Abstract
The research of retrieving data in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems has become more and more important in many research communities nowadays. Among all query-related studies, the technique of top-k queries, which can locate the k objects with the highest overall rankings, is urgently demanded in many network applications. Designing top-k techniques in P2P systems is challenging. P2P systems are characterized by large-scale, free peer behaviors, and dynamic data. Under the circumstances, the traditional query techniques designed for static environments and data would probably generate many unnecessary traffic messages and consume huge computation cost. To ease these problems, we propose an effective solution for continuous top-k query in P2P systems in this paper. The proposed technique, based on superpeer topology, consists of a reliable update mechanism between peers and a distributing mechanism between superpeers. As the experimental results show, the proposed technique can provide comparable results while reducing considerable communication cost. iv