1. IATOPIA™ Framework (Functions and Modules)

IATOPIA is a fully integrated intelligent ontological agent model used for intelligent agent-based e-commerce applications. The system framework is shown in Figure 1. Unlike contemporary agent systems and APIs such as IBM Aglets and ObjectSpace Voyager. IATo products focuses on the multi-agent communication and autonomous operations, the aim of IATOPIA is to provide comprehensive AI and ontological agent-based APIs and applications for future e-commerce and ontological-based applications.

Figure 1: IATOPIA™ Framework

From figure 1, IATOPIA™ Framework composes of two main model. They are "Application-Ontolgy-Intelligent-Technology-Supporting Layer" (AOITS) model and "Data-Neural Network-Application Layer" (DNA) Model

The AOITS model consists of

• Application Layer,
• Ontology Layer,
• Intelligent Layer,
• Technology Layer, and
• Supporting Layer.

The DNA model is composed of

• Data Layer,
• Neural Network Layer, and
• Application Layer.

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1.1 The Application Layer

This is the uppermost layer that consists of different intelligent ontological agent-based applications. These IATOPIA applications (so-called "IATo") are developed by the integration of intelligent ontological agent components from the 'Intelligent Layer' and the data 'knowledge fields' from the DNA model. Sample applications get implemented in this layer include:

• IATo eMiner: an intelligent ontological Web-mining agent system for e-shopping. It consists of the implementation of 1) FAgent - an automatic authentication system based on human face recognition, and 2) FShopper - a fuzzy agent-based Internet shopping agent.
• IATo WeatherMAN - an intelligent ontological weather forecasting agent which is the extension of previous research on multi-station weather forecasting using fuzzy neural networks. Unlike traditional Web-mining agents, which focus on the automatic extraction and provision of the latest weather information, IATo WeatherMAN possesses neural network-based weather forecasting capability (AI services provided by the 'Conscious Layer' of the IATOPIA model) to act as a 'virtual' weather reporter as well as an 'intelligent' weather forecaster for weather prediction.
• IATo WShopper - an integrated ontological intelligent fuzzy shopping agent with WAP technology for intelligent mobile shopping on the Internet.
• IATo Stock Advisor - an intelligent ontological agent-based stock prediction system using HRBFN (Hybrid Radial Basis Function Recurrent Network) for time series prediction
• IATo Surveillant, the automatic ontological agent-based surveillance system.

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1.2 The Ontology Layer

This layer provides the ontology framework, the so-called "Ontology Center" which consists of five functional modules:
1.IAToSC (intelligent ontology-based Sensation Center)
2.IAToMC (intelligent ontology-based Memory Center)
3.IAToKC (intelligent ontology-based Knowledge Center)
4.IAToLC (intelligent ontology-based Language Center)
5.IAToEC (intelligent ontology-based Ethics Center)

In conformity with the FIPA ontology service specification (XC00086D), an ontology agent (IATo agent) will be designed and constructed with the following functionalities (namely, the "RATE" requirements).

Representation
To represent and discover public ontologies (especially ontologies in foreign platforms).

Administration
To maintain and administer the services and facilities provided by the iJAOS.

Translation
To communicate and translate concepts, meanings, and universals between different ontologies and/or different content languages.

Explanation
To respond to and explain all queries concerning relationships between different concepts and ontologies.

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1.3 The Intelligent Layer

This layer provides the intelligent basis of the IATOPIA system, using the agent components provided by the 'Technology Layer'. The 'Conscious Layer' consists of the following three main intelligent functional areas:

1. 'Sensory Area' - for the recognition and interpretation of incoming stimulates. It includes
   a. visual sensory agents using EGDLM (Elastic Graph Dynamic Link Model) for invariant visual object recognition, and
   b. auditory sensory agents based on wavelet-based feature extraction and interpretation technique.
2. 'Logic Reasoning Area' - conscious and reasoning support, such as fuzzy and GA (Genetic Algorithms) rule-based systems.
3. 'Analytical Area' - consists of various AI tools for analytical calculation, such as recurrent neural network-based analysis for real-time prediction and data mining.

