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An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources. Michael Christoffel Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization, University of Karlsruhe, Germany. Workshop on Web Information Systems Modeling, Riga, Latvia 2004 June 8. Overview. Information Integration - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources
Michael ChristoffelInstitute for Program Structures and Data Organization,
University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Workshop on Web Information Systems Modeling,
Riga, Latvia
2004 June 8
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Overview
• Information Integration
• Open Market Model
• Integration Architecture
• Realization
• Conclusion
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Overview
• Information Integration
• Open Market Model
• Integration Architecture
• Realization
• Conclusion
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Value of Information
• Information has become a valuable good
• More and more services available through the Internet– traditional libraries– booksellers– publishing houses– new kinds of services
• Commercialization of the Internet
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Information Overload
• Information is distributed – large number of computers
and databases
• Information providers – are independent from each
other
• Customer has to– find, compare, access,
purchase, transform, combine,...
– sequentially
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Idea of Information Integration
• Provide a uniform access to all information sources
• Hide the heterogeneity and distribution of the different sources
• Keep independence of individual services
Integration
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Overview
• Information Integration
• Open Market Model
• Integration Architecture
• Realization
• Conclusion
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Idea of an Open Market
• Model of an open market
• Customers and providers– may appear and leave at
any time– communicate through
interfaces that are adapted to their needs
• Internals of the market are hidden
Market
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Market Agents
• Market is inhabited by market agents– can come and go– independent acting– communicative– no definite relations– agents have to learn how to
cope with their environment– different agents types– can have external interfaces
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Advantages
• Scalable and extensible– new agents at runtime– new agent types at runtime– by different organizations
• Interface agents– adaptable to customers– tailored to providers
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Advantages
• Communication is based on Web services– no additional middleware– independent from operating
systems and hardware platform
• Increased robustness by redundancies
• Secure transmission– encryption– digital signatures
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Overview
• Information Integration
• Open Market Model
• Integration Architecture
• Realization
• Conclusion
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Architecture Overview
• Application of the open market model
• 15 different agent types implemented until now
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Provider Support
• Provider Agent– interface of the provider to
the system– at least one provider agent
for each provider– access control– query pre-processing– query optimization– uses existing interfaces of
the provider
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Provider Support
• Provider Agents for Web Interfaces– provider agent can be
adapted by a source description
– identifying search form and search parameters
– extracting data elements from result pages
– path expressions and regular expressions
– (semi-)automatic generation
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Provider Support
• Provider Agents for Web Interfaces– provider agent can be
adapted by a source description
– identifying search form and search parameters
– extraction data elements from result pages
– path expressions and regular expressions
– (semi-)automatic generation
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Result Integration
• Integration Agent– parallel execution of queries– dynamic integration of
results to final result list– incremental process– automatic grouping– duplicate elimination
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Provider Selection
• Provider Selection Agent– hold metadata on available
provider– find appropriate providers
for a customer demand
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Customer Support
• Customer Agent– represent the interests of
the customers– one customer agent for
several customers– adapted to individual
customers or customer groups
– provide personal workspace
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Customer Support
• Personal Workspace– individual for each customer– will be preserved during two
sessions– agenda– past queries and results– virtual hand library– annotations– get in contact with other
customers– exchange documents with
other customers
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Customer Support
• Customer Interface Agent– interface of the customers
to the system– supports favorite look and
feel of a customer– supports different
languages (configurable)– can use different customer
agents– can be adapted to different
visual interfaces
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
• Customer Interface Agent– interface of the customers
to the system– supports favorite look and
feel of a customer– supports different
languages (configurable)– can use different customer
agents– can be adapted to different
visual interfaces
Customer Support
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
• Customer Interface Agent– interface of the customers
to the system– supports favorite look and
feel of a customer– supports different
languages (configurable)– can use different customer
agents– can be adapted to different
visual interfaces
Customer Support
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Other Agent Types
• Customer Organization A.
• Customer Authentication A.
• Agent Authentication A.
• Billing Agent
• Payment Agent
• Generator Agent
• Billboard Agent
• Agent/Group Naming A.
• System Administration A.
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Agent Groups
• Examples:– parallel result integration– extended search space for
Provider Selection Agents– moving/copying customer
profiles– coordination of source
description generation process
– handling backup and redundancies
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Overview
• Information Integration
• Open Market Model
• Integration Architecture
• Realization
• Conclusion
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Agent Communities
• Agent communities hold one or more agents– agents share resources– agents can migrate from
one community to another
• Communication among communities– based on Web services– choice between regular and
secure transmission
External Communication
CommunicationModule
AdministrationModule
AgentContainer
Web
Ser
vice
Inte
rfac
e
Secure Communication
Security Module
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Agent Communities
• Four ways of message interchange– agent– group– community– systemExternal
Communication
CommunicationModule
AdministrationModule
AgentContainer
Web
Ser
vice
Inte
rfac
e
Secure Communication
Security Module
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Agent Communities
• Four ways of message interchange– agent– group– community– system
• Control panel– access to all agents in the
community
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Task Execution
• Contexts– can contain several
messages– can be used by more than
one agent
• Work objects– save the messages of an
active context– can be deleted when they
are no longer used – are stored in the work
queueWork Queue
Work Object
Message Object
Context
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Overview
• Information Integration
• Open Market Model
• Integration Architecture
• Realization
• Conclusion
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Project Background
• The presented work – is part of the
interdisciplinary research project ModernMart
• Project team– department of computer
science– department of business
administration and economics
– university library
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Project Background
• The ModernMart project – is part of the German
national research initiative in Digital Libraries“Distributed Processing and Delivery of Digital Documents” (V3D2)
– is supported by German Research Foundation (DFG)
Michael Christoffel: An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources WISM 2004
Summary
• Integration of services in the scientific literature domain– hide heterogeneity and distribution– provide uniform access to the whole collection– keep the independence of existing information providers
• Model of the open market
• Integration architecture as an implementation of the market model
– various agent types
• Concept of agent communities– sharing resources– communication is based on Web services
An Agent-Oriented Approach to the Integration of Information Sources
Michael ChristoffelInstitute for Program Structures and Data Organization,
University of Karlsruhe, Germany
The End
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