Implementing an Information Retrieval and Visualization Framework for Heterogeneous Data Types

In today's information focused world, there is no lack of entities focused on information gathering. However, there is still a widespread epidemic of information starvation in the Department of Defense (DoD). This starvation is attributed to the lack of interoperability between information gatherers and information consumers. To alleviate this problem, the DoD has put forth a vision of a Joint Battlespace Infosphere (JBI). This research proposes a framework for sharing and finding resources in a JBI. The framework uses an extensible metadata specification, agent technology, and the Control of Agent Based Systems (CoABS). It provides several tools for publication and subscription of resources, including a visual query wizard and a visualization of the results. This framework and tools provide visual query capability for the heterogeneous resources within the JBI.