Understanding the Role of Software Agents in E-Commerce

Le but de la presente etude est de permettre la comprehension, a partir d\u27une perspective utilisateur, de la valeur ajoutee des agents logiciels (Software Agents ou SAs) pour le commerce electronique. Sont etudies pourquoi, comment et quand les usagers peuvent confier une partie des operations d\u27e-commerce engagees a des SAs. Generalement, la majorite de ces operations sont complexes bien que repetitives, avec un large segment qui peut etre adapte a l\u27automatisation et l\u27aide par ordinateur. Afin d\u27assister les utilisateurs dans leurs operations quotidiennes d\u27e-commerce, sont suggerees tout d\u27abord, l\u27association de l\u27utilisateur et de SAs, puis la decomposition du scenario de commerce electronique en trois phases : investigation, negociation et reglement

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

A mobile application based on software agents and mobile web services

Purpose - The aim of the research is to discuss the design and development of a mobile application using two technologies known as software agent (SA) and mobile web services. Design/methodology/approach - The objectives were achieved by testing the integration of SAs and mobile web services into mobile applications. The approach suggested in the paper has relied on some modeling techniques such as service chart diagram and addressed some security issues. Findings - It was found in the course of the work the necessity of being aware of the limitations of mobile devices, despite all the major developments that are happening. In addition, it was found that it is deemed appropriate to provide some modeling techniques which suit the development of mobile applications. Originality/value - The paper discusses the concept of mobile web services. The paper is particularly useful to those who are in the field of mobile computing. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Moving code (Servlet strategy) vs. inviting code (applet strategy)

In this position paper, we aim at describing two strategies that could enhance the functioning of software agents. Servlet and applet denote respectively these strategies. In the servlet strategy, the flow takes place from the client to the server. The applet strategy performs differently; the flow takes place from the server to the client. Applying both strategies to workflows, as a potential application domain, is also discussed

Commerce, E-Commerce, and M-Commerce: What comes next?

Some of the significant features associated with commerce, e-commerce, and m-commerce are discussed. Commerce is associated with four types of exchange, such as bargaining, bidding, auctioning, and clearing. The first two types of exchange are bilateral, while the the other two types involve trilateral transactions. Significant developments in the Internet and Web technologies have led to the introduction of e-commerce. E-commerce is defined as a general type of business of commercial transaction that involves the transfer of information across the Internet. It allows multiple users from different locations to engage in significant commercial transactions and activities over the Internet. The growth and development of Internet-based technologies has allowed telecom companies to offer new commercial opportunities to users over mobile devices, such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants

Web Service Standards Taxonomy

The objective of this tutorial is to survey major Web service standards (WSS) in order to develop a taxonomy that will assist adapting organization in identifying individual standards as well as the interrelationships among these standards, and the relevancy of these standards to a particular WS implementation. Since multiple standards exist, a generic taxonomy is constructed first that shows basic functions supported by different standards basically XML and J2EE-based standards. Standards are then mapped into these basic functions which cover single WS or composite WS. Furthermore, the tutorial delineates standards related to internet and intranet based applications, such as e-business, virtual organizations, supply chain, and enterprise computing. Related standards, such as grid and portal are also described. Finally, a WS maturity model is mapped into this taxonomy to assist adapting organizations in charting a direction towards proper progression for optimal and successful deployment of WS projects. This tutorial should assist organizations first to develop an overview of standards associated with WS before embarking on a major WS project

Association of users with software agents in e-commerce

This paper aims at answering three questions related to the association of users with software agents. This association applies to the e-commerce field in which users have online access to several products and services. Such users could delegate their routine and tedious transactions to agents that will be acting on their behalf. Why, how, and when this delegation occurs is discussed in this paper. Agents are considered in e-commerce due to the features that embody them, such as autonomy and mobility. © Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Design and Development of Communities of Web Services

In the field of Web services (Benatallah, Sheng, & Dumas, 2003; Bentahar, Maamar, Benslimane, & Thiran, 2007; Medjahed & Bouguettaya, 2005), a community gathers Web services that offer similar functionalities. Hotel booking and car rental are samples of functionalities. This gathering takes place regardless of who developed the Web services, where the Web services are located, and how the Web services function to satisfy their functionalities. A Web service is an accessible application that can be discovered according to its functionality and then invoked in order to satisfy users\u27 needs. In addition, Web services can be composed in a way that permits modeling and executing complex business processes. Composition is one of Web services\u27 strengths as it targets user needs that cannot be satisfied by any single available Web service. A composite Web service obtained by combining available Web services may be used (Figure 1). The use of communities in composition scenarios offers two immediate benefits. The first benefit is the possibility of accelerating the search of Web services required to satisfy user needs by looking for communities rather than screening UDDI (universal description, discovery, and integration) and ebXML registries. The second benefit is the late execution binding of the required Web services once the appropriate communities are identified. Both benefits stress the need of examining Web services in a different way. Current practices in the field of Web services assume that a community is static and Web services in a community always exhibit a cooperative attitude. These practices need to be revisited as per the following arguments. A community is dynamic: New Web services enter, other Web services leave, some Web services become temporarily unavailable, and some Web services resume operation after suspension. All these events need to be closely monitored so that inconsistent situations are avoided. Moreover, Web services in a community can compete on nonshareable computing resources, which may delay their performance scheduling. Web services can also announce misleading information (e.g., nonfunctional details) in order to boost their participation opportunities in composition scenarios. Finally, Web services can be malicious in that they can try to alter other Web services\u27 data or operations. To look into ways of making Web services communities active, we describe in this article some mechanisms that would enable Web services among other things to enter a community, to leave a community after awhile, to reenter the same community if some opportunities loom, and to be rewarded for being part of a community. These mechanisms would be developed along three perspectives, which we refer to as the following. ¢ Community management: How do we establish or dismantle a new or existing community of Web services? ¢ Web services attraction and retention: How do we invite and convince new Web services to join a community? How do we retain existing Web services in a community? ¢ Interaction management: How are interactions between Web services regulated in a community? How do we deal with conflicts in a community

Replication mechanisms over a set of distributed uddi registries

This paper presents a research initiative, which aims at developing replication mechanisms for the dynamic management of the content of several Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) registries (Curbera et al., 2003). These replication mechanisms are intended to be deployed in an environment of Web services (Papazoglou & Georgakopoulos, 2003). By content of an UDDI registry, we mean the announcements of Web services that providers post on the UDDI registry