Title: Evaluation of scalable multi-agent system architectures for searching the Semantic Web

Authors: I.W. Blacoe, V. Tamma, M.J. Wooldridge

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, L69 3BX Liverpool, UK. ' Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, L69 3BX Liverpool, UK. ' Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, L69 3BX Liverpool, UK

Abstract: The Semantic Web (SW) is an open environment where heterogeneous and distributed knowledge is rendered machine-processable using ontologies, their extensions, and annotation metadata. The volume of resources available for semantic annotation indicates a requirement for scalable and robust mechanisms to search for resources using the encoded knowledge. SERSE is a multi-agent system to index, query, retrieve and aggregate Semantic Web resources. SERSE agents apply ontological knowledge to maintain a distributed semantic index, that is inter-connected by a semantic overlay network. Efficient retrieval of resources is achieved by the semantic routing mechanism, that locates those agents indexing resources matching a query. The paper presents the routing mechanism and an analytical evaluation of some of the autonomic features exhibited by the agents in order to ensure scalability.

Keywords: multi-agent systems; semantic web; search; semantic annotation; MAS; agent-based systems; semantics; ontologies; annotation metadata; distributed semantic index; semantic overlay network; semantic routing; resource retrieval; query; resource indexing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMSO.2010.033281

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 2010 Vol.5 No.2, pp.99 - 119

Received: 09 Jun 2009
Accepted: 29 Dec 2009
Published online: 16 May 2010 *

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