Research and application of PowerCMS middleware in information updating of agricultural e-commerce

Abstract

Agricultural products information cannot be updated in a timely fashion. This has been identified as an urgent problem in rural areas of China where e-commerce is involved. This paper presents a middleware content management system (also called PowerCMS middleware) for updating agricultural products information intelligently and automatically. PowerCMS middleware is based on the technology framework of J2EE WEB service but with the added benefits of middleware. Through its extensible architecture and flexible data handling processes, PowerCMS provides several essential functions such as automatic creation and intelligent collection of content, content-based publication-subscription, personalised customisation of agricultural product information, the storage and management of internal and external data, user-rights management, and optimisation tactics for handling queries. To show how PowerCMS middleware can effectively deal with content management, an application of updating of agricultural products inform ation is presented as a case study. © 2007 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.