速获得可用信息类型的印象。第四，通过保留局部本体的变化历史，可以呈现局部和全局概念重要性的潮起潮落。最后，本科生和研究生通过参与一个长期项目来接触到真正的跨学科研究，该项目结合了几个领域的专业知识，主要是计算机图形学、人工智能、分布式处理和信息科学。万维网（WWW）提供了无限访问电子信息的承诺。然而，目前的现实是，电子访问是无限的无政府状态。这个项目致力于使用概念本体来为混乱带来秩序。

The goals of this project are four-fold: (1) to investigate ways to support distributed searching agents for the Web; (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of ontology-based Web browsing agents; (3) to study the use of of visualization agents for the Web; and (4) to keep a record of changes to the ontology to study how information changes on the Web. This approach has the following advantages: First, distributing the search process makes more equitable use of computing and network resources and allows search agents to be customized to reflect local interests and preferences. Second, an ontology-based browsing agent allows for more serendipitous access to Web resources. Unlike the current browsing structures (e.g., Yahoo), these browsing agents associate appropriate resources with each concept automatically. The ontology may adapt over time at individual sites, allowing the browsing structure to evolve as the Web itself evolves. Third, the ability to visualize large portions of the Web in a more abstract way allows users to quickly get an impression of what type of information is available. Fourth, by keeping a history of changes to the local ontologies, the ebb and flow of the importance of concepts locally and globally can be presented. Finally, undergraduate and graduate students are being exposed to a truly interdisciplinary research through their involvement in a long term project that combines expertise from several fields, primarily computer graphics, artificial intelligence, distributed processing and information science. The World Wide Web (WWW) offers the promise of unlimited access to electronic information. However currently, the reality is electronic access to unlimited anarchy. This project is addressing the use of conceptual ontologies to bring order to the chaos.