In this paper, a generic architecture, designed to
support the implementation of applications aimed at managing
information among different and heterogeneous sources,
is presented. Information is filtered and organized according
to personal interests explicitly stated by the user. User pro-
files are improved and refined throughout time by suitable
adaptation techniques. The overall architecture has been called
PACMAS, being a support for implementing Personalized, Adaptive,
and Cooperative MultiAgent Systems. PACMAS agents are
autonomous and flexible, and can be made personal, adaptive and
cooperative, depending on the given application. The peculiarities
of the architecture are highlighted by illustrating three relevant
case studies focused on giving a support to undergraduate and
graduate students, on predicting protein secondary structure, and
on classifying newspaper articles, respectively