The Foundations of Information Push and Pull

摘要: Information push and information pull have recently emerged as useful concepts to describe the operation of distributed resources. push, in particular, is becoming closely associated with intelligent agent functionality. Loosely speaking, if a user requests receives very specific piece information, this pull. If sent anticipation user’s need, or agent’s response includes not directly solicited, then situation characterized push. Intuitively, junk mail (electronic paper), television newscasts wirefeeds are examples New web services such Pointcast Informant more selective technologies. Web browsing, library searches, telephone white pages traditional Clearly, these categorizations can be ambiguous easily lost semantics. The main goal paper formalize mathematical framework around which further work precise. Specifically, we develop stochastic based on Markov models an ambient environment system. Depending relationships between environment, performance criterion, continuum possible scenarios described. Some basic analytic results concerning push/pull system derived.