Lecture 1

We have introduced what are agents and what are Multi-agent Systems (MAS).
We have also introduced a motivating case study that uses agents as software building blocks
for a service-oriented (telecom) enterprise. This serves also as the vision what the ultimate product that we aim at in the (near) future, because now we have the enabling technologies ready, together with the arising need of business intelligence from various businesses. If we were to use classical examples of agents in robotics and industrial control, those are probably too far away from your experience and work. We shall refer back to this case from time to time for discussion.

One of you asked the difference between Web Services and agents. Similiar to Web services, agents not just serve as software building blocks but also as integration mechanism, having interfaces and protocols. However, agents means more:

• Web services are usually just reactive (on invocation), but not proactive
• Web services are normally for individual invocations like functions and procedures, but agents normally run continuously as a long-life process to help its owner / delegator (e.g., appointment agents), i.e., autonomous
• Agents can include intelligence and flexible actions (especially exception handling), which is not common in current Web services. (flexibility)

As mentioned in this paper, this is a foundation for future detailed design, analysis, and research. So, if you are interested in any part of this (say, capability matching, location-based allocation), you are encourages to choose one of this as your survey (horizontal / in-depth approach) as well as your course topic.

Alternatively, you may also choose another domain of your choice, usually integrating knowledge from your job (vertical approach), your degree project, or your favorite courses.

We emphasize on practical relevance. So, please make sure that you are able to give examples to illustrate your work.