Author_Institution :
Dept. of Inf. Eng., Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong, Shatin, China
Abstract :
We present an agent-based system for bolstering holistic information retrieval via the WWW. In Ellis´ holistic model of information seeking behaviors, the information seeking activities include: selection of sources, browsing and differentiating, monitoring as well as extraction. Through the use of a query processing agent (QPA), information filtering agents (IFAs) and information monitoring agents (IMAs), these activities can be automated. By establishing subclass relations among (key)words the query processing agent (QPA) expands a query with a list of subqueries to select appropriate URLs. Using three relevance metrics: word relations, frequency and nearness of keywords, the IFA is used to determine the relevance of a page. Additionally, IMAs can be used to track changes in the content of selected pages, paragraphs or tables in Web sites. Empirical results demonstrated that the QPA can find appropriate number of Web sites, and IFAs are effective in filtering relevant information. As part of an on-going work, an Information Extraction Agent is currently being designed and developed.
Keywords :
Internet; Web sites; information filters; information retrieval; knowledge based systems; multi-agent systems; search engines; URL; WWW; Web page; Web sites; agent-based system; holistic Web-based information retrieval; information browsing; information differentiating; information extraction agent; information filtering agents; information monitoring agents; information seeking; query processing agent; search engines; Data mining; Information filtering; Information filters; Information retrieval; Monitoring; Query processing; Search engines; Testing; Uniform resource locators; World Wide Web;
