Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/35857

Title

Agent negotiation based ontology refinement process and mechanisms for service applications

Author(s)

Li, Li;  Yang, Yun

Abstract

Nowadays organisations are willing to outsource their business processes as services and make them accessible via the Web. In doing so, they can dynamically combine individual services to their service applications. However, unless the data on the Web can be meaningfully shared and is interpretable, this objective cannot be realised. In this paper, a new agent-based approach for managing ontology evolution in a Web services environment is exploited. The proposed approach has several key characteristics such as flexibility and extensibility that differentiate this research from others. The refinement mechanisms which cope with an evolving ontology are carefully examined. The novelty of our work is that inter-processes between different ontologies are studied from the agent's perspective. Based on this perspective, an agent negotiation model is applied to reach an agreement regarding ontology discrepancy in an application. The efficiency and effectiveness of reaching an agreement over an ontology dispute is leveraged by the private negotiation strategy applied in the argumentation approach. An extended negotiation strategy is discussed to enable sufficient information in decision making at each negotiation round. A case study is presented to demonstrate ontology refinement in a Web services environment.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Information Technology Research

Source

Service Oriented Computing and Applications, Vol. 2, no. 1 (Apr 2008), p. 15-25

Publication year

2008

Keyword(s)

Agent negotiation;  Multi-agent systems;  Ontology evolution;  Service applications

Publisher

Springer

ISSN

1863-2386

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11761-008-0021-8

Copyright

Copyright © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2008.

Peer reviewed