SBIR Phase I: Collaborative Information Retrieval from Multiple Real-Time Sources

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将评估创建一种新型的支持协作的信息检索应用程序的可行性，该应用程序可以处理多个信息源，包括数据频繁更改的实时源。拟议的应用程序将使用应用程序编程接口(API)适配器访问不同的信息源，并将提供一个储存库，协作者不仅可以在其中共享查询结果，还可以共享这些结果所引用的文件。研究目标将包括设计一种程序，使合作者可以恢复浏览由不同合作者发起的结果集，即使结果集在此期间发生了变化；以及设计一种密码协议，允许用户将文件从信息源直接传输到储存库，并通过用户对源和储存库的认证以及对文件来源到储存库的认证。通过处理多个和不同的信息源，拟议的应用程序将为联合信息检索工作提供有效支持，满足信息科学家反复记录的需求，并提高生产率。拟议的创新既适用于网络搜索，也适用于从数据库中检索信息，拟议的应用的潜在市场是广阔的。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will assess the feasibility of creating a new kind of collaboration-enabled information retrieval application that can handle multiple sources of information, including real-time sources whose data changes frequently. The proposed application will use application-programming interface (API) adaptors to access diverse sources of information and will provide a repository where collaborators can share not only query results but also the documents referenced by those results. Research objectives will include devising a procedure whereby a collaborator can resume the browsing of a result set initiated by a different collaborator even if the result set has changed in the meantime, and designing a cryptographic protocol that allows a user to cause the direct transfer of a document from an information source to the repository, with authentication of the user to the source and to the repository, and authentication of the origin of the document to the repository.By handling multiple and diverse sources of information, the proposed application will provide effective support for joint information retrieval efforts, filling a need that has been repeatedly document by information scientists, and increasing productivity. The proposed innovation applies to both Web search and information retrieval from databases, and the potential market for the proposed application is broad.