Advanced semantic search and retrieval in a collaborative peer-to-peer system

Semantic search, one of the ideas underpinning the Semantic Web vision, is receiving attention from the scientific community since it can significantly improve keyword-based search. In this paper we present the SECCO ontology mapping algorithm that enables distributed semantic search of Knowledge Objects (e.g., textual documents, emails) within Peer to Peer networks. We discuss the ontological framework which SECCO is founded on and how the algorithm is implemented in a semantic Peer to Peer framework, named K-link+. The ontological framework along with the SECCO algorithm allow K-link+ to: (i) exploit ontologies for knowledge representation; (ii) annotate KOs to ontology concepts; (iii) retrieve and rank KOs; (iv) create collaborative communities of peers called semantic workspaces. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright 2008 ACM.