DAML PI Meeting Status Briefing
UMBC, JHU APL, MIT Sloan
Tim Finin
Jim Mayfield
Benjamin Grosof
February 12, 2002
tell
register
XTalks Application testbed
Communicating
Agents
JHU APL Haircut
retrieval system
Accomplishments
 ITTALKS => XTalks as integrated applications using agent
mediated services to disseminate event announcements
 DAML+OIL as an agent communication language allows intelligent agents
accept DAML+OIL event notifications and enter on user’s calendar if they
match interests, location & schedule.
 DAML+OIL ontology to represent distributed trust and belief
 Retrieval
 Retrieval using text, DAML+OIL, and RDF triples
 Implemented retrieval-based ontology mapping (not yet enough DAML/text
for general applicability)
 Implemented SOAP-based retrieval and term relationship services
 Preliminary representation of RuleML in DAML
 Implemented DAMLATOR Apache module as an efficient,
convenient translation engine for DAML+OIL
accomplishments
XTalks
• XTalks supports database driven web
site of talks and related. The database
contains information on
– Seminar events
– People (speakers, hosts, users,…)
– Places (rooms, institutions,…)
http://ittalks.org/
– Topics (defined by DAML+OIL ontology)
– User’s interests, schedules and locations
• This database is used to dynamically generate web pages and
DAML+OIL descriptions for the talks and related events.
• Notifications are sent to registered users and/or their agents via
email, SMS, WAP, and/or an ACL (e.g., KQML, FIPA) for events
matching their interests, location and schedule.
• XTalks 1.0 available by CD or
http://daml.umbc.edu/download/
accomplishments
10
1
ITTALKS app
mapquest
18
11
ITTALKS
agent
Travel
agent
17
user’s daml profile
Communication
protocol
FIPA ACL
9
2
API
12
User
agent
3
XSB
DAML+OIL
Reasoner
DAML reasoner
8
16
13 5
Calendar
agent
14
7
15
4
Broker
Agent
6
Agent
Name
Server
MS Outlook
Common agent infrastructure
accomplishments
Distributed Trust
Delegation based model for distributed
authorization and trust for use in both
wired and wireless scenarios.
 Focus on trust from security perspective
 Building on concepts like authentication,
authorization, role-based access control,
public key infrastructure, digital signatures,
authoritative sources of information, etc.
Agents make speech acts about
and reason over these properties
and relations.
http://daml.umbc.edu/ontologies/trust-ont.daml
 Grounded in an ontology represented in DAML+OIL
Trust/security policies defined in DAML+OIL
and by rules (in RuleML)
 Requests for actions made by and to agents evaluated
by reasoning using trust and security policy
 Adding security to FIPA framework
Applications
To XTalks
& mobile
computing
accomplishments
Interactive ontology mapper
Allows users to create
mappings between two
ontologies which have
URIs to text associated
with classes and
properties.
Automates mapping
process, taking into
account hierarchical
relationships and userspecified landmark
mappings.
Uses text classification
to compute similarities
between pairs of
classes or properties.
