Intelligent agents

1. Intelligent Systems in Business
Intelligent Agents
Lecture
7.10.2008
Definition
fi i i
A software program that uses a built in or
learned knowledge base to carry out
kno ledge carr o t
specific, repetitive and predictable tasks for
an individual user, business process or
pp
software application

2. Examples on tasks
l k
Make decisions on users preferences
– Delete junk email
j
– Schedule appointments
– Travel over interconnected networks to find the
cheapest airfare to a certain destiny
Serve as personal digital assistants
– Training or teaching the user (the Wizard in MS Office
– Search engines on www do not usually qualify as
intelligent agents
– Lisp-coach
i h
– PersonaLink
Examples on Intelligent Agents
l lli A
Buyer agents (shopping bots)
These bots help Internet surfers find products and
services they are searching for. For example, when
a person surfs for an item on eBay, at the bottom
p y,
of the page there is a list of similar products that
other customers who did the same search looked
at. This is because it is assumed the user tastes are
relatively similar and they will be interested in the
same products. This technology is known as
d t Thi t h l i k
collaborative filtering.

3. User agents (personal agents)
Meant to carry out tasks automatically for
the user
user.
Sort emails according to the user's order of
preference,
f
Assemble customized news reports (e.g.
newshub), or
Fill out webpage forms with the user s
user's
stored information (e.g. Form Filler bot), .
Monitoring-and-surveillance
(predictive) agents
Used to observe and report on equipment,
usually computer systems, for example
s all comp ter s stems e ample
Keep track of company inventory levels,
Observe competitors' prices and relay them
back to the company,
company
Watch stock manipulation by insider trading
and rumors, etc.

4. Data mining agents
This agent uses information technology to find trends and patterns in
an abundance of information from many different sources.
The user can sort through this information in order to find whatever
information they are seeking. An example of this class of bot would be
a data mining agent that
detects market conditions and changes and relays them back to a
g y
user/company so that the user/company can make decisions
accordingly.
For example, the agent may detect a decline in the construction
industry f
i d t for an economy; based on this relayed information
b d thi l d i f ti
construction companies will be able to make intelligent decisions
regarding the hiring/firing of employees or the purchase/lease of
equipment in order to best suit their firm.
firm
Difficulties with Intelligent Agents
No standard way on presenting information
on the web
eb
– Solutions
– W3C
• XML
– XBRL.org
• XBRL

5. W3C
3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an
international consortium where Member
organizations, a full-time staff, and the public
work together to develop Web standards. W3C's
standards W3C s
mission is:
To lead the World Wide Web to its full
potential by developing protocols and
guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the
long term
Web. Source: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/
XML
W3C is pleased to announce the renewal of the Extensible
Markup Language (XML) Activity. "W3C created,
developed and continues to maintain the enormously
successful XML family of specifications for supporting
and interchanging text, graphics, protocols, voice, music,
math, programming, user interfaces, Web services and
more," said Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead. The
XML A ti it ' nine groups maintain stability and
Activity's i i t i t bilit d
backwards compatibility, make improvements to
encourage interoperability, and bring new communities to
g p y, g
XML. Source:http://www.w3.org/

6. XBRL
“The idea behind XBRL, eXtensible Business
Reporting Language, is simple. Instead of treating
Language simple
financial information as a block of text - as in a
standard internet page or a printed document - it
provides an identifying tag for each individual
item of data. This is computer readable. For
data readable
example, company net profit has its own unique
tag.
tag “
– Source:XBRL.org
Why tags
h
“The introduction of XBRL tags enables automated
processing of business information by computer software,
cutting out laborious and costly processes of manual re-
re
entry and comparison.
Computers can treat XBRL data "intelligently": they can
recognise the information in a XBRL document, select it,
i h i f i i d l i
analyse it, store it, exchange it with other computers and
present it automatically in a variety of ways for users.
XBRL greatly increases the speed of handling of financial
data, reduces the chance of error and permits automatic
checking of information. “
– Source:XBRL.org

7. Benefits with XBRL
fi ih
“Companies can use XBRL to save costs and
streamline their processes for collecting and
reporting financial information.
Consumers of financial data, including investors,
data investors
analysts, financial institutions and regulators, can
receive, find
receive find, compare and analyse data much
more rapidly and efficiently if it is in XBRL
format.
format “
– Source:XBRL.org
Benefits with XBRL
fi ih
XBRL can handle data in different
languages and accounting standards
standards.
It can flexibly be adapted to meet different
requirements and uses.
i t d
Data can be transformed into XBRL by
suitable mapping tools or it can be
generated in XBRL by appropriate
software.

8. XBRL - taxonomies
i
http://www.xbrl-
deutschland.de/GermanAP_2002_02_15_en
de tschland de/GermanAP 2002 02 15 en
_nav.html
Who uses it
h i
“XBRL is already in practical use for
specific purposes in several countries and
p rposes se eral co ntries
projects are under way to introduce it in
others.
– Source:XBRL.org
g