NewsFilter
---------

This is an application, an information filter to be 
precise, for Internet news groups, using a tightly
coupled IAgent-based intelligent agent.

The main points of this application include:

* The underlying protocol for accessing an Internet 
  news server is the 'Network News Transport Protocol'
  (NNTP).  News servers listen at port 119.  The basic
  command strings include 'GROUP' for selecting a news 
  group, 'STAT' to set the cursor on a specific article, 
  'NEXT' to walk through the news group articles, and
  'HEAD' and 'BODY' to retrieve data concerning the
  individual articles.

* The 'NewsFilter' application class provides three 
  types of filtering of news groups articles:
	- 'Keyword filtering' based on a number of
	  keyword matches,
	-  'Cluster filtering' based on grouping 
	   similar articles using neural clustering,
	-  'Feedback filtering' using a neural 
	   prediction model to score articles based 
	   on relevance.

* The 'FilterAgent' extends the IAgent class by providing 
  methods for keyword scoring and for autonomously training
  Kohonen map and back propagation neural networks.  The 
  FilterAgent also maintains the user profile text files,
  'newsfilter.dat' and 'newsfilter.dfn' for training the
  neural nets.

To see the application in action you have to compile the 
application java file using:  

	javac NewsFilter.java

and produce 27 class files, apart from the 3 IAgent base 
classes, resulting with:

NewsFilter.class
IAgent.class
FilterAgent.java
NewsFilter.java
KMapNet.class
NewsArticle.java
IAgentEvent.java
NewsGroupDialog.java
IAgentEventListener.java
NewsHostDialog.java
KeywordDialog.java
NewsFilter$SymAction.class
NewsFilter$SymItem.class
AboutNewsFilterDialog.java
QuitDialog.java
IAgent.java
NewsFilter$windowEvents.class
FilterAgent.class
IAgentEventListener.class
BackProp.java
KMapNet.java
DataSet.java
NewsArticle.class
Variable.java
NewsGroupDialog.class
ContinuousVariable.java
DataSet.class
DiscreteVariable.java
NewsGroupDialog$SymAction.class
NewsGroupDialog$windowEvents.class
NewsHostDialog.class
NewsHostDialog$SymAction.class
NewsHostDialog$windowEvents.class
KeywordDialog.class
KeywordDialog$SymAction.class
KeywordDialog$windowEvents.class
AboutNewsFilterDialog.class
AboutNewsFilterDialog$SymAction.class
AboutNewsFilterDialog$windowEvents.class
QuitDialog.class
QuitDialog$SymAction.class
QuitDialog$windowEvents.class
BackProp.class
IAgentEvent.class
Variable.class
newsfilter.dfn
newsfilter.dat
ContinuousVariable.class
DiscreteVariable.class


Then run the application by issueing the command:

	java NewsFilter


Note:  This code was tested using JDK1.1.8 which can be 
downloaded and installed from the site:

http://staff.um.edu.mt/mmon1/lectures/java

-----------------------------------------
MM2000