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Web Information Integration Using Multiple Character Agents

  • Chapter
Life-Like Characters

Part of the book series: Cognitive Technologies ((COGTECH))

Summary

The World Wide Web contains a vast amount of various information stored in a huge number of distributed web sites. Search engines and information agents have been developed to facilitate efficient information retrieval tasks from the web. By integrating multiple search engines and information agents as an interoperable system, we increase each value of them. In conventional information integration systems, the integration process is designed by system designers and is concealed from the end users.

This chapter proposes an interactive multiagent-based interface called the Multiple Characters Interface (MCI) where animated life-like agents interact with each other and with the user for assisting in information retrieval. By using the MCI, even a novice user can create a team of information agents and can self-customize the agents through interactions with them. We report here on the architecture of the MCI and two prototype systems based on the MCI, Venus and Mars, which is a cooperative multiagent system for information retrieval, and Recommendation Battlers, which is a competitive multiagent system for information recommendation. We also perform an evaluation experiment based on the Wizard of Oz method and show that multiple life-like agents tend to broaden the user’s interest in the course of information retrieval.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics, School of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University, 2-1 Gakuen, Sanda, 669-1337, Japan

    Yasuhiko Kitamura

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  1. Yasuhiko Kitamura
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Information and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, 113-8656, Tokyo, Japan

    Helmut Prendinger  & Mitsuru Ishizuka  & 

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kitamura, Y. (2004). Web Information Integration Using Multiple Character Agents. In: Prendinger, H., Ishizuka, M. (eds) Life-Like Characters. Cognitive Technologies. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08373-4_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08373-4_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-05655-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-08373-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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