Web-Based Service Exchange System for Agents and Humans Alike

Semantic Web research aims at bridging the gap between how humans and agents process information readily available on the Internet. One of the great challenges to this goal lies in the fact that humans, contrary to agents, can extract the meaning of words based on its context. This work introduces a service exchange system for the web that allows agents to intelligently process information, as would humans. This is achieved by the use of thesauri to help agents resolve semantic heterogeneity in the information being processed. The framework for the exchange system has been realized under the Aglet platform on the Secure Aglet Server SAS, thus providing it with a secure execution environment. This article discusses the exchange system and presents a prototyped pharmaceutical marketplace built using the exchange system framework. The prototype showcases the ability of the system to support intelligent information processing by agents and humans alike.