Latin for ''network''.

A specialized [graph] data structure used in expert system shells and production systems, such as [CLIPS] and [Jess].

[[ ... give overview of details ... ]]

[[ Beta/Alpha nodes... node memory ... many object/many match ...]]

[[ ... Original Forgy article in Artificial Intelligence Journal ... ]]

The citation for the original article is:

C. Forgy, ''RETE: A fast algorithm for the many pattern/many object pattern match problem'', Artificial Intelligence, 19 (1982), pp 17-37.

Unfortunately, you can't get this article anywhere on-line. You'll have to trawl your local University Library.
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Here is a paper comparing RETE and TREAT that is available on-line http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/nayak88comparison.html
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[AH] 20 Oct 2005: Also see Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete] for a short summary and links to other resources. I found Bob Doorenbos's PhD thesis particularly readable (first external link in the Wikipedia page, or [http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/1995/CMU-CS-95-113.pdf]).