Mediator

Abstract

Mediator: An Integrated Approach to Information Retrieval The Mediator is a pseudo intelligent software controller which accomplishes two ends. First, it “mediates” between an Information Retrieval System and its end-user. On the assumption that the user of such a system will have at best a minimal knowledge of the operations of computers, it hides from him the internal complexities of the system, and presents to him a simplified “abstract” of the operations of the system. The Mediator allows the end-user to communicate with any application program in his own terms and to carry out operations of any degree of complexity which can be defined within those terms. Secondly, the controller enables a single system to extract unified information from data-banks of both data base management and textual environments. The Mediator is driven by a combination of hierarchically structured internal and external tables. The external tables contain a vocabulary selected by the user for his personal communication with the system; the internal tables contain directives which determine the appropriate path to be followed by the retrieval system in accomplishing the user's request.