Software Agents communicate by exchanging messages formulated in an Agent Communication Language. In order to facilitate communication and understanding of each other, the domain of discourse of heterogeneous agents should be described in an explicit ontology. Both, the Agent Communication Language and the ontology definition, are independent of the implementation of agents. Furthermore the con...

Re-use is employed in software engineering to in uence e ciency constructively and the overall quality of a product. While well-established tools and technologies are available in the advanced phases of software projects, support is missing to a large extent for analysis of the universe of discourse and the corresponding conceptual modelling of the requirements. At the same time these activitie...

Reliability modeling is the most important discipline of reliable engineering. A new method for analyzing fuzzy system reliability using vague set theory is demonstrated, where the reliabilities of the components of a system are represented by vague sets defined in the universe of discourse [0, 1]. The proposed method can model and analyze the fuzzy system reliability in a more flexible and mor...

The view of language as action is wellentrenched in computational theories of discourse, however previous work has not paid particular attention to the fact that agents' resource bounds must a ect the way that dialogue proceeds just as it a ects agents' behavior in general. This paper presents results on the role of discourse strategies in improving performance on collaborative tasks when agent...

For many people in the First World, genetically modified crops have become the latest incarnation of evil biotechnology, which sacrifices humans and the environment for the sake of revenues and shareholder value. On one side of the heated discourse are people who firmly believe that GM crops pose a threat to human health and biodiversity. On the other side are mainly scientists who are convince...

the fundamental role of discourse and its positive and negative effects in personal and social interactions is known to everyone. this is why religions and denominations have always relied on discourse, especially when it is beyond the boundaries of personal concerns and by the expansion of its domain, have stressed on the vital position and particular role of discourse in the fate of humanity....

It is a true pleasure to introduce this issue. It is simply interesting and insightful. In a previous editorial, we discussed ways of promoting circles of discourse within the community in general and within the journal in particular (Te'eni, 2012). The articles in this issue demonstrate the kind of interesting and surprising discourse we look for in our circles. Wouldn't it be nice to be able ...

A Framework for K–12 Science Education identifies eight science and engineering practices for K–12 classrooms. These practices, along with core ideas and crosscutting concepts, define our nation’s learning goals for science. An important advance from earlier standards (AAAS 1993, NRC 1996), these practices are clearly identified not as separate learning goals that define what students should kn...