Collaborative Research: Achieving Information Integration of Web Databases Through the Construction of Metasearch Engines

这一合作研究项目(0414981，W.Meng，纽约州立大学Binghamton和0414939，C.Yu，UIC)的目标是开发提供对网络数据库的综合访问的技术。该方法包括为以下任务开发高度自动化的解决方案：从Web中发现Web数据库，根据它们的应用领域对它们进行聚类，将同一领域中Web数据库的搜索接口集成到一个集成的搜索接口中，将提交到集成接口的每个查询映射到其底层Web数据库，从本地Web数据库返回的结果页面中提取并标注搜索结果记录，并合并结果形成集成的响应，以呈现给用户。将利用基于Web数据库的Web服务的接口(如果可用)。基于不同领域的真实Web数据库对所开发的算法进行了评估。这项研究预计将产生新的算法、有用的数据集、一个软件工具包和几个可操作的Web数据库元搜索引擎(包括一些用于罗马空军研究实验室的引擎)。开发的技术可以用于许多应用，包括比较购物和从Deep Web收集数据。研究成果将被纳入PIS教授的几门课程中，并将招募学生参与研究活动。研究成果将通过发表的论文和一本关于网络搜索技术的教科书进行传播。项目网站(http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~meng/DMSE.html)提供对研究结果以及数据集和演示系统的访问。

The goal of this collaborative research project (0414981, W. Meng, SUNY Binghamton and 0414939, C. Yu, UIC) is to develop technologies for providing integrated access to Web databases. The approach consists of developing highly automated solutions to the following tasks: discovering Web databases from the Web, clustering them according to their application domains, integrating the search interfaces of the Web databases in the same domain into an integrated search interface, mapping each query submitted to an integrated interface to its underlying Web databases, extracting and annotating the search result records from the result pages returned from the local Web databases, and merging the results to form an integrated response for presentation to the user. Web services based interfaces of Web databases, if available, will be utilized. The evaluation of the developed algorithms is based on real Web databases from different domains. This research is expected to produce new algorithms, useful datasets, a software toolkit, and several operational Web database metasearch engines (including some for the Air Force Research Lab at Rome). The developed technology can be used in many applications including comparison shopping and collecting data from the deep Web. Research results will be incorporated into several courses the PIs teach and students will be recruited to participate in the research activities. Research results will be disseminated through published papers as well as a textbook on Web-based search technology. The project Web site (http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~meng/DMSE.html) provides access to research results as well as datasets and demo systems.