Claudio Bartolini

A software framework for automated negotiation

If agents are to negotiate automatically with one another they must share a negotiation mechanism, specifying what possible actions each party can take at any given time, when negotiation terminates, and what is the structure of the resulting agreements. Current standardization activities such as FIPA [2] and WS-Agreement [3] represent this as a negotiation protocol specifying the flow of messages. However, they omit other aspects of the rules of negotiation (such as obliging a participant to improve on a previous offer), requiring these to be represented implicitly in an agent’s design, potentially resulting incompatibility, maintenance and re-usability problems. In this chapter, we propose an alternative approach, allowing all of a mechanism to be formal and explicit. We present (i) a taxonomy of declarative rules which can be used to capture a wide variety of negotiation mechanisms in a principled and well-structured way; (ii) a simple interaction protocol, which is able to support any mechanism which can be captured using the declarative rules; (iii) a software framework for negotiation that allows agents to effectively participate in negotiations defined using our rule taxonomy and protocol and (iv) a language for expressing aspects of the negotiation based on OWL-Lite [4]. We provide examples of some of the mechanisms that the framework can support.

Semantic web support for the business-to-business e-commerce lifecycle

If an e-services approach to electronic commerce is to become widespread, standardisation of ontologies, message content and message protocols will be necessary. In this paper, we present a lifecycle of a business-to-business e-commerce interaction, and show how the Semantic Web can support a service description language that can be used throughout this lifecycle. By using DAML, we develop a service description language sufficiently expressive and flexible to be used not only in advertisements, but also in matchmaking queries, negotiation proposals and agreements. We also identify which operations must be carried out on this description language if the B2B lifecycle is to be fully supported. We do not propose specific standard protocols, but instead argue that our operators are able to support a wide variety of interaction protocols, and so will be fundamental irrespective of which protocols are finally adopted.

Using the event calculus for tracking the normative state of contracts

In this work, we have been principally concerned with the representation of contracts so that their normative state may be tracked in an automated fashion over their deployment lifetime. The normative state of a contract, at a particular time, is the aggregation of instances of normative relations that hold between contract parties at that time, plus the current values of contract variables. The effects of contract events on the normative state of a contract are specified using an XML formalization of the Event Calculus, called ecXML. We use an example mail service agreement from the domain of web services to ground the discussion of our work. We give a characterization of the agreement according to the normative concepts of obligation, power and permission, and show how the ecXML representation may be used to track the state of the agreement, according to a narrative of contract events. We also give a description of a state tracking architecture, and a contract deployment tool, both of which have been im...

An approach to data fusion for context awareness

We propose and develop an approach modeled with multi-attribute utility theory for sensor fusion in context-aware environments. Our approach is distinguished from existing general purpose fusion techniques by a number of factors including a general underlying context model it is built upon and a set of heuristics it covers. The technique is developed for context-aware applications and we argue that it provides various advantages for data fusion in context-aware scenarios. We experimentally evaluate our approach with actual use cases using real sensors.

Web Information Systems Engineering – WISE 2007

Session 1: Querying.- On Tree Pattern Query Rewriting Using Views.- Querying Capability Modeling and Construction of Deep Web Sources.- Optimization of Bounded Continuous Search Queries Based on Ranking Distributions.- Session 2: Trust.- Evaluating Rater Credibility for Reputation Assessment of Web Services.- An Approach to Trust Based on Social Networks.- A New Reputation-Based Trust Management Mechanism Against False Feedbacks in Peer-to-Peer Systems.- Session 3: Caching and Distribution.- Freshness-Aware Caching in a Cluster of J2EE Application Servers.- Collaborative Cache Based on Path Scores.- Similarity-Based Document Distribution for Efficient Distributed Information Retrieval.- Session 4: Interfaces.- BEIRA: A Geo-semantic Clustering Method for Area Summary.- Building the Presentation-Tier of Rich Web Applications with Hierarchical Components.- WeBrowSearch: Toward Web Browser with Autonomous Search.- Session 5: Events and Information Filtering.- A Domain-Driven Approach for Detecting Event Patterns in E-Markets: A Case Study in Financial Market Surveillance.- Adaptive Email Spam Filtering Based on Information Theory.- Time Filtering for Better Recommendations with Small and Sparse Rating Matrices.- Session 6: Data Extraction, Transformation, and Matching.- A Survey of UML Models to XML Schemas Transformations.- Structural Similarity Evaluation Between XML Documents and DTDs.- Using Clustering and Edit Distance Techniques for Automatic Web Data Extraction.- Session 7: Ontologies.- A Semantic Approach and a Web Tool for Contextual Annotation of Photos Using Camera Phones.- Formal Specification of OWL-S with Object-Z: The Dynamic Aspect.- An Approach for Combining Ontology Learning and Semantic Tagging in the Ontology Development Process: eGovernment Use Case.- Session 8: Rewriting, Routing, and Personalisation.- Term Rewriting for Web Information Systems - Termination and Church-Rosser Property.- Development of a Collaborative and Constraint-Based Web Configuration System for Personalized Bundling of Products and Services.- SRI@work: Efficient and Effective Routing Strategies in a PDMS.- Session 9: Agents and Mining.- Learning Management System Based on SCORM, Agents and Mining.- A Web-Based Learning Resource Service System Based on Mobile Agent.- Wikipedia Mining for an Association Web Thesaurus Construction.- Session 10: QoS and Management.- Economically Enhanced Resource Management for Internet Service Utilities.- Enhancing Web Services Performance Using Adaptive Quality of Service Management.- Coverage and Timeliness Analysis of Search Engines with Webpage Monitoring Results.- Session 11: Modeling.- Managing Process Customizability and Customization: Model, Language and Process.- A WebML-Based Approach for the Development of Web GIS Applications.- An Object-Oriented Version Model for Context-Aware Data Management.- Session 12: Topics.- Extending XML Triggers with Path-Granularity.- A Replicated Study Comparing Web Effort Estimation Techniques.- Development Process of the Operational Version of PDQM.- A New Reputation Mechanism Against Dishonest Recommendations in P2P Systems.- Industrial Session.- A Framework for Business Operations Management Systems.- A Practical Method and Tool for Systems Engineering of Service-Oriented Applications.- A Layered Service Process Model for Managing Variation and Change in Service Provider Operations.- Short Paper Session 1.- Providing Personalized Mashups Within the Context of Existing Web Applications.- Wooki: A P2P Wiki-Based Collaborative Writing Tool.- Creating and Managing Ontology Data on the Web: A Semantic Wiki Approach.- Web Service Composition: A Reality Check.- Short Paper Session 2.- MyQoS: A Profit Oriented Framework for Exploiting Customer Behavior in Online e-Commerce Environments.- Task Assignment on Parallel QoS Systems.- Autonomic Admission Control for Congested Request Processing Systems.- Towards Performance Efficiency in Safe XML Update.- Short Paper Session 3.- From Crosscutting Concerns to Web Systems Models.- Generating Extensional Definitions of Concepts from Ostensive Definitions by Using Web.- Modeling Distributed Events in Data-Intensive Rich Internet Applications.- Privacy Inspection and Monitoring Framework for Automated Business Processes.- Short Paper Session 4.- Digging the Wild Web: An Interactive Tool for Web Data Consolidation.- A Web-Based Learning Information System - AHKME.- A Recommender System with Interest-Drifting.- Short Paper Session 5.- Improving Revisitation Browsers Capability by Using a Dynamic Bookmarks Personal Toolbar.- Hierarchical Co-clustering for Web Queries and Selected URLs.- Navigating Among Search Results: An Information Content Approach.

