Data Mining and Multi-agent Integration

In recent years, more and more researchers have been involved in researchon both agent technology and data mining. A clear disciplinary effort has been acti-vated toward removing the boundary between them, that is the interaction and integration between agent technology and data mining. We refer this to agent mining asa new area. The marriage of agents and data mining is driven by challenges faced byboth communities, and the need of developing more advanced intelligence, informa-tion processing and systems. This chapter presents an overall picture of agent miningfrom the perspective of positioning it as an emerging area. We summarize the maindriving forces, complementary essence, disciplinary framework, applications, casestudies, and trends and directions, as well as brief observation on agent-driven datamining, data mining-driven agents, and mutual issues in agent mining. Arguably,we draw the following conclusions: (1) agent mining emerges as a new area in thescientific family, (2) both agent technology and data mining can greatly benefit fromagent mining, (3) it is very promising to result in additional advancement in intel-ligent information processing and systems. However, as a new open area, there aremany issues waiting for research and development from theoretical, technologicaland practical perspectives.