A Mechanism for Combining Data Analysis Algorithms with Databases on the Internet

It is probably justified to call our era as the information age. Presently giga and tera bytes of information are stored across the internet and the intranets. The acquisition of information however, can only make sense if it is accompanied by tools and methods that organize and support the effortless and accurate requisition. Although current data analysis systems provide the means for information retrieval and knowledge discovery, they operate on limited capacity in the sense that each system is designed and used in conjunction with only a few and in most of the cases just one database. In this paper, we present an open architecture for combining arbitrarily and securely on the Internet both the data analysis algorithms and the databases even if their vendors or suppliers are different. We also present a payment protocol which the users, the algorithm and the database suppliers may use to negotiate and agree on the services provided.