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This page provides an update of the relations with other standards.
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Name
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Agentcities Task Force
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Description
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Agentcities is an initiative that was first conceived in January 2000 to create a next generation Internet that is based upon a worldwide network of services that use the metaphor of a real or a virtual city to cluster services. These services, ranging from eCommerce to integrating business processes into a virtual organization, can be accessed across the Internet, and have an explicit representation of the capabilities that they offer. The ultimate aim is to enable the dynamic, intelligent and autonomous composition of services to achieve user and business goals, thereby creating compound services to address changing needs. This is in direct contrast with the current Internet, where users have to interact directly and constantly with software, that is, Web browsers, to achieve their goals and fulfil their requirements. The initiative will build on a wealth of innovative technologies including agent technology, Semantic Web technologies, UDDI discovery services, eBusiness standards and Grid Computing. Application areas already envisaged range from eHealth and eLearning to manufacturing control, digital libraries, travel and entertainment services.
The Agentcities Task Force is a group designed to promote synergy between a growing number of projects working to develop and deploy a global, open dynamic service environment. There are currently 12 Agentcities projects active or planned around the world, encompassing a broad range of applications and technologies, and over 100 organisations, including major corporations, small-to-medium enterprises and universities, are collaborating in discussion forums and activities. The Agentcities Task Force resolved to work together towards achieving the following goals:
- The deployment and evolution of a network infrastructure and diverse, innovative applications
- The establishment of shared, compatible resources that are essential to the sustainable operation of the network.
- The promotion of the Agentcities network, the dissemination of operational recommendations and liaison with other standardization groups.
The Task Force will begin activities in a lightweight manner, initiating technical and liaison activities until Q3 2002 at which point a decision will be made on incorporation as a legal entity. The Task Force is open to any organisation wishing to participate and a call for participation will be issued shortly, as well as details of the next public meeting.
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Contact/URL
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http://www.agentcities.org/
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Contact
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FIPA and Agentcities taskforces have close relationships through:
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Name
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AgentLink II
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Description
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AgentLink is Europe’s IST funded Network of Excellence for agent-based computing. As such, AgentLink coordinates research and development activities in the area of agent-based computer systems on the behalf of the European Commission. AgentLink supports a range of activities aimed at raising the profile, quality, and industrial relevance of agent systems research and development in Europe.
AgentLink and FIPA maintain a liaison relationship in order to better foster synergy between AgentLink’s and FIPA’s interests in the agents area. The liaison activities include: FIPA giving a tutorial on practical aspects of agent-oriented development using the FIPA specifications at the AgentLink summer school; FIPA providing a news update to each issue of the AgentLink newsletter circulated to thousands of AgentLink members; and AgentLink and FIPA also linking to each other’s web-sites in several places.
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Contact/URL
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http://www.agentlink.org/
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Contact
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The FIPA Representative at AgentLink is Stefan Poslad (stefan.poslad@elec.qmul.ac.uk)
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Agent Unified Modeling Language (AUML)
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Description
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The goal of AUML effort is to develop vendor-neutral common semantics, meta-model, and abstract syntax for agent-based methodologies. In particular, its objectives are to:
- To recommend technology for adoption of common semantics, meta-model. and abstract syntax for agent-based analysis and design methodologies.
- To recommend technology for adoption that enable interoperability across the life cycle of AUML tools designs/work products.
- To leverage existing FIPA and OMG specifications
- To facilitate advances in the state of the art of agent-based methodologies.
- To liaise with other appropriate organizations.
Currently, AUML is a goal -- not an existing modeling language. However, the website contains papers that have been submitted for consideration for an eventual agent-based extension (or profile) to UML. As interest is finally beginning to accelerate in AUML, we hope to have working group meeting scheduled by the end of 2002. Contributions and comments are welcomed; active participation is encouraged.
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Contact/URL
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http://www.auml.org/
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Contact
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The FIPA Representative for AUML is James Odell (mail@jamesodell.com)
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Name
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FIPA Specifications in Japanese
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Description
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Intelligent Agent Society of Japan (IAS) translated normative specifications of FIPA 97 and FIPA 98 into Japanese. The translation was quite well accepted by Japanese researchers and developers. IAS has a plan to translate new FIPA specifications once they have achieved the Standard status. In addition, Japanese Standards Association is translating the Experimental version of FIPA Abstract Architecture specification as a Japanese Industrial Standards - Technical Report.
