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| PhD Thesis |
Semantics for an Agent Communication Languageby Yannis LabrouAbstractWe address the issue of semantics for an agent communication
language. In particular, the specification and semantics of Knowledge
Query Manipulation Language (KQML), and the logical architecture of
KQML--speaking agents are investigated. KQML is a language and protocol
to support communication between (intelligent) software agents. First,
we present a new specification for the KQML language that corrects a
number of outstanding problems. Then, based on ideas from speech act
theory, we propose a semantic description for KQML that associates ``cognitive''
states of the agent with the use of the language's primitives (performatives).
We use this approach to describe the semantics for the whole set of
reserved KQML performatives. Building on the semantics, we devise
the conversation policies, i.e., a formal description of how
KQML performatives may be combined into KQML exchanges (conversations),
using a Definite Clause Grammar. Finally, we present the code
for a Prolog program that shows how the conversation policies can be
incorporated in a software agent that speaks KQML.
The
research presented here finalizes the specification of KQML and provides
semantics for the language. The accompanying code shows how this research
can be used to build KQML agents that make use of all of the powerful
features of KQML. Thus, we offer the research community a completely
defined communication language that can be used for knowledge exchange
between software agents. Also, our research offers methods for: (1)
a speech act theory--based semantic description of a language of communication
acts, and (2) the specification of the protocols associated with these
acts. Languages of communication acts address the issue of communication
between software applications at a level of abstraction that could prove
particularly useful to the emerging software agents paradigm
of software design and developement.
You can get the bibentry for my thesis, in
case you would like to reference this work.
If you are only interested in the proposal for a new KQML specification, which was originally part of the thesis, you can get it directly in the form of a technical report. |