Architectural Components of Information-Sharing Societies

Two similar multiagent systems have been designed to address the issue of information sharing within a multiagent system. This paper examines architectural components that have been added to our information sharing societies, ACORN and MP3. Through this exploration, we conclude that these components and their underlying concepts can be added to other information retrieval societies. ACORN consists of a set of information sharing locations referred to as Cafés. Cafés are defined as meeting locations for like-minded agents. Like-minded agents are defined as agents that share a common set of interests. As an example, a café may contain agents that are interested in information relating to cars. A dynamic café clustering method is developed. The performance evaluation of the proposed structure for the café is presented. The concept of a fat/thin agent architecture is introduced. This agent architecture allows for minimizing network traffic as agents traverse the network in search of or distribution of knowledge. The directory server component is presented along with its relation to the fat/thin agent architecture. Lastly, anonymity service provider which allows anonymity for users is introduced. The MP3 society exists with the sole purpose of finding MP3’s throughout a given network. Through this society, the core design issues of agent verification, and agent validation are addressed and solutions are presented through respective interface components.