Multi-agent plan based information gathering

The evolution of the Web has encouraged the development of new Information Gathering techniques. Artificial Intelligence techniques, such as Planning, have also been used for Information Gathering in order to go beyond merely retrieving Web data. Planning has been used traditionally to generate a sequence of actions that specify how information sources should be accessed. In this paper, planning is used mainly for integrating information found in heterogeneous sources. For instance, two different Web sources about flight and train travels, can be represented by two different planning operators, which will be subsequently combined and integrated by a single plan. We have found that a Multi-Agent framework is very appropriate to implement our technique. In order to evaluate our approach empirically, it has been applied to a tourism domain (MAPWEB-ETOURISM), whose purpose is to help a customer to plan his/her trips. In this domain, several specialized Web agents have been used to query travel Web sources, whose results are subsequently integrated by a planning agent to build complete travel solutions. Experimental results show that, by means of integration, more solutions can be found than by using single information sources or even travel meta-searchers. Also, (MAPWEB-ETOURISM) can find new types of solutions by integrating information gathered from heterogeneous Web sources (i.e. flights and trains.Publicad

Multi-agent architecture for intelligent gathering systems

This paper presents a model to define heterogeneous agents that solve problems by sharing the knowledge retrieved from the WEB, and cooperating among them. The control structure of those agents is based on a general purpose Multi-Agent architecture (SKELETONAGENT) based on a deliberative approach. Any agent in the architecture is built by means of several interrelated modules: control module, language and communication module, skills modules, knowledge base, yellow pages, etc. The control module uses an agenda to activate and coordinate the agent skills. This agenda handles actions from both the internal goals of the agent and from other agents in the environment. In the paper, we show a high level agent model, which is later instantiated to build a set of heterogeneous specialized agents. The paper describes how SKELETONAGENT has been used to implement different kinds of agents and a specialized Multi-Agent System (MAS). The implemented MAS, MAPWEB-ETOURISM, is the specific implementation of a general WEB gathering architecture, named MAPWEB, which extends SKELETONAGENT. MAPWEB has been designed to solve problems in WEB domain through the integration of information gathering and planning techniques. The MAPWEB-ETOURISM system has been applied to a specific WEB domain (e-tourism) which uses information gathered directly from several WEB sources (plane, train, and hotel companies) to solve travel problems. This paper shows how the proposed architecture allows to integrate the different agents tasks with AI techniques like planning to build a MAS which is able to gather and integrate information retrieved from the WEB to solve problems.Publicad

Problem-Resolution Dissemination

The current problem-solving paradigm for software developers revolves around using a search engine to find knowledge about the problem and its solutions. This approach provides the developer with search results that are only restricted by the context of the keywords they used to search. Problem-Resolution Dissemination (PRD) is a system and method for collecting, filtering, storing and distributing knowledge that users discover and access when solving a problem. The method involves an agent running on a user's (Alice’s) browsing client which is enabled when Alice is solving a problem. After Alice indicates that she has solved the problem, the agent will collect all web pages visited when solving the problem and filter out the pages that are not relevant. Pointers to the remaining pages (URIs) are tagged with Alice’s identity and stored in the central repository. When another user (Bob) attempts to solve the same problem, the above repository is queried based on Bob's social context. This social context is defined by Bob as a group of other users who have one of three trust levels: team, peer or community. The results are displayed by ranking them within each of the above contexts. In the event that no results are relevant to the Bob, he has the option of following traditional problem solving approaches. When Bob has solved his problem, the web pages he visited are added to the repository and made available to future users. In this manner, PRD incorporates relationships and previous experiences to improve the relevancy of results and thus efficiency in problem solving

Business Models of Business to Business Internet Commerce

Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Business Administration,2000This thesis analyzes the current B2B E-Commerce models and their evolution through case studies of three types of business models: aggregators, auctions and exchanges. These models are categorized by their transaction and pricing characteristics and suggest how B2B E-Commerce models can evolve by adding more functionality. The evolution process is necessary for the models to survive and to be profitable because their revenue models are not yet established. In fact, among the four companies studied in this paper, none has generated profits. As a way to become profitable, this paper suggests the gradual convergence between on-line and off-line companies and the need to focus on specific niche market with high functionality.INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 JAPANESE SOCIETY AND FOREIGN WORKERS CHAPTER 2 DIVERSITY OF THE ISSUE OF FOREIGN WORKERS CHAPTER 3 ILLEGALLY EMPLOYED FOREIGN WORKERS AND JAPAN CHAPTER 4 DIRECTION OF PROBLEM SOLVING CONCLUSIONmasterpublishedby Kyu Eun Jeong

An investigation into Indian apparel and textile supply chain networks

The activities of the Indian clothing industry supplying Western markets have been investigated, with particular reference to identifying where improvements could be made to supply chain management. Focus group discussions, case studies and questionnaire analysis established that long lead-times in pre-production areas were of great concern. However Indian apparel manufacturers were found to be more cost conscious and rather less conscious about the value of time in pre-production areas. It was found that pre-production activities constituted 73% of total manufacturing lead time and have high positive correlation (0.96) with total manufacturing lead time. Preproduction activities in India mainly consist of prototype making and pre-production sample development; of which approval processes were found to have a high correlation (0.63) with pre-production. A significant (more than 50%) time of all activities consist of waiting time, which has positive influence on total lead time (0.86)

Der Mehrwert von Corporate Venture Capital - Wie CVC-Einheiten die Konzernstrukturen nutzen?

This study on 'Value Added of Corporate Venture Capital- How do CVC units benefit from their organizational core?' deals with the problems and questions, that arise in the context of intra-organizational collaboration between the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) - unit and the strategic/operational business units within large industrial companies. It is shown in this context, by which means the CVC units succeed in obtaining the collaboration of interesting business units along the investment process, in order to get on the one hand side access to their technological know-how, but on the other hand to transfer the innovations of start-up companies into the business units. Based on six case studies, the overriding aim of this study is to further the theory about Corporate Venture Capital by developing a new framework for the development of successful intra-organizational collaboration between the CVC units and the business units within the structure of large companies.Die vorliegende Arbeit trägt den Titel 'Value Added of Corporate Venture Capital - How do CVC units benefit from their organizational core?' und beschäftigt sich mit den Problemen und Fragen, die sich im Kontext der intraorganisationalen Zusammenarbeit zwischen der Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) - Einheit und strategischen/operativen Geschäftseinheiten in großen Industriekonzernen ergeben. Das zentrale Forschungsanliegen dieser Arbeit ist es daher darzulegen, wie es den CVC Einheiten gelingt, die interessanten Geschäftseinheiten des Konzerns in den Investitionsprozeß zu integrieren, um einerseits Zugang zu dem dort vorhandenen Wissen und den Technologien zu erhalten, gleichzeitig aber auch den unternehmerischen Geist sowie die Innovationskraft der Start-up Unternehmen in die Geschäftseinheiten zu transferieren. Basierend auf sechs Fallstudien wird im Rahmen dieser Arbeit ein neues Konzept entworfen, welches für das Management der intra-organisationalen Zusammenarbeit von CVC Einheiten und Geschäftseinheiten geeignet ist

Massachusetts Domestic and Foreign Corporations Subject to an Excise: For the Use of Assessors (2004)

International audienc