An intelligent agent-based competitive contract process: UNIK-AGENT
Jae Kyu Lee, Woong-Kyu Lee · Intelligent systems in accounting, finance and management/Intelligent systems in accounting, finance & management · 1998
The framework of agent-based commerce is proposed as the second generation of electronic commerce. Since the communication messages and solution methods of agents are significantly influenced by the contract type, we have defined the grammar of contracts first. By using this generalized contract grammar, we can express new creative contract types as well as traditional ones such as bids and auctions. The messages in agent-based commerce have adopted three layers: Agent Communication Language, Electronic Commerce, and Product Specification. For electronic commerce, the agent is regarded as an extension of expert systems with the additional capability of communication control and meta-problem solving. A prototype of the agent-based commerce development environment, UNIK-AGENT, is developed to implement the idea. The procedure of the message generation and solution method selection is illustrated with the case of a computer purchase. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.