Double
Special Issue of the
International
Journal on Cooperative Information Systems, Vol. 10(1&2), March 2001
INTELLIGENT
INFORMATION AGENTS: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS
Guest Editor:
Matthias Klusch
Deduction and Multi-Agent
Systems Lab
German Research Center
for Artificial Intelligence Ltd.,
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3, 66123
Saarbrucken, Germany
TABLE OF CONTENT
-
Intelligent Information Agents: Theory and
applications, Guest Editor's Introduction.
Matthias Klusch (Germany)
-
Belief revision for adaptive information
filtering agents.
Raymond
Lau, Arthur H.M. ter Hofstede and Peter D. Bruza (Australia)
-
Multiagent learning in recommender systems
for information filtering on the Internet.
Joaquin Delgado and Noahiro Ishii (Japan)
-
Introduction to POS: A protocol operational
semantics.
Jean-Luc Koning, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (France)
-
Arbitration protocols for competing software
agents.
Torsten Tesch, Peter Fankhauser, Aris M. Ouksel (Germany, USA)
-
KRAFT: An agent architecture for knowledge
fusion.
Alun Preece et al. (UK)
-
The ARIADNE approach to Web-based information
integration.
Craig A. Knoblock et al. (USA)
-
Cooperative information agents for digital
cities.
Satoshi Oyama, Kaoru Hiramatsu, and Toru Ishida (Japan)
-
Computers as tools or as social actors?
- The users' perspective on anthropomorphic agents.
Heike Schaumburg (Germany)
SCOPE & TOPICS
This special issue of the International Journal on Cooperative Information
Systems is devoted to advances in theory and applications of intelligent
information agents. Roughly speaking, an information agent is a computational
software entity that has access to one or multiple, heterogeneous and geographically
distributed information sources; it pro-actively searches for and maintains
relevant information on behalf of users or other agents preferably in a
just-in-time fashion. Such an agent is supposed to satisfy one or multiple
of following requirements.
-
Information acquisition and management, i.e., it may monitor, update,
and provide transparent access to one or many different information sources,
retrieve, extract, analyze and filter data (including semi-structured or
even unstructured data).
-
Information synthesis and presentation, that is, it is able to integrate
heterogeneous data and to provide unified (and multi-dimensional) views
on data.
-
Intelligent user assistance by being able, for example to dynamically
adapt to user preferences, any kind of changes in information and network
environment. It may provide convenient individual interactive assistance
for everyday business on the Internet such as a life-like character, recommend
sources and future work steps, etc.
In other words, the agent helps to manage and overcome the difficulties
associated with information overload. In part, there are many approaches
and implemented solutions available from advanced databases, knowledge-bases
and distributed information systems technology to meet some of these demands.
The effective and efficient access to information on the Internet and Web
has become a critical research area. Information agents technology emerged
as part of the more general intelligent software agent technology around
seven years ago mainly as a response to the increasing challenges of the
cyberspace from both, the technological and human user perspective. It
is an inherently interdisciplinary technology encompassing approaches,
methods and tools from different research disciplines such as Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Advanced Database and Knowledge Base Systems, Distributed
Information Systems, Information Retrieval, Cognitive Sciences and Human
Computer Interaction (HCI). Today, it can be seen as one of the key technologies
for the actual and future Internet and worldwide Web.
Topics are but not limited to:
-
Architectures of (Systems of) Information
Agents: General and specific architectures of information
agents in different settings and environments. Approaches for communication
and collaboration between (systems) of information agents. Service matchmaking
and brokering. Inter-Agent Communication languages.
-
Advanced Database and Knowledge-Base Technology:
Interoperability in large-scaled, and uncertain information environments.
Application of Techniques for Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in open,
distributed and dynamically changing environments.
-
Methods of Adaptation and Learning for
Systems of Information Agents: Methods for automated uncertain
reasoning for information agents. Computation and action under uncertainty
and limited resources. Performance and measurement of adaptation of single
agent or multiagent systems in uncertain information environments.
-
Mobility and Issues of Security in the
Internet Architectures, Environments and Languages
for Mobile and Secure Information Agents and Servers. Secure agent execution
and protection of data servers from malicious agents. Cooperating Information
Agents in wearable computers, hand-held and/or satellite-based control
devices.
-
Rational Information Agents and Electronic
Commerce Agent-Based Marketplaces, Coalition Formation,
Auctions, Negotiations. Economic models of cooperative problem solving
among rational information agents in open information environments. Methods
for prevention and detection of lying rational information agents. Electronic
Commerce with incomplete and uncertain informations. Standards for privacy
of communication, security, and jurisdiction for agent-mediated deals.
-
Human-Agent Interaction and Interfaces
for Information Agents Synthetic Agents, believable
avatars, and 3-D multimedia-based representation of user information spaces
in the Internet. Models and Implementation of Advanced Interfaces for conversation
and dialogue among Information Agents and Users.
-
Systems and Applications
Systems and Applications of multiple collaborating Information Agents on
the Internet.
PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT
The length of the contribution should not exceed 22 pages. For guidelines
for preparing manuscript please check
In any case, you may check the Web site of the International Journal on
Cooperative Information Systems at: http://www.wspc.com.sg/journals/ijcis/ijcis.html
SUBMISSION OF MANUSCRIPT
Manuscripts have to be submitted by (electronic) mail to the Guest Editor
(see below).
Authors may suggest the appropriate persons to review/referee their
paper, however, the Editor need not necessarily take up the suggestion.
Authors may request that their identity be kept unknown to the referee.
Camera-ready manuscripts are to be prepared according to the instructions
provided in any issue of the journal, preferably using LATEX or TEX.
Please submit your manuscript by
E-Mail (printable POSTSCRIPT - A4 format-
AND the original text file) to
klusch@dfki.de
XOR
Mail (5 Hard Copies) to
Matthias Klusch
DFKI GmbH
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3
66123 Saarbruecken, Germany.