A flexible architecture for distributed knowledge based systems with nomadic access through handheld devices

Nowadays any Knowledge Based System (KBS) realization needs of intercommunication among distributed components and to use non-connected and distributed data sources, which poses several challenges to the classical Artificial Intelligence field of KBS. The multiagent paradigm and the use of ontologies are considered to be suitable tools to face the problems of designing and developing today KBS. On the other hand, using such networked KBS through handheld devices makes more efficient exploitation and interaction with the system. This paper presents an open and flexible architecture for a distributed KBS and an application of it to construct a system for Psychological Disorders consulting, the so called PDA(2) (psychological Disorder Assistant through PDA). We analyze the main features of the architecture as well as the agent tools we may use to construct it. Additionally, we present a support ontology for Psychological Disorders. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.