· Event handling,
· Filtering information,
· Search for products,
· Comparison of products,
· Finding other agents that carry similar user preferences (Collaborative filtering (Konstan,
1997)),
· Making purchases on behalf of the customer.
In our platform we assume that functionality of the assistant is implemented as an independent
software component that can be overridden when needed.
Agent Deployment Module
In order to support the creation of individual agents we propose an architecture of an agent shell.
The shell implements general agent functionality and supports easy customization, overriding and
extension.
We introduce the agent shell architecture in two steps. First we describe an agent machinery level,
and then consider its functional architecture.
Agent shell machinery is based on event-driven execution (see Figure 8), and includes:
· Prioritized Event List handled by embedded event managers,
· Event description list including event type descriptions with references to handlers,
· Event handlers - procedures which are invoked when a corresponding event is dispatched,
· Agent interface, including ACL and low-level communication ports,
· Agent memory that contains models (specifications, classes, types, etc.) and data (raw data,
objects, etc.).
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Agents in Mobile Commerce