BRIEF-version Description of: IJCAI-01 Tutorial on Agent Communication in Knowledge Based Electronic Markets

• Speakers: Benjamin Grosof and Yannis Labrou

• Title: Agent Communication in Knowledge Based Electronic Markets

• Length: half-day

• Description of Tutorial Content:

  Background: Electronic markets (e-markets) for the buying and selling of goods and services over the Web are a fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar segment of the world economy. Relevant knowledge-based techniques draw on several areas of AI: knowledge representation and reasoning, learning, and communication. As more knowledge-based pieces of e-commerce have developed, issues are arising of how to put them together into overall functioning markets -- largely, via forms of agent communication. E-markets include infrastructural and intermediary services, e.g., for yellow pages, catalogs, shopping search, advertising, sales assistants, brokers/aggregators, infomediaries, reputation/trust, authentication, and payments. Intelligent software agents in this context are autonomous, cooperating processes that use rich agent communication languages to exchange information and knowledge and to coordinate their activities.

  This tutorial will discuss existing techniques and their theory, currently identified challenges, standardization efforts and near-future opportunities for practical applications of agent communication in knowledge-based e-markets. Here, knowledge-based techniques for agent communication, ontologies, business rules, and information integration are of rising interest, in part due to the rise of XML, and have started having practical impact on real e-markets. The tutorial includes a brief review of several agent-based projects that are using these emerging standards.

  For more detailed and updated information on the content of the tutorial, and more detailed speaker bios, see the link at http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~bgrosof/ .

• Prerequisites:

  Basic general AI knowledge, in particular especially the basics of rule-based knowledge representation, is assumed.

• Speaker Bios:

  Benjamin Grosof is Assistant Professor in Information Technology at MIT Sloan School of Management. His research combines agent communication, XML, and knowledge representation for contracting, negotiation, and business policies. Currently a PI in the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) program, he earlier led the creation of IBM CommonRules and IBM Agent Building Environment.

  Email: bgrosof@mit.edu
  Home Page: http://www.mit.edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/~bgrosof/

  Dr. Yannis Labrou is Director of Technology of PowerMarket and Visiting Assistant Professor at the CSEE Dept., UMBC. He has pursued research on software agents and their applications in e-business through funded research in supply chain management, as an active participant in FIPA and as an instrumental contributor to KQML.

  Email: yannis@powermarket.com
  Home Page: http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~jklabrou/

Last modified 12-18-00.