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1.4 The Technology Layer

This layer provides all the necessary mobile agent implementation APIs for the development of intelligent agent components in the 'Conscious Layer'. In our proposed latest version (v2.0) of the IATOPIA model, instead of IBM Aglets as the agent 'backbone', two innovative IATOPIA development tools have been developed, namely:

• IATo SDK (IATOPIA Development Kit) and
• IATo ML (IATOPIA Markup Language)

The main function of IATo SDK is to provide a comprehensive intelligent multi-agent based development platform with the provision for all the intelligent agent-based Java classes and library including: agents communications, negotiations, intelligent agent tools, etc. The main function of IATo ML is the provision of a comprehensive markup language to enhance the intelligent agent communication and data exchange.

In this layer, server-side computing using Java Servlet technology is also adopted due to the fact that for certain intelligent agent-based applications, such as the IATo WShopper, in which limited resources (in terms of memory and computational speed) are provided by the WAP devices (e.g. WAP phones), all the IATo agents interactions are invoked at the 'backend' WAP server using Java Servlet technology.

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1.5 The Supporting Layer

This layer provides all the necessary system supports to the 'Technology Layer'. It includes

1. Programming language support based on Java,
2. Network protocols support such as HTTP, HTTPS, ATP, etc., and
3. Markup languages support such as HTML, XML, WML, etc.

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Introduction to Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT)

Most of the existing electronic commerce systems over the internet are using the client/server approach. The major shortcoming is:

• High traffic loading
• Intensive (and low-level) user intervention

So what we need is something (objects) that can be:-

• Act on-behalf of us
• Run independently over Internet
• Exist autonomously
• Process own intelligent on problem identification & solving

=> Intelligent Agents

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1.6 Definition of Intelligent Agents

The IATOPIA™ Founder - Dr. Lee Shu Tak, Raymond in his latest works (2005) Fuzzy-Neuro Approach to Agent Applications (From the AI Perspective to Modern Ontology) defines IA as:-

"An Intelligent Agent (IA) is the exemplification of human intelligence as a form of device. This device (IA) can exist in the form of a system, a software program, a program object, or even a robot."

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1.7 Ten Basic Requirements of Intelligent Agents

• Autonomous
• Mobile
• Reactive
• Proactive
• Adaptive
• Robust
• Communicative (and Cooperative)
• Learning
• Task-oriented
• Goal-driven

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2. How IATOPIA™ Agent works in terms of Technical point of View.

IATOPIA™ Agent is a Java-based program. It is a sub-class of Thread class, so it can execute its life cycle asynchronously and concurrently inside the IATOPIA™ server. It implements the Serializable interface for packaging agent itself to migrate from host to host, and it also implements the Cloneable interface for copying itself to work concurrently with other instances of the agent. IATOPIA™ Server uses Java RMI as the transporting layer of IATOPIA™ Agents between IATOPIA™ hosts, agent will be serialized and sent to the target host by using RMI remote call.

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3.IATo SDK in the Implementation of IATOPIA™

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3.1 Introduction to IATo SDK (IATOPIA Development Kit)

IATo SDK is an intelligent agent development platform which implements FIPA Agent Management Specification using Java 2 as the development language. The goal of IATo SDK is to provide an agent platform together with a set of API for simplify the development of agent system while ensuring the system is compliance to FIPA standard. Figure 2 shows the basic building blocks of the platform.

Application Agents or Non-agent based user application layer
Agent Management Service	Directory Facilitators
Agent Transport and communication System
Java 2 Standard Edition (JDK 1.4)

Figure 2: Basic building blocks of the platform

To achieve this goal, IATo SDK offers the following features:

• A FIPA-compliant Agent Platform with Agent Management System, Directory Facilitators and Message Transporting System. All these components are automatically started with the agent platform.
• A registration manager to act as a directory facilitator to act as yellow page for registering or searching an agent inside the platform.
• Message transporting mechanism for agents to communicate with each other and dispatching agents.
• A lifecycle manager as an agent management system to control the agent¡¦s lifecycle within an agent platform.
• A graphical user interface for the users to manage, monitor and log an agent's activities

Figure 3: Architecture of the IATOPIA platform