Conflict resolution in virtual locations

The growing use of telematic ways of communication and of the new developments of Artificial Intelligence, brought along new ways of doing business, now in an electronic format, and requiring a new legal approach. Thus, there is an obvious need for legal changes and adaptations, not only concerning a new approach of traditional legal institutes, but also concerning a need for new developments in procedural means. Transactions are now undertaken in fractions of seconds, through the telematic networks, requiring more efficient ways for solving conflicts; on the other hand, the fact that we must now consider commercial transactions totally undertaken within an electronic environment (“online transactions”) leads to an obligation of rethinking the ways of solving disputes, that will inevitably arise from electronic commerce. It is an important change already taking place, pointing out to various ways of alternative dispute resolution and, among all these ways, letting us already perceive different possibilities of using the new technologies in order to reach faster and more efficient ways (still also “fair”) of solving commercial disputes. It is a whole new evolution towards a growing use not only alternative dispute resolution, but also, towards the so-called on-line dispute resolution.The work described in this paper is included in TIARAC - Telematics and Artificial Intelligence in Alternative Conflict Resolution Project (PTDC/JUR/71354/2006), which is a research project supported by FCT (Science & Technology Foundation), Portugal

Ontology support for translating negotiation primitives

In this paper we present an ontology solution to solve the problem of language heterogeneity among negotiating agents during the exchange of messages over Internet. Traditional negotiation systems have been implemented using different syntax and semantics. Our proposal offers a novel solution incorporating an ontology, which serves as a shared vocabulary of negotiation messages; and a translation module that is executed on the occurrence of a misunderstanding. We implemented a service oriented architecture for executing negotiations and conducted experiments incorporating different negotiation messages. The results of the tests show that the proposed solution improves the interoperability between heterogeneous negotiation agents.IFIP International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice - Integration of AI with other TechnologiesRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Perspectives for using software agents in e-Government applications

Governing a country includes a set of decentralised processes. Moreover, in the unions ofcountries with integrated economic space, the decentralisation issue gains the attention. The mostknown examples of federated governments are two of the biggest world economies: the UnitedStates of America and the European Union. The decentralisation is even more significant whenconsidering resources for businesses. Specifically the workforce, the land and the infrastructure arecommonly managed at the local or the sub-local level. The paper addresses the issues concerningcitizens’ mobility (both for personal and professional purposes) and businesses’ pan-Europeanoperations.Application of autonomous software agents to aid cross-border businesses operations andcitizens movements is addressed. The paper presents the possibility of making citizens’movements smoother and involving less paperwork. To support these ideas, the foundations andconclusions from Infocitizen initiative are introduced.In the conclusions of the paper, it is suggested that the agent-based technology for openingagents-ready virtual offices by agencies at all levels of government should be used. It wouldbenefit the users if they were allowed to set up software agents to act on their behalf and to searchall possible locations in order to find required resources. The mentioned task would be impossibleor extremely resource-consuming when done manually

Multi-perspective requirements engineering for networked business systems: a framework for pattern composition

How business and software analysts explore, document, and negotiate requirements for enterprise systems is critical to the benefits their organizations will eventually derive. In this paper, we present a framework for analysis and redesign of networked business systems. It is based on libraries of patterns which are derived from existing Internet businesses. The framework includes three perspectives: Economic value, Business processes, and Application communication, each of which applies a goal-oriented method to compose patterns. By means of consistency relationships between perspectives, we demonstrate the usefulness of the patterns as a light-weight approach to exploration of business ideas

Perspectives for using software agents in e-Government applications

Governing a country includes a set of decentralised processes. Moreover, in the unions ofcountries with integrated economic space, the decentralisation issue gains the attention. The mostknown examples of federated governments are two of the biggest world economies: the UnitedStates of America and the European Union. The decentralisation is even more significant whenconsidering resources for businesses. Specifically the workforce, the land and the infrastructure arecommonly managed at the local or the sub-local level. The paper addresses the issues concerningcitizens’ mobility (both for personal and professional purposes) and businesses’ pan-Europeanoperations.Application of autonomous software agents to aid cross-border businesses operations andcitizens movements is addressed. The paper presents the possibility of making citizens’movements smoother and involving less paperwork. To support these ideas, the foundations andconclusions from Infocitizen initiative are introduced.In the conclusions of the paper, it is suggested that the agent-based technology for openingagents-ready virtual offices by agencies at all levels of government should be used. It wouldbenefit the users if they were allowed to set up software agents to act on their behalf and to searchall possible locations in order to find required resources. The mentioned task would be impossibleor extremely resource-consuming when done manually

A roadmap of ICT for Manufacturing in the ‘Horizon 2020’ prospective

This document is the result of a synthesis of the ActionPlanT project “Roadmap for FP8” and it is intended to provide a general understanding of the work approach and of the roadmap contents. The ActionPlanT project is co-funded by the European Commission under the Private-Public Partnership (PPP) "Factories of the Future" within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) (Grant Agreement Number 258617). ActionPlanT aims to develop a vision on the short, medium, and long term role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the European manufacturing industry. ActionPlanT also liaises with EFFRA, the Factories of the Future Research Association, as a key industry representing body. ActionPlanT activities include the development of a roadmap to prioritize most promising topics for the next Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (‘Horizon 2020’, covering the period 2014-2020). The research project started in June 2010 and ended in May 2012