This thesis presents a study of the fragmented nature of activities involved in the specification and procurement of construction products. Existing Internet-based approaches have perpetuated fragmentation in this domain and this has resulted in a problem known as 'digital anarchy.' The thesis describes the design and development of an application based on the metaphor of software agents to address this problem. The thesis has validated the view that failures in the existing approaches have resulted in the 'digital anarchy' problem. Such approaches have failed to eradicate paper-based communication patterns and its related sequential work methods. The thesis has established the proof of concept of using agents for the management of distributed information in the selected domain. The work has also synthesised agent technology, XML and Web Services into a cohesive architecture, demonstrating that the ultimate solution to the 'digital anarchy' problem will emerge from a synergy of the various streams of research in Internet-related technologies. The work has established that there is significant scope for systematic improvement in the specification and procurement of construction products listed on the Internet based on the agent paradigm.

Multi-agent systems have been used in a wide range of applications from computer-based simulations and mobile robots to agent-oriented programming and intelligent systems in real environments. However, the largest environment in which software agents can interact is, without any doubt, the World Wide Web and ever since its birth agents have been used in various applications such as search engines, e-commerce, and most recently the semantic web. However, agents have yet to be used on the Web in a way that leverages the full power of artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems, which have the potential of making life much easier for humans. This thesis investigates how this can be changed, and how agents can be brought to the core of the online experience in the sense that we want people to talk and interact with agents instead of "just using yet another application or website". We analyze what makes it hard to develop intelligent agents on the web and we propose a web agent model (WAM) inspired by recent results in multi-agent systems. Nowadays, a simple conceptual model is the key for widespread adoption of new technologies and this is why we have chosen the MASQ meta-model as the basis for our approach, which provides the best compromise in terms of simplicity of concepts, generality and applicability to the web. Since until now the model was introduced only in an informal way, we also provide a clear formalization of the MASQ meta-model.Next, we identify the three main challenges that need to be addressed when building web agents: integration of bodies, web semantics and user friendliness. We focus our attention on the first two and we propose a set of principles to guide the development of what we call strong web agents. Finally, we validate our proposal through the implementation of an award winning platform called Kleenk. Our work is just a step towards fulfilling the vision of having intelligent web agents mediate the interaction with the increasingly complex World Wide Web. / Multi-agent systems have been used in a wide range of applications from computer-based simulations and mobile robots to agent-oriented programming and intelligent systems in real environments. However, the largest environment in which software agents can interact is, without any doubt, the World Wide Web and ever since its birth agents have been used in various applications such as search engines, e-commerce, and most recently the semantic web. However, agents have yet to be used on the Web in a way that leverages the full power of artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems, which have the potential of making life much easier for humans. This thesis investigates how this can be changed, and how agents can be brought to the core of the online experience in the sense that we want people to talk and interact with agents instead of "just using yet another application or website". We analyze what makes it hard to develop intelligent agents on the web and we propose a web agent model (WAM) inspired by recent results in multi-agent systems. Nowadays, a simple conceptual model is the key for widespread adoption of new technologies and this is why we have chosen the MASQ meta-model as the basis for our approach, which provides the best compromise in terms of simplicity of concepts, generality and applicability to the web. Since until now the model was introduced only in an informal way, we also provide a clear formalization of the MASQ meta-model.Next, we identify the three main challenges that need to be addressed when building web agents: integration of bodies, web semantics and user friendliness. We focus our attention on the first two and we propose a set of principles to guide the development of what we call strong web agents. Finally, we validate our proposal through the implementation of an award winning platform called Kleenk. Our work is just a step towards fulfilling the vision of having intelligent web agents mediate the interaction with the increasingly complex World Wide Web.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T13:56:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Para promover a reutilização de conteúdos de aprendizagem é necessário promover a normalização desses conteúdos para que possam funcionar corretamente em qualquer sistema de e-learning. A normalização permite: uma fácil reutilização; a portabilidade dos conteúdos criados; a padronização dos processos de criação; e a gestão dos conteúdos de aprendizagem. Porém, normalizar um ambiente de Educação a Distância já existente não é uma tarefa trivial e necessita de uma adequação tanto dos conteúdos de aprendizagem quanto do sistema de e-learning, pois toda a arquitetura é alterada, sendo necessário separar o conteúdo da estrutura. Esta pesquisa propõe e implementa uma arquite-tura denominada Fábrica de Adequação capaz de promover a interoperabilidade dos conteúdos educacionais e promover a adequação de recursos educacionais para Objetos de Aprendizagem Reutilizáveis, respeitando a norma SCORM, utilizando de tecnologias de Agentes de Software,Meta-dado (SCORM) e Web Services, os quais dispõem de mecanismo de auton / To promote learning object reusability it is necessary to provide the normalization of its contents so that they can work appropriately in any e-learning system. The normalization alows easy reusability, portability of created contents, standardization of processes of creation, and management of learning objects. However, to normalize an existing E-learning environment it is not a trivial task and it requires adequacy either of the learning contents and the e-learning system, once the whole architecture is modified, being necessary though to separate the content from the structure. This research proposes and implements an architecture caled Adequacy Factory which is capable of promoting the interoperability of educational contents and the adequacy of educational resources for Learning Object Reusability, respecting the SCORM norm by using technologies such as Soft-ware Agents, Meta-Data (SCORM), and Web Services which make use of autonomy mechanism, interaction, invocation, access, and reuse of services