A Service-oriented Architecture for Business Intelligence

Business intelligence is a business management term used to describe applications and technologies which are used to gather, provide access to and analyze data and information about the organization, to help make better business decisions. In other words, the purpose of business intelligence is to provide actionable insight Business intelligence technologies include traditional data warehousing technologies such as reporting, ad-hoc querying, online analytical processing (OLAP). More advanced business intelligence tools - such as HP Openview DecisionCenter - also include data-mining, predictive analysis using rule-based simulations, Web services and advanced visualization capabilities. In this paper we describe a service-oriented architecture for business intelligence that makes possible a seamless integration of technologies into a coherent business intelligence environment, thus enabling simplified data delivery and low-latency analytics. We compare our service-oriented approach with traditional BI architectures, illustrate the advantages of the service oriented paradigm and share our experience and the lessons learned in architecting and implementing the framework.

Architecting for reuse: a software framework for automated negotiation

If agents are to negotiate automatically with one another they must share a negotiation mechanism, specifying what possible actions each party can take at any given time, when negotiation terminates, and what the resulting agreements will be. The current state-of-the-art represents this as a negotiation protocol specifying the flow of messages. However, they omit other aspects of the rules of negotiation (such as obliging a participant to improve on a previous offer), requiring these to be represented implicitly in an agents design, potentially resulting in compatibility, maintenance and re-usability problems. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach, allowing all of a mechanism to be formal and explicit. We present (i) A taxonomy of declarative rules which can be used to capture a wide variety of negotiation mechanisms in a principled and well-structured way. (ii) A simple interaction protocol, which is able to support any mechanism which can be captured using the declarative rules. (iii) A software framework for negotiation, implemented in JADE [3] that allows agents to effectively participate in negotiations defined using our rule taxonomy and protocol.

Economic dynamics of agents in multiple auctions

Over the last few years, electronic auctions have become an increasingly important aspect of e- commerce, both in the business to business and business to consumer domains. As a result of this, it is often possible to find many auctions selling similar goods on the web. However, when an individual is attempting to purchase such a good, they will usually bid in one, or a small number, of such auctions. This results in two forms of inefficiency. Firstly, the individual may pay more for the good than would be expected in an ideal market. Secondly, some sellers may fail to make a sale that could take place in an ideal market. In this paper, we present an agent that is able to participate in multiple auctions for a given good, placing bids appropriately to secure the cheapest price. We present experiments to show; (i) Current auction markets on the web are inefficient, with trades taking place away from equilibrium price, and not all benefit from trade being extracted. (ii) Our agent is able to exploit these inefficiencies, resulting in it making higher profits than the simple strategy of bidding in a small number of auctions. (iii) As more participants use our agent, the market becomes more efficient. When all participants use the agent, all trades take place close to equilibrium price, and the market approaches ideal behaviour.

Algorithm Design for Agents which Participate in Multiple Simultaneous Auctions

In this paper, we discuss the design of algorithms for agents to use when participating in multiple simultaneous English auctions, aiming to purchase multiple goods. Firstly, we present a coordination algorithm, which ensures the agent places appropriate bids in the different auctions to buy exactly the right number of goods. Secondly, we combine this with an algorithm to determine what maximum bid an agent should place in an auction that is about to terminate. This algorithm combines a belief-based model of the auctions with a utility analysis. This analysis is to trade off the certain outcome of the terminating auction against the possible outcomes of the remaining auctions, and hence to place appropriate bids in each.

IT service management driven by business objectives An application to incident management

In this paper we address the problem of ensuring business-IT alignment. We describe a method and a system for decision support in IT service management driven by alignment with the business objectives of the enterprise that the IT supports. Our technical proposition, called IT management by business objectives (MBO) is applicable to most of the domains of IT service management, such as incident management, change management, and others. The technology consists of some components that are reusable across domains, together with guidelines and patterns for building complementary components in order to develop domain-specific solutions