The Web is growing at an astounding pace surpassing the 8 billion page mark. However, most pages are still designed for human consumption and cannot be processed by machines. This book provides a well-paced introduction to the Semantic Web. It covers a wide range of topics, from new trends (ontologies, rules) to existing technologies (Web Services and software agents) to more formal aspects (logic and inference). It includes: real-world (and complete) examples of the application of Semantic Web concepts; how the technology presented and discussed throughout the book can be extended to other application areas.
Five years ago, with excitement and uncertainty, we witnessed the birth of PRIMA (Paci?c Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents). The ?rst PRIMA in 1998 has now grown into PRIMA 2003, the 6th Paci?c Rim Inter- tional Workshop on Multi-Agents in Seoul, Korea. During a period of ?ve years, the notion of agent research has grown so much that we hear the term agent on a daily basis. Various ?elds such as business, the Web, software engineering, on-line games and such are now using the term agent as a placeholder, just like the term object is used in the object-oriented paradigm. On the other hand, the research area has extended toward real applications, such as the Semantic Web and ubiquitous computing. The themes of PRIMA 2003 re?ected the following trends: – agent-based electronic commerce, auctions and markets – agent architectures and their applications – agent communication languages, dialog and interaction protocols – agent ontologies – agent programming languages, frameworks and toolkits – agentcities – agents and grid computing – agents and peer computing –agentsandtheSemanticWeb – agents and Web services – arti?cial social systems – con?ict resolution and negotiation – evaluation of multi-agent systems – languages and techniques for describing (multi-)agent systems – meta modeling and meta reasoning – multi-agent planning and learning – multi-agent systems and their applications – social reasoning, agent modeling, and organization – standards for agents and multi-agent systems – teams and coalitions – ubiquitous agents
The volume aims at providing a comprehensive review of the diverse efforts covering the gap existing between the two main perspectives on the topic of ontologies for multi-agent systems, namely: How ontologies should be modelled and represented in order to be effectively used in agent systems, and on the other hand, what kind of capabilities should be exhibited by an agent in order to make use of ontological knowledge and to perform efficient reasoning with it. The volume collects the most significant papers of the AAMAS 2002 and AAMAS 2003 workshop on ontologies for agent systems, and the EKAW 2002 workshop on ontologies for multi-agent systems.
Semantic agent systems are about the integration of the semantic Web, software agents, and multi-agent systems technologies. Like in the past (e.g. biology and informatics yielding bioinformatics) a whole new perspective is emerging with semantic agent systems. In this context, the semantic Web is a Web of semantically linked data which aims to enable man and machine to execute tasks in tandem. Here, software agents in a multi-agent system as delegates of humans are endowed with power to use semantically linked data. This edited book “Semantic Agent Systems: Foundations and Applications” proposes contributions on a wide range of topics on foundations and applications written by a selection of international experts. It first introduces in an accessible style the nature of semantic agent systems. Then it explores with numerous illustrations new frontiers in software agent technology. “Semantic Agent Systems: Foundations and Applications” is recommended for scientists, experts, researchers, and learners in the field of artificial intelligence, the semantic Web, software agents, and multi-agent systems technologies.
Provides a single record of technologies and practices of the Semantic approach to the management, organization, interpretation, retrieval, and use of Web-based data.
The refereed proceedings of the IFIP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms, Middleware 2003, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2003. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 158 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on peer-to-peer computing, publish-subscribe middleware, adaptability and context-awareness, web-based middleware, and mobile and ubiquitous computing.
These are the proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents (CIA 2002), held at the Universidad de Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, September 18–20, 2002. It was colocated with the Third Int- national Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agents World (ESAW 2002). Since 1997 the annual CIA workshop series has aimed to provide an open forum for all parties interested in the research and development of intelligent infor- tion agents for the Internet and Web. Each event in this renowned series attempts to capture the intrinsic interdisciplinary nature of this research area by calling for contributions from di?erent research communities, and by promoting open and informative discussions on all related topics. In keeping with its tradition, this year’s workshop featured a sequence of regular and invited talks of excellence given by leading experts in the ?elds related to information agent technology. These talks covered a broad area of topics of - terest, such as information agents for mobile computing environments as well as information gathering, exchange, management, and collaborative recommender systems. Other topics included agent interaction and communication, negot- tion strategies for purchasing relevant information, and agent-based distributed knowledge management.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Service-Oriented Computing: Agents, Semantics, and Engineering, SOCASE 2008, held in Estoril, Portugal, as an associated event of AAMAS 2008, the main international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. The 11 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers address a range of topics at the intersection of service-oriented computing, semantic technology, and intelligent multiagent systems, such as: service description and discovery; plannin.
Multiagent systems is an expanding field that blends classical fields like game theory and decentralized control with modern fields like computer science and machine learning. This monograph provides a concise introduction to the subject, covering the theoretical foundations as well as more recent developments in a coherent and readable manner. The text is centered on the concept of an agent as decision maker. Chapter 1 is a short introduction to the field of multiagent systems. Chapter 2 covers the basic theory of singleagent decision making under uncertainty. Chapter 3 is a brief introduction to game theory, explaining classical concepts like Nash equilibrium. Chapter 4 deals with the fundamental problem of coordinating a team of collaborative agents. Chapter 5 studies the problem of multiagent reasoning and decision making under partial observability. Chapter 6 focuses on the design of protocols that are stable against manipulations by self-interested agents. Chapter 7 provides a short introduction to the rapidly expanding field of multiagent reinforcement learning. The material can be used for teaching a half-semester course on multiagent systems covering, roughly, one chapter per lecture.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2006, held in Athens, GA, USA in November 2006. It features more than 52 papers that address all current issues in the field of the semantic Web, ranging from theoretical aspects to various applied topics. An additional 14 papers detail applications in government, public health, public service, academic, and industry.