Used in XTalks to enable mappings between
Alternative topic ontologies in DAML+OIL
accomplishments
DAML and Text Retrieval
 HAIRCUT retrieval engine augmented to use
text, DAML, and RDF triples as indexing/query terms
 Demonstrated retrieval-based ontology mapping
 find text that characterizes DAML tag, then find other DAML tags
with similar characterizations
 Not yet enough DAML/text available for general applicability of this
technique
 SOAP query services over DAML crawler data
available
http://www.daml.org:2020/soap/servlet/rpcrouter/
Services are affines (find related terms), lookup
(search for documents)
Damlator translation engine
 Extensible engine for DAML-encoded
Semantic Web pages translation and caching
 Currently supported output formats:
 For humans: GIF and PNG
 For agents: DAML, NTriples, Prolog terms
 Caching supports scalability and efficiency
 Incorporated as an Apache-module
 Faster, application/user independent and system-wide availability
 Accessed via http://host/@SeeAs@/original/path/to/file.daml
 Similar to W3C RDF
HTTP
Browser
Validation Service
 Uses Jena RDF/XML Parser,
Apache Web
Server
DAMLATOR
Module
DAMLspeaking
Agent
Apache Xerces, AT&T GraphViz
 Available from
Local File System
DAMLATOR
Cache
http://www.ittalks.org/download/
accomplishments
DAMLator examples
http://daml.umbc.edu/dmldemo/Profile1.daml
 Original file
http://daml.umbc.edu/@daml@/dmldemo/Profile1.daml
 Just the DAML markup
http://daml.umbc.edu/@xsb@/dmldemo/Profile1.daml
 XSB/Prolog terms for triples
http://daml.umbc.edu/@gif@/dmldemo/Profile1.daml
 Gif of rdf graph, generated with GraphViz
http://daml.umbc.edu/@png@/dmldemo/Profile1.daml
 Png of rdf graph, generated with GraphViz
http://daml.umbc.edu/@ntriples@/dmldemo/Profile1.daml
 Rdf in ntriple format
2002 Planned Activity
 Xtalks 2.0
 Easily configured Personal Agents accept recommendations from
XTalks agents and other agents about events of interest.
 Extend ontology mapper beyond topic ontologies
 Retrieval
 Incorporate pre-indexing, pre-query and post-query inference
 Use retrieval ranking to limit post-query inference
 Rules
 Jess reasoner for integrated DAML+OIL and RuleML based rules
 Application to security/trust policy checking
plans
XTalks Personal Agent
External World
External
Plugins
COM
Bridge
Xtalks
Plugin
User
Interface
Mapquest
Plugin
User
Model
Buddy
List
Plugin
Personal
Plugin
Agent
Manager
Infrastructure
JADE platform
XPA is a configurable “personal agent” which accepts
FIPA messages from XTalks and other instances of
XPAs as well as applications, e.g.Outlook.
Rule
Engine
Interface
yajxb
XSB
Jess
plans
Xtalks agents
Xtalks
Interface
Xtalks
System
FIPA Request
Response Protocol
Periodic
querying
Mapquest Agent
1 – Xtalks Announcement
2 – User Agent Solicitation
3 – Buddy List
4 – Travel Planning
Xtalks
System
Scenarios
1,2
Personal
Agent (2)
Xtalks Agent
FIPA Request
Response Protocol
Personal
Agent (1)
Scenarios
3,4
Personal
Agent (3)
plans
Integrating Retrieval and Inference
triples
daml tags
Index
Inference
<daml>
text
words
rdf clauses
<daml>
text
Inference
Retrieval
Engine
Inference
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
<triple>
<triple>
<triple>
<triple>
<triple>
<triple>
<triple>
<triple>
<triple
<triple>
plans
DAML Rules
DAML KB
( Facts + Rules )
represented in
DAML
DAMLRules
to Jess
Converter
Jess
representation
of facts & rules
DAMLRule
Ontology
Jess Engine
Derived Facts
represented in
DAML
Jess to
DAMLRule
Converter
Derived
Facts
To be demonstrated by supporting the reasoning of a distributed trust
scenario for establishing an agent’s permissions and obligations from
descriptions (in DAML+OIL) of their properties and of the security and
trust policy in force.
plans
2002 Planned Deliverables
 Xtalks 2.0
 XTalks 2.0 available on CD and download
 Configurable personal agent works with XTalks agents and other personal
agents
 FIPA platform with distributed trust modules
 Retrieval
 Integrated retrieval over text and markup with inferencing
 Demonstration of retrieval-ranked inference control
 Rules
 Demonstration of integrated reasoning with DAML+OIL and RuleML rules
for security/trust policy checking
deliverables
Metrics for measuring progress
 Xtalks
 Number of interacting/cooperating XTalks personal agents
 Integrated retrieval
 Percentage reduction in inferences when using retrieval rankings
 DAML+Oil rules
 Completeness of DAML+OIL reasoning
 DIPS (DAML Inferences per second) on standard benchmarks
metrics
Summary and Questions
 Three areas:
 Agent mediated applications and services
 Retrieval using both text and semantic web
markup
 Representing and exploiting rules in DAML+OIL
 XTalks as a fielded application testbed
 Questions?
