Distributed data search and retrieval in open mobile agent systems

This thesis explores issues related to the use of mobile agent (MA) technology to perform data retrieval from distributed digital libraries in the context of open MA systems. MAs are software entities capable of autonomous migration within a computer network. Open MA systems are MA-based systems in which hosts and MAs representing different resource owners and applications interact.; The objectives were to show that an architecture based on MA technology would address the problems of Web-based access to distributed digital libraries, and to develop insight into the question of how to effectively distribute computation-intensive data analysis for digital library tasks.; The architecture was developed following an object-oriented analysis and design methodology, using content-based retrieval of medical images as a proof-of-concept application. It was concluded that the proposed architecture addressed the identified problems of distributed digital library access and was a significant first step towards convincingly demonstrating the viability of an MA approach for this class of applications.; The second objective was approached via experimental work using a prototypal implementation of the proposed architecture. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...