Abstract

: We argue for an XML encoding of FIPA Agent Communication Language (ACL), and give an alpha version of it, called Agent Communication Markup Language (ACML), which we have implemented. The XML approach facilitates: (a) developing/maintaining parsers, integrating with WWW-world software engineering, and (b) the enriching capability to (hyper-)link to ontologies and other extra information. The XML approach applies similarly to KQML as well. Motivated by the importance of the content language aspect of agent communication, we focus in particular on business rules as a form of content that is important in e-commerce applications such as bidding negotiations. A leading candidate content language for business rules is Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF), which is currently in the ANSI standards committee process. We observe several major practical shortcomings of KIF as a content language for business rules in e-commerce. We argue instead for a knowledge representation (KR) approach based o...

Citations