summary
Papers
Sasikanth Avancha, Anupam Joshi, and Tim Finin, Enhancing the Bluetooth Service Discovery Protocol,
submitted IEEE Wireless Computing and Networking Conference, Orlando, March 17-21, 2002.
Lalana Kagal, Jeffrey Undercoffer, Anupam Joshi, and Tim Finin, Vigil: Providing Trust for Enhanced Security
in Pervasive Systems, October 2001. http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/vigil/
R. Scott Cost et.al., 'ITTALKS: A Case Study in DAML and the Semantic Web', IEEE Intelligent Systems
Special Issue, 2002
Lalana Kagal, Jeffrey Undercoffer, Filip Perich, Anupam Joshi, Tim Finin, 'Vigil: Enforcing Security in
Ubiquitous Environments', Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, 2002.
Lalana Kagal, Vladimir Korolev, Sasikanth Avancha, Anupam Joshi, Timothy Finin, 'A SmartSpaces Approach
to Service Management for Pervasive Computing', Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, 2002.
Tim Finin et. al., Information Agents for Mobile and Embedded Devices, Fifth International Workshop
Cooperative Information Agents, September 6-8, 2001 Modena, Italy. http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/cia01/
Lalana Kagal, Tim Finin and Anupam Joshi, Moving from Security to Distributed Trust in Ubiquitous
Computing Environments, IEEE Computer, December 2001. http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/ieee01/
Anupam Joshi, Timothy Finin, and Yelena Yesha, Agents, Mobility, and M-Services: Creating the next
generation applications and infrastructure on mobile ad-hoc networks, Workshop on an Infrastructure for Mobile
and Wireless Systems, Scottsdale, Arizona, October 15, 2001.
appendix
Papers
Olga Ratsimore, Vladimir Korolev, Anupam Joshi and Tim Finin, Agents2Go: an infrastructure for location-Dependent Service
Discovery in the mobile electronic commerce environment, First ACM Mobile Commerce Workshop, July 21, 2001, Rome.
http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/amcw01/
R. Scott Cost et. al., ITTALKS: A Case Student in how the Semantic Web Helps, International Semantic Web Workshop -Infrastructure and Applications for the Semantic Web, July, 2001, Stanford. http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/swws01/
Filip Perich et. al., ITTALKS: An Application of Agents in the Semantic Web, Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agents'
World, 7 July 2001, Prague. http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/esaw01/
Lalana Kagal et. al., A Highly Adaptable Infrastructure for Service Discovery and Management in Ubiquitous Computing, May
2001.
Lalana Kagal, Timothy Finin, and Yun Peng, A Framework for Distributed Trust, Workshop on Autonomy, Delegation, and
Control: Interacting with Autonomous Agents, IJCAI-2001, Seattle, August, 2001. http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/jicai01/
Lalana Kagal et. al., An Infrastructure for Distributed Trust Management, Workshop on Norms and Institutions in Multiagent
Systems, Autonomous Agents 2001, Montreal, May 29, 2001. http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/nimas01/
Lalana Kagal et. al., Centaurus: A Framework for Intelligent Services in a Mobile Environment, International Workshop on Smart
Appliances and Wearable Computing (IWSAWC), Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, April 16, 2001.
http://umbc.edu/~finin/papers/centaurus/
Harry Chen, Anumpam Joshi, Tim Finin, and Dipanjan Chakraborty, "Dynamic Service Discovery for Mobile Computing:
Intelligent Agents meet Jini in the Aether", Baltzer Science Journal on Cluster Computing, Special Issue on Advances in
Distributed and Mobile Systems and Communications, 2001.
appendix