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Richard M. Tong[+] and David H. Holtzman[]
Advanced Decision Systems,
division of Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc.
1500 Plymouth Street, Mountain View, CA 94043
Booz, Allen & Hamilton has developed a knowledge-based approach to "mediated" cross-database access that uses an object-oriented knowledge representation to enable the user to construct detailed models of the retrieval domain of interest. The Booz, Allen & Hamilton system that implements these ideas is called MINERVA and currently uses two kinds of mediators to support access. "Query Mediators" first transform user queries into a series of finer-grained information requests using the knowledge-base of retrieval models, and then probabilistically combine and evaluate the responses from the individual sources. "Source Mediators" first transform the fine-grained requests from the Query Mediators into source specific requests using local knowledge of the sources and their information characteristics, and then transform the responses from the specific sources into a form that the Query Mediators can use for combination and evaluation.
Keywords: Heterogeneous databases, mediated systems, distributed information retrieval, knowledge-based information access.
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