A flexible architecture for query integration and mapping

The aim of information integration is to build sophisticated information systems by making use of the available information sources to the fullest extent and by pushing costly operations to the sources as much as possible. This is especially true when translating queries across multiple multimedia information sources that support advanced and/or similarity based queries. We propose a flexible architecture that allows users to specify a wide range of structured queries using generic and simple query constructs and connectives through a uniform query interface. These queries are translated into resource specific queries by processing rules that specify the properties of different query interfaces as well as the user preferences for evaluating queries. We show how different and multiple notions of query relaxation can be captured in this framework naturally.