Hi Eric,
If you don't mind to publish the code, I am sure a lot of folks would be
interested in playing with it and make additions.
I think the value of KIF in a KQML-KIF(-Jess) combination goes beyond the
ability to communicate between Jess and non-Jess agents (semantics,
ontologies,..).
From what I know there is no intent to publish the Jackal source code, but
the object code may be published for non-commercial use.
They have two papers accepted at Autonomous Agents'99 (Seattle May 1-5) and
I hope they will have a demo to show.
Alex George Bejan
----- Original Message -----
From: e-r-o-x <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 1999 3:53 PM
Subject: Re: Distributed JESS (was JESS: Modules ...)
> > It's easy to put all the Jess stuff in the CONTENT field and make the
> > LANGUAGE field 'Jess', and with the right interpreter the Jess theory
will
> > be sent directly to the Jess engine. But this is just the beginning,
> > because there are other elements of the KQML language that can be
exploited
> > for far more nuanced work. Let's not forget KQML was developed to work
with
> > knowledge bases, so there are some means there to handle the
functionality
> > you would expect from a distributed knowledge base (ASK-ONE, ASK-MANY,
> > IN-RESPONSE-TO, INSERT-ONE, DELETE-ONE, SORRY, EVALUATE, etc). And
again
> > this is only the beginning, because it refers to singular messages,
whereas
>
> This is what I do with my (fledgeling) project. I have some java-side
> functionality that waits for incoming mail, and asserts unordered-facts
> that correspond to KQML syntax. Then I have a bunch of jess rules that
> respond appropriately. It's actually pretty inefficient, because the
> rules end up defining new rules. For example, the ask-one rule defines
> two rules (that differ in salience), one that triggers on something
> matching the content field as a pattern and sends off the matched rule as
> a tell messsage, and one that automatically fires at low salience with a
> sorry reply. Both rules undef each other, so only one will fire. But
> what ends up happening is a lot of dynamic run time changes to the
> rulebase (which is a bit of an efficency no-no). If anyone wants to see
> the exact code, let me know.
>
> > KQML can work over RMI, or with JavaBeans, or using iBus, to enumerate
a
> > few communication-layer possibilities. However, at the language level
it's
>
> I am using RMI, coupled with some RMI-aware objects and a generic
> mailbox/post office message passing pattern. It was pretty
> straightforward.
>
> > important that Jess and KQML can be used together in meaningful ways.
Some
> > folks use KQML with KIF, which I believe was the originally intended
> > marriage (by DARPA at least who sponsored both), but there is no reason
for
> > not having a modus operandi for KQML and Jess. On the Jess side we need
a
>
> The one thing that is worth considering here is that (theoretically) KIF
> is the portable interchange format, so getting our JESS agents to speak
> KIF in their communications rather than straight JESS type queries would
> allow the agents to send queries to non-Jess entities (although who would
> write an agent _not_ in Jess?)
>
> > way of accessing and using remote facts (and rules) using KQML. Also we
> > need to be able to synchronize with the KQML messages sent and received.
On
>
> Java thread facilities allow for some easy work here. My base agent model
> is:
> block on mailbox until newmail
> dump all new messages into the jess engine
> run the jess engine until it decides to stop
> repeat.
>
> The blocking is achieved by calling a wait() method on the mailbox object,
> and the post office object's deliver method (which is invoked through
> RMI) calls the other half of that method (I can't remember the name of the
> method, is it signal()?) to get the blocking thread to return from the
> wait.
>
> > A comparison between FIPA's ACL and the Jackal KQML would show many
> > similarities. At that point one may want to consider that Jackal is
>
> Have the Jackal people published any source yet? The last time I looked
> (about 4 months ago), they had a descriptive paper, but nothing to poke
> at.
>
> Eric Eslinger
>
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