HERMES - A Heterogeneous Reasoning and Mediator System

An overview of the HERMES Project

HERMES is a system for semantically integrating different and possibly heterogeneous information sources and reasoning systems. This is accomplished by executing programs, called mediators, written in the HERMES system. Mediators, first proposed by Wiederhold, are guidelines of how information from different sources will be combined and integrated. HERMES system is based on the theory of Hybrid Knowledge Bases, due to Lu, Nerode and Subrahmanian. In this framework, external information sources are abstracted as domains which execute certain functions with pre-specified input and output type. These domains are accessed in mediators using a logic-based declarative language. This language is based on Annotated Logics, due to Kifer and Subrahmanian, and it provides a powerfull and extensible programming environment. The system also provides a uniform environment for the easy addition of new external sources to existing mediators. The system currently runs on Sun Sparc stations (under Unix), as well as on the IBM-PC platform under DOS/Windows 3.1. A graphical user interface has been built on both platforms.


HERMES - The Complete Architecture
This is the HTML version of a paper which has recently been submitted for publication. It contains the complete description of the architecture and the current status of the project.

Back to the Hermes homepage.
Send comments to kemal@cs.umd.edu or candan@cs.umd.edu

Web Accessibility