Message Content Ontologies

Abstract

In this chapter we address the problem of how agents can handle message-based communication. Our approach is to look at ontology-based communication, in which the meaning and intention of messages is specified in message content ontologies. The idea is that agents can share semantics by committing to shared message content ontologies. We discuss a theoretical framework for message-based communication, in which we sketch an ideal world where an agent is capable of various ontological operations. A pragmatic approach is presented, which enables the creation and use of ontologies to support message-based communication between agents.

A tool is described that assists agent engineers in designing message content ontologies and export it to Java source code. A case study on Legal services illustrates conversations between agents based on a message content ontology. The work presented is partly based on the paper Creating and Using Ontologies in Agent Communication, published in Proceedings of the Workshop on Ontologies and Agent Systems at AAMAS 2002. The co-authors are R.F. Pels, G. Caire and F. Bergenti. The case study described is based on an Agentcities grant project (see www.acklin.nl/agentcities). The “Bean Generator” tool described is designed by the author and is used by various institutions and companies that work with the JADE toolkit (see http://gaper.swi.psy.uva.nl/beangenerator).