Designing Component-Based Heuristic Search Engines for Knowledge Discovery

Abstract

The overall size of software packages has grown considerably over recent years. Modular programming, object-oriented design and the use of static and dynamic libraries have all contributed towards the reusability and maintainability of these packages. One of the latest methodologies that aims to further improve software design is the use of component-based services. The Component Object Model (COM) is a specification that provides a standard for writing software components that are easily interoperable. The most common platform for component libraries is on Microsoft Windows, where COM objects are an integral part of the operating system and used extensively in most major applications. This chapter examines the use of COM in the design of search engines for knowledge discovery and data mining using modern heuristic techniques and how adopting this approach benefits the design of a commercial toolkit. The chapter describes how search engines have been implemented as COM objects and how representation and problem components have been created to solve rule induction problems in data mining.