Meta-information generation in distributed information system

The authors discuss the concept of meta-information which is the description of information system or its subsystems, and proposes algorithms for meta-information generation. Meta-information can be generated in parallel mode and network computation can be used to accelerate meta-information generation. Most existing rough set methods assume information system to be centralized and cannot be applied directly in distributed information system. Data integration, which is costly, is necessary for such existing methods. However, meta-information integration will eliminate the need of data integration in many cases, since many rough set operations can be done straightforward based on meta-information, and many existing methods can be modified based on meta-information. © 2002, Zhejiang University Press.