Towards a satisfactory conversion of messages among agent-based information systems
Idoia Berges, Jesús Bermúdez, Alfredo Goñi, Arantza Illarramendi
TL;DR
The paper tackles semantic interoperability across heterogeneous agent-based information systems by focusing on utterance semantics rather than transport or protocol layers. It introduces a framework built on the CommOnt ontology to model communication acts, arranged in a common and applications layer to enable cross-system alignment, and employs Event Calculus and social commitments to capture dynamic effects and obligations. A TranslationMediator and CommOntManager implement end-to-end translation, reasoning, and delivery, with a formal notion of satisfactory conversion defined through entailment: $Φ_{t+1}(Σ, Δ_{A_2(m)}, Ψ, Γ_t) models Φ_{t+1}(Σ, Δ_{A_1(m)}, Ψ, Γ_t)$. A healthcare interoperability scenario demonstrates feasibility, using OWL2 reasoning to translate and align messages between systems, and a proof of satisfactory conversion validates the approach. The work contributes a scalable, semantics-centered interoperability framework and lays the groundwork for evaluating conversion quality in future research.
Abstract
Over the last years, there has been a change of perspective concerning the management of information systems, since they are no longer isolated and need to communicate with others. However, from a semantic point of view, real communication is difficult to achieve due to the heterogeneity of the systems. We present a proposal which, considering information systems are represented by software agents, provides a framework that favours a semantic communication among them, overcoming the heterogeneity of their agent communication languages. The main components of the framework are a suite of ontologies -- conceptualizing communication acts -- that will be used for generating the communication conversion, and an Event Calculus interpretation of the communications, which will be used for formalizing the notion of a satisfactory conversion. Moreover, we present a motivating example in order to complete the explanation of the whole picture.