New generation E-learning technology by Web Services.

This paper discusses a new approach to build infrastructures for E-Learning systems for Learning Software Organizations on the basis of Web Services. A requirements context is developed to determine which type of E-Learning applications that can be Web Service Enabled. This is illustrated with a case study on an Encapsulated Software Teaching Environment. Additional facilities, such as didactical agents and deep personalization to facilitate Learning Software Organizations are discussed at the end.

Using Agent Solutions and Visualization Techniques to Manage Cloud-based Education System

Over the past few years, there are many requests from academic institutions, eLearning developers, education businesses owners, and global enterprises concerning cloud-based education systems. Nowadays, a range of software and applications have been created for managing teaching and learning resources via internet. Many of them have been even trying to integrate all the educational resources into a single cloud system. This paper proposes using agent technologies and visualization solutions to manage cloud-based education systems to match streamline of day to day business and operations. It focuses on adopting agents for University of Westminster’s Cloud computing education system and mobile learning project. It shows how intelligent agents can be used as a good tool for cloud-based education service and associated applications provision and management within Software as Service (SaaS) level

Software Agents

being used, and touted, for applications as diverse as personalised information management, electronic commerce, interface design, computer games, and management of complex commercial and industrial processes. Despite this proliferation, there is, as yet, no commonly agreed upon definition of exactly what an agent is — Smith et al. (1994) define it as “a persistent software entity dedicated to a specific purpose”; Selker (1994) takes agents to be “computer programs that simulate a human relationship by doing something that another person could do for you”; and Janca (1995) defines an agent as “a software entity to which tasks can be delegated”. To capture this variety, a relatively loose notion of an agent as a self-contained program capable of controlling its own decision making and acting, based on its perception of its environment, in pursuit of one or more objectives will be used here. Within the extant applications, three distinct classes of agent can be identified. At the simplest level, there are “gopher ” agents, which execute straightforward tasks based on pre-specified rules and assumptions (eg inform me when the share price deviates by 10 % from its mean position or tell me when I need to reorder stock items). The next level of sophistication involves “service performing” agents, which execute a well defined task at the request of a user (eg find me the cheapest flight to Paris or arrange a meeting with the managing director some day next week). Finally, there are “predictive ” agents, which volunteer information or services to a user, without being explicitly asked, whenever it is deemed appropriate (eg an agent may monitor newsgroups on the INTERNET and return discussions that it believes to be of interest to the user or a holiday agent may inform its user that a travel firm is offering large discounts on holidays to South Africa knowing that the user is interested in safaris). Common to all these classes are the following key hallmarks of agenthoo

Towards an agent-based and context-oriented approach to compose Web services

We present an agent-based and context-oriented approach for the composition of Web services. A Web service is an accessible application that other applications and humans can discover and trigger to satisfy multiple needs (e.g., hotel booking). Because of the complexity that characterizes the composition of Web services, two concepts in this paper are put forward to reduce this complexity namely software agent and context. A software agent is an autonomous entity that acts on behalf of users, whereas context is any relevant information that characterizes a situation. During the composition process, software agents engage conversations with their peers to agree on which Web services will participate in this process. In these conversations, agents take into account the execution context of the Web services

Towards Learned Anticipation in Complex Stochastic Environments

We describe a novel methodology by which a software agent can learn to predict future events in complex stochastic environmentals. It is particularly relevant to environments that are construed specifically so as to be able to support high-performance software agents, such as video games. We present results gathered from a first prototype of our approach. The technique presented may have applications that range beyond improving agent performance, in particular to user modeling in the service of automated game testing

A web services composition approach based on software agents and context

We present an agent-based and context-oriented approach for Web services composition. A Web service is an accessible application that other applications and humans can discover and trigger to satisfy various needs. Due to the complexity of Web services composition, we consider two concepts to reduce this complexity: Software agent and context. A software agent is an autonomous entity that acts on behalf of users, whereas context is any information relevant to characterize a situation. During composition, software agents engage conversations with their peers to agree on the Web services that will participate in the composition

Automatic conflict detection on contracts

Partially supported by the Nordunet3 project COSoDIS: “Contract-Oriented Software Development for Internet Services”.Many software applications are based on collaborating, yet competing, agents or virtual organisations exchanging services. Contracts, expressing obligations, permissions and prohibitions of the different actors, can be used to protect the interests of the organisations engaged in such service exchange. However, the potentially dynamic composition of services with different contracts, and the combination of service contracts with local contracts can give rise to unexpected conflicts, exposing the need for automatic techniques for contract analysis. In this paper we look at automatic analysis techniques for contracts written in the contract language CL. We present a trace semantics of CL suitable for conflict analysis, and a decision procedure for detecting conflicts (together with its proof of soundness, completeness and termination). We also discuss its implementation and look into the applications of the contract analysis approach we present. These techniques are applied to a small case study of an airline check-in desk.peer-reviewe

Process-based Software Tweaking with Mobile Agents

We describe an approach based upon software process technology to on-the-fly monitoring, redeployment, reconfiguration, and in general adaptation of distributed software applications, in short 'software tweaking'. We choose the term tweaking to refer to modifications in structure and behavior that can be made to individual components, as well as sets thereof, or the overall target system configuration, such as adding, removing or substituting components, while the system is running and without bringing it down. The goal of software tweaking is manifold: supporting run-time software composition, enforcing adherence to requirements, ensuring uptime and quality of service of mission-critical systems, recovering from and preventing faults, seamless system upgrading, etc. Our approach involves dispatching and coordinating software agents - named Worklets - via a process engine, since successful tweaking of a complex distributed software system often requires the concerted action of multiple agents on multiple components. The software tweaking process must incorporate and decide upon knowledge about the specifications and architecture of the target software, as well as Worklets capabilities. Software tweaking is correlated to a variety of other software processes - such as configuration management, deployment, validation and evolution - and allows to address at run time a number of related concerns that are normally dealt with only at development time

Concepts and operations of two research projects on Web services and context at Zayed University

This chapter presents two research projects applying context in Web services. A Web service is an accessible application that other applications and humans can discover and invoke to satisfy multiple needs. While much of the work on Web services has up to now focused on low-level standards for publishing, discovering, and triggering Web services, several arguments back the importance of making Web services aware of their context. In the ConCWS project, the focus is on using context during Web-services composition, and in the ConPWS project, the focus is on using context during Web-services personalization. In both projects, various concepts are used such as software agents, conversations, and policies. For instance, software agents engage in conversations with their peers to agree on the Web services that participate in a composition. Agents\u27 engagements are regulated using policies. © 2007, Idea Group Inc