Technical Reports (TR) are not part of the official national standards (JIS). TRs are intended to introduce the hot technical topics as quickly and efficiently as possible without having to go through the tedious formal procedures of making JIS, which often takes years if not decades. For example, a lot of XML-related documents of W3C have been translated as TR.
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Contact/URL
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http://fipa.comtec.co.jp/
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Contact
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Hiroki Suguri (suguri@comtec.co.jp)
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Name
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Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS)
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Description
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HMS is one of the intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) program’s six major projects resulting from a feasibility study conducted in the beginning of the 1990’s. The objective of the work of the HMS consortium is to "attain in manufacturing the benefits that holonic organisation provides to living organisms and societies, e.g., stability in the face of disturbances, adaptability and flexibility in the face of change, and efficient use of available resources.”
The holonics paradigm stems from Arthur Koestler’s seminal work the Ghost in the Machine (MacMillan, 1968) in which he postulates a set of underlying principles to explain the self-organizing tendencies of social and biological systems. He proposed the term holon (holos = whole and on = part, e.g. proton, neutron, etc.) to describe the elements of these systems. This term reflects the tendencies of such systems to act as autonomous entities, yet cooperating to form apparently self-organising hierarchies of subsystems, such as the cell/tissue/organ/system hierarch in biology. A system of such autonomous and cooperative holons is named holarchy.
A holarchy can be regarded as a multi-agent system (MAS) with a specific structural organisation and rule governed behavior. The duality autonomy-cooperation as main contradictory forces within a holarchy (MAS) is balanced by the rules that define the functionality of such a system of semi-autonomous holons (agents).
The HMS Consortium is investigating ways to implement manufacturing holarchies using the multi-agent paradigm, with main focus on the intelligent control of distributed machines, to achieve dynamic on-line reconfigurable production systems.
HMS wants to liaise with FIPA in a joint effort aiming to develop standards for distributed collaborative holarchies that expand beyond the manufacturing control and production planning into the higher supply chain management enterprise levels.
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Contact/URL
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http://hms.ifw.uni-hannover.de/
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JAS Java Community Process
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Description
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The Java Agent Services project is an initiative to define an industry standard specification and API for the development of network agent and service architectures.There is of course no doubt that the most pervasive technology in use today for creating FIPA agent systems is Java. However, to date there exists no standard Java API for creating them, an omission that must be rectified if agents are to penetrate the business applications world. The JAS initiative intends to answer this requirement by developing an API, in the 'javax.agent' namespace, that instantiates the architectural features of the FIPA Abstract Architecture. This not only acts as a validation of the Abstract Architecture, but also forms the basis for creating commercial applications based on FIPA specifications.
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Contact/URL
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http://www.java-agent.org/
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Contact
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The FIPA Representative at JAS is Frank McCabe (fgm@fla.fujitsu.com)
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OMG Agents Working Group
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Description
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The OMG has a number of interests which are related to Agents; of which the most visible is the Agents Platform Special Interest Group (Agents PSIG). On the other hand, CORBA represents a significant platform on which agent systems may be deployed. From a technology perspective, OMG's interests tend to lie at a lower level than FIPA's; however, OMG has a very strong applications orientation reflecting the strong user base within OMG member companies. The OMG and FIPA maintain a liaison relationship in order to better foster synergy between OMG's and FIPA's interests in the agents area. The liaison activity is fundamentally one of communication: FIPA makes sure that OMG is aware of the latest happenings within FIPA and what FIPA's directions are; whereas FIPA is interested in similar news of the OMG. For example, in recent months, the OMG has shifted to a Model Driven Architecture approach to building systems. This is of particular interest to FIPA members as it parallels FIPA's own shift to the Abstract Architecture.
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Contact/URL
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http://www.omg.org/
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Contact
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The FIPA Representative at OMG is Frank McCabe (fgm@fla.fujitsu.com)
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Name
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WebONT W3C Working Group
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Description
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The W3C WebONT Working Group, part of the Semantic Web Activity, will focus on the development of a language to extend the semantic reach of current XML and RDF meta-data efforts. This working group will focus on building the ontological layer and the formal underpinnings of a language that will allow the explicit representation of term vocabularies and the relationships between entities in these vocabularies. In this way, they go beyond XML, RDF and RDF-S in allowing greater machine readable content on the web. A further necessity is for such languages to be based on a clear semantics (denotational and/or axiomatic) to allow tool developers and language designers to unambiguously specify the expected meaning of the semantic content when rendered in the Web Ontology syntax.
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Contact/URL
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http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/
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Contact
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The FIPA Representative at WebONT W3C is Jonathan Dale (jonathan.dale@fla.fujitsu.com)
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