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Intelligent Agents Definitions
  • Definition 0 :
    Agents are semi-autonomous computer programs that intelligently assist the user with computer applications. Agents employ artificial intelligence techniques to assist users with daily computer tasks, such as reading electronic mail, maintaining a calendar, and filing information. Agents learn through example-based reasoning and are able to improve their performance over time.

  • Definition 1 :
    Agents are computational systems that inhabit some complex, dynamic environment. They sense and act autonomously in this environment. By doing so, they realize a set of goals or tasks.

  • Definition 2 :
    Agents are software robots. They can think and will act on behalf of a user to carry out tasks. Agents will help meet the growing need for more functional, flexible, and personal computing and telecommunications systems. Uses for intelligent agents include self-contained tasks, operating semi-autonomously, and communication between the user and systems resources.

  • Agent definitions in common
    • Are semi-autonomous Programs.
    • Are intelligent :
      • learn through example-based reasoning.
      • act using information from its environment.
      • employ Arificial Intelligence.
    • Assist the user with daily computer tasks.
 

Characteristics of Agents
  • Instead of the formal definition, a list of general characteristics of agents will be given. Together these charactetistics give a global impression of what an agent „is“. There are two groups : A weak and a strong notion of the concept agent. There are two important terms : „Intelligence“ and „Agency“.
  • The Weak notion of the concept „Agent“ :
    • Autonomy : agents operate without the direct intervention of humans, and have some kind of control over their actions and internal state.
    • Social ability : agents interact with other agents and humans via some kind of agents communication language.
    • Reactivity : agents perceive their environment, and respond in a timely fashion to chages that occur in it. (arrive of a new email)
    • Proactivity : agents do not simply act in response to their environment, they are able to exhibit goal-directed behaviorby taking the initiative
    • Temporal continuity : Agent are continuously running processes (foreground / background)
    • Goal orientedness : an agent is capable of handling complex, high-level tasks. The decision how such a task ist best split up in smaller sub-tasks, and in wich order and in wich way these sub-tasks should be best performed, should be made the agent itself.
  • The Strong notion of the concept „Agent“ :
    • Mobility : ability of an agent to move around an electronic network.
    • Benevolence : is the assumption that an agent don‘t have conflicting goals.
    • Rationality : is the assummption that an agent will act in order to achieve ist goals nas will not act in such a way as to prevent its goals being achieved.
    • Adaptivity : an agent should be able to adjust itself to the habits, working methods and preferences of its user.
    • Collaboration : an agent should not unthinkingly accept instructions, but should take into account that the human user makes mistakes, omit important information and/or provides ambiguous information.
  • Agency and Intelligence :
    • Agency : Degree of autonomy and authority vested in the agent, is called ist agency. It can be measured at least qualitatively by the nature of the interaction between the agent and the other entities in the system in wich it operates.
    • Intelligence : Is the degree of reasoning and learned behavior:
      • the agent‘s ability to accept the user‘s statement of goals and carry out the task delegated to it.
      • Higher levels of intelligence include a user model or some other form of understanding about what the user wants done.
      • Further out on the intelligence scale are systems that learn and adapt to their environment.
 

Agent based Systems
  • Email Systems
  • Decision Support Systems
  • User Interfaces
  • Teleconferencing
  • Telecomunications
  • Calendar Systems
  • Entertainment
  • Web Wanders
  • FAQ Systems
  • USENET Archives
  • Graphical Editor
 
Commercial Agents Applications
  • Apple Search : AppleSearch is an agent system that searches and retrieves text from computers linked together by the AppleShare, Apple's file sharing application. Up to 50 users can operate on a network as AppleSearch clients. AppleSearch uses agents, using Apple's XTND technology, to examine text and to read and index documents that exist in a variety of formats.
  • New Wave : Hewlett-Packard's NewWave agent. It provides simple intelligent macro capabilities. NewWave uses the agent feature to automate simple tasks, and provide department-level or company-wide customization of interfaces It also uses agents to link files with their required application and to link files together.
  • OpenSesame! : The OpenSesame! learning interface agent (neural network technology) observe its user's actions in the Macintosh System environment. Customize the interface, automate regular tasks, and make suggestions for easier ways to carry out operations.
 

Some Enterprises
  • COMETWAY
    Comet Way offers a variety of professional solutions to help companies embed intelligent software in their systems and products. Comet Way's open source Java Agent Kernel (JAK) is the best application environment for Java on new platforms because of it's features, simplicity, and flexibility.
    Products: Comet Way's JAK implements a kernel-based agent programming model that makes developing sophisticated software for a myriad of embedded and networked Java devices simple and easy. JAK agents manage Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) to provide dynamic reconfiguration and continuous process tracking and control, using process parameters stored in an SQL database. These agents directly monitor and control the inputs and outputs of PLCs in real-time over Ethernet, report their progress and status to other agents, and record a detailed history to the database. The Process Monitor, an agent-based GUI application, actively displays process information in real-time, as well as process history from the database.
    Comet Search provides access to targeted information by managing access to topic-specific Internet databases, directories and search engines.

