Agent fabrication and its implementation for agent-based electronic commerce

In the last decade, agent-based e-commerce has emerged as a potential role for the next generation of e-commerce. How to create agents for e-commerce applications has become a serious consideration in this field. This paper proposes a new scheme named agent fabrication and elaborates its implementation in multi-agent systems based on the SAFER (Secure Agent Fabrication, Evolution & Roaming) architecture. First, a conceptual structure is proposed for software agents carrying out e-commerce activities. Furthermore, agent module suitcase is defined to facilitate agent fabrication. With these definitions and facilities in the SAFER architecture, the formalities of agent fabrication are elaborated. In order to enhance the security of agent-based e-commerce, an infrastructure of agent authorization and authentication is integrated in agent fabrication. Our implementation and prototype applications show that the proposed agent fabrication scheme brings forth a potential solution for creating agents in agent-based e-commerce applications

Service-oriented computing : agents, semantics, and engineering : AAMAS 2007 International Workshop, SOCASE 2007, Honolulu, HI, USA, May 14, 2007 : proceedings

Executing Semantic Web Services with a Context-Aware Service Execution Agent.- An Effective Strategy for the Flexible Provisioning of Service Workflows.- Using Goals for Flexible Service Orchestration.- An Agent-Based Approach to User-Initiated Semantic Service Interconnection.- A Lightweight Agent Fabric for Service Autonomy.- Semantic Service Composition in Service-Oriented Multiagent Systems: A Filtering Approach.- Towards a Mapping from BPMN to Agents.- Associated Topic Extraction for Consumer Generated Media Analysis.- An MAS Infrastructure for Implementing SWSA Based Semantic Services.- A Role-Based Support Mechanism for Service Description and Discovery.- WS2JADE: Integrating Web Service with Jade Agents.- Z-Based Agents for Service Oriented Computing

Injecting roles in Java agents through runtime bytecode manipulation

Agents are problem-solving entities that can be used to develop complex and distributed systems because they are autonomous, mobile, reactive, social, and proactive. Today's trends in agent technology include the development of applications as multi-agent systems, where several agents interact within the same application. In these systems, the interactions among agents must be carefully considered. Roles constitute a powerful paradigm for modeling interactions, allowing algorithmic issues and interaction-dependent issues to be handled independently. In this paper, we present the RoleX interaction infrastructure, which enables Java(TM) agents to dynamically assume and use roles at runtime. Our approach is based on using bytecode manipulation to add (or remove) Java members from agents, changing their capabilities. We detail the main component of RoleX, the Role Loader, which performs the bytecode manipulation that allows agents to dynamically assume and release roles

A Semantic Grid Oriented to E-Tourism

With increasing complexity of tourism business models and tasks, there is a clear need of the next generation e-Tourism infrastructure to support flexible automation, integration, computation, storage, and collaboration. Currently several enabling technologies such as semantic Web, Web service, agent and grid computing have been applied in the different e-Tourism applications, however there is no a unified framework to be able to integrate all of them. So this paper presents a promising e-Tourism framework based on emerging semantic grid, in which a number of key design issues are discussed including architecture, ontologies structure, semantic reconciliation, service and resource discovery, role based authorization and intelligent agent. The paper finally provides the implementation of the framework.Comment: 12 PAGES, 7 Figure

Competitiveness of Arabian gulf ports from shipping lines’ perspectives: Case of Sohar port in Oman

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate the factors that encourage shipping lines to use port of Sohar, in Oman. Some selected factors were used to assess to what extent it affects the port choice from shipping lines companies’ perspective. These factors include infrastructure, hinterland, connectivity and port’s dues. Design/methodology/approach: for this study both quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used. Self-administered questionnaire used for collecting quantitative data while interviews were used to collect qualitative data. Secondary data was collected by reviewing academic literature and recent relevant articles and reports. Findings: Port of Sohar has a better opportunity to be the gateway of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States and all Cargo could have dropped in the port and transferred to other GCC States by road, rail and other transportation modes. This opportunity is gained by the strategic location of Sohar Port outside of the Strait of Hormuz. It can be concluded that port competitiveness can be improved through strategic location, improved hinterland conditions, port facilities, services cost, volume of cargo, connectivity to other ports and dwell time factor. Research limitations: The research was limited mainly by conducting it only at the port of Sohar because surrounding ports are too far away and it should involve more ports to gain comparative results. Limited number of stakeholders as Port Authority, Oman International Container Terminal (OICT) and shipping lines companies and agents is another limitation. Practical implications: The port can improve its competitive advantages and focus on the investigated factors. The government can also continue in working in the three big infrastructural projects; the new express roads, Sohar Airport and rail network connections with other GCC networks. Originality/value: the study used specific factors that expected to contribute to the shipping lines companies’ selection of ports in the gulf region. This could help the port to identify their competitive advantage and how they can use these competencies to improve their competitiveness in relation to other ports in the region.Peer Reviewe

OpenKnowledge at work: exploring centralized and decentralized information gathering in emergency contexts

Real-world experience teaches us that to manage emergencies, efficient crisis response coordination is crucial; ICT infrastructures are effective in supporting the people involved in such contexts, by supporting effective ways of interaction. They also should provide innovative means of communication and information management. At present, centralized architectures are mostly used for this purpose; however, alternative infrastructures based on the use of distributed information sources, are currently being explored, studied and analyzed. This paper aims at investigating the capability of a novel approach (developed within the European project OpenKnowledge1) to support centralized as well as decentralized architectures for information gathering. For this purpose we developed an agent-based e-Response simulation environment fully integrated with the OpenKnowledge infrastructure and through which existing emergency plans are modelled and simulated. Preliminary results show the OpenKnowledge capability of supporting the two afore-mentioned architectures and, under ideal assumptions, a comparable performance in both cases

Infrastructure transitions toward sustainability: a complex adaptive systems perspective

To ensure infrastructure assets are procured and maintained by government on behalf of citizens, appropriate policy and institutional architecture is needed, particularly if a fundamental shift to more sustainable infrastructure is the goal. The shift in recent years from competitive and resource-intensive procurement to more collaborative and sustainable approaches to infrastructure governance is considered a major transition in infrastructure procurement systems. In order to better understand this transition in infrastructure procurement arrangements, the concept of emergence from Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory is offered as a key construct. Emergence holds that micro interactions can result in emergent macro order. Applying the concept of emergence to infrastructure procurement, this research examines how interaction of agents in individual projects can result in different industry structural characteristics. The paper concludes that CAS theory, and particularly the concept of ‘emergence’, provides a useful construct to understand infrastructure procurement dynamics and progress towards sustainability