SELBO Agent

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SELBO Agent

• Ivan Minov
• University of Plovdiv
• Paisii Hilendarski

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What is an agent?

• An agent is a computer system that is situated
  in some environment, and that is capable of
  autonomous action in this environment in order to
  meet its design objectives.
• Wooldridge and Jennings (1995).

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What is Intelligent Agent?

• One way of answering this question is to list
  the kinds of capabilities that we might expect an
  intelligent agent to have. The following list was
  suggested in Wooldridge and Jennings (1995).
• Reactivity. Intelligent agents are able to
  perceive their environment, and respond in a
  timely fashion to changes that occur in it in
  order to satisfy their design objectives.
• Proactiveness. Intelligent agents are able to
  exhibit goal-directed behaviour by taking the
  initiative in order to satisfy their design
  objectives.
• Social ability. Intelligent agents are capable
  of interacting with other agents (and possibly
  humans) in order to satisfy their design
  objectives.

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What is Intelligent Agent? (2)

• Other properties of the agent are
• Autonomous - Exercises control over its own
  actions
• Goal Oriented - Does more than just react to the
  environment, has an agenda.
• Flexible - Order of actions is not fixed.
• Adaptive / Learning - Can change behaviour based
  on experience
• Mobile - Can migrate from one host to another

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What is JADE?

• JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework) an agent
  container and software framework to develop
  agent-based applications in compliance with the
  FIPA specifications for interoperable intelligent
  multi-agent systems.

JADE
Agent 2
messages
messages
Agent 1
Agent 3
interaction
messages
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What is an agent according to JADE?

• JADE is absolutely neutral in respect to a
  definition of an agent. JADE conceptualizes an
  agent as an independent and autonomous process
  that has an identity, possibly persistent, and
  that requires communication (e.g. collaboration
  or competition) with other agents in order to
  fulfill its tasks. This communication is
  implemented through asynchronous message passing
  and by using an Agent Communication Language with
  a well-defined and commonly agreed semantics.

JADE
Agent 2
ACL messages
Agent 1
Message Processing
Agent Behaviours
interaction
Life-cycle Engine
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Are JADE agents intelligent?

• JADE alone does not endow agents with specific
  capabilities beyond those needed for
  communication and interaction. However, the
  behavior abstraction of the Jade agent model
  allows simple integration of external software
  into one of the agent tasks.

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Which programming languages can be used?

• Jade has been completely implemented in Java. Its
  capabilities can only be fully exploited by using
  the Java programming language. However, a special
  agent, called JessAgent, is provided that allows
  programmers to use just the JESS language without
  writing any line of Java code. JESS is an expert
  system shell that supports rule-based code.

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How is JADE integrated into SELBO

• JADE consist of several jar files. These files
  are included in the SELBO project as a library.
• When SELBO is starting, the JADE platform is
  initialized and a handle to it is passed to the
  application.
• As new agents are created, they are added to the
  platform for further care.

SELBO
JADE
Sequencing engine
Ontology
HTML Editor
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Realization of the AgentSelbo
Class Agent

• The class AgentSelbo extends class Agent of JADE
  framework and adds methods for integration into
  SELBO environment and execution of specific
  tasks.
• An instance of the agent is created and
  initialized during the system startup process.
• From there on the agent is activated and waits
  for command from environment.
• Agent is visually represented by the cute
  elephant Selbo

Class AgentSelbo
commandInit()
commandMove()
commandDirectMove()
commandSearch()
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Commands that the agent understands

• Command for initialization of the agent to use a
  specific ontology.
• Command for showing and hiding of the agent.
• Command for moving of the agent on the screen.
• Command for searching through the loaded
  ontology.

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Searching through the ontology

• The agent uses the core Protégé API to access the
  loaded ontology.
• Then it traverses all of the nodes in the
  ontology, searching for the designated string in
  their names and descriptions.
• Finally it displays a list with the found classes
  and instances.

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Demonstration
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Future Plans

• Creating of special purpose agents for helping
  the content creator to follow the selected
  Sequencing template.
• Enhancement of the personal AgentSelbo and
  adding to it more useful functionality.

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Thank You