  • BIGGERNET
    BiggerNET is an Internet consulting firm specializing in the design and implementation of web based intelligent agents.They provide even consultative services covering all aspects of the technology for use on the internet.
    Products : The products that are represented from this company are like some software with witch you can interact or condensate related to different thesis. They say that they can learn from the environment, interact with a web site, do searches or even open up video files.

  • HOTBOX
    This company provides a new generation of tools to users of the Internet and intranets that help them stay efficient and focused, and to use the net to its fullest potential. BotBox AB is a spin-off company from Swedish Institute of Computer Science.
    Products: BotBox Personal Assistant 1.0 gives you a set of information monitoring agents that automate the tedious task of retrieving and filtering relevant information. You specify the sources and your agents bring in the news - as soon as they arrive! No more browsing around just to see if something has happened.

  • NIAD&R
    an AI and Intelligent Robotics Group involving about 12 people at the University of Oporto, Department of Computing and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, which is coordinated by Professor Eugenio Oliveira. NIAD&R is also a member of LIACC - Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Lab. They also implemented the UPShell and the Multi-Agent System-based Robotic Testbed.
    Products: ARCHON (Architecture for Cooperative Heterogeneous On-line Systems) was ended during 1994. It is a process control system. ARCHON is a multi-agent system platform enabling the cooperation between heterogeneous, and complex, systems. In Archon are involved all the communication facilities for interaction, both with other Agents and the embedded Intelligent Systems, a complex, rule-based Decision Making module responsible for a suitable cooperation among the existing agents. A Cooperating Expert Systems Shell, UPShell, had been developed both to generate and to make them cooperate specific Expert Systems having an overall common goal.

  • AUSTRALIAN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INSTITUTE
    They are present in Australia since 10 years. They are working in the field of AI related with agent technology.
    Products: OASIS (Optimal Aircraft Sequencing using Intelligent Scheduling) is a air traffic control system based on agent technology. It offers techniques for Air Traffic Management for Single and Multiple Airports. The specific aim of OASIS is to assist an air traffic controller in managing the flow of aircraft at an airport.

  • AUTONOMY
    Their mission is to provide the software infrastructure that automates operations on semi-structured and unstructured information in any digital domain.
    Products: Portal-in-a-Box™ Version 1.0, Version 2.0, Version 3.0 are software that automated content aggregation, navigation & presentation. The company offers agents for information retrieval and other Web-based services.

  • DEJIMA
    Products: Dejima Direct enable people to dialogue with machines in the same manner in which they would talk to another person. he simply sends an information request by typing what he wants the way he wants to express it in plain text. Dejima Direct ™ Mobile will interpret the request sanded from a user in plain text, extract the appropriate information from the application or content database and feed it back to the mobile phone in the most optimized format. It is a agent-oriented software.

  • NQL INC
    NQL Inc. is a leading innovator of intelligent software solutions based on its patent-pending Network Query Language™ core technology. We empower enterprises of all sizes through a rational approach to content management which leverages data scattered throughout innumerable sources and maximizes workforce productivity.
    Products: NQL (Network Query Language) is the ultimate tool for rapid and simple development of intelligent agents, bots, spiders, middleware and scalable business to business content aggregation applications. Network Query Language does for network programming what SQL did for database programming, creating a unified layer across conflicting network standards and software.

  • FERRETSOFT
    Ferretsoft.com markets simple programs (ferrets) to seek out, retrieve and integrate information on the web. Customized for auctions, web pages, IRC, ftp sites, etc.

  • THE SWARM CORPORATION
    The Swarm Corporation was founded in 1997 by Chris Langton, Glen Ropella, and Douglas Orr, to provide expert consulting and modelling capability to businesses and government agencies facing complex dynamics in various aspects of their organization, physical plant, or resource base.
    Products: Swarm is a general purpose simulation package for the investigation of concurrent, distributed systems: systems in which hundreds or thousands of autonomous agents interact with one another and with a dynamically changing environment.

  • CYBERLEARNINGLABS
    CyberLearning Labs is for-profit company created by Indiana University, USA, to develop and market agent-based Web portal and course management software.
    Products: Angel (A New Global Environment for Learning) is a comprehensive course management and portal software currently available for download to all US higher education and K-12 universities and schools.

  • RETICULAR SYSTEMS, INC
    Computer software company specializing in provide intelligent productivity tools for the evolving knowledge work force.
    Products: AgentBuilder : is an integrated tool suite for constructing intelligent software agents. AgentBuilder consists of two major components - the Toolkit and the Run-Time System. The AgentBuilder Toolkit includes tools for managing the agent-based software development process, analyzing the domain of agent operations, designing and developing networks of communicating agents, defining behaviors of individual agents, and debugging and testing agent software. The Run-Time System includes an agent engine that provides an environment for execution of agent software. MyGoldDigger : is a high-performance suite of products developed for enhanced web mining and knowledge management applications. These products are focused on finding, retrieving, extracting, organizing, sharing, communicating and analyzing information found in web-based documents.

  • SOAR TECHNOLOGY, INC.
    30 man-years of experience in utilizing the Soar programming language to build autonomous synthetic entities for a wide range of services including US Air Force, US Navy, US Marines, US Army and opponent forces.
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