• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2004

This paper presents a method for the multilingual product retrieval agent through XML and the semantic networks in e-commerce. Retrieval for products is an important process, since it represents interfaces of the customer contact to the e-commerce. Keyword-based retrieval is efficient as long as the product information is structured and organized. But when the product information is expressed across many online shopping malls, especially when it is expressed in different languages with cultural backgrounds, buyers' product retrieval needs language translation with ambiguities resolved in a specific context. This paper presents a RDF modeling case that resolves semantic problems in the representation of product information and across the boundaries of language domains. With adoption of UNSPSC code system, this paper designs and implements an architecture for the multilingual product retrieval agents. The architecture is based on the central repository model of product catalog management with distributed updating processes. It also includes the perspectives of buyers and suppliers. And the consistency and version management of product information are controlled by UNSPSC code system. The multilingual product names are resolved by semantic networks, thesaurus and ontology dictionary for product names.