1.2
The ELCOMAG Project
5
User & User
Representation Prediction
Figure 1.2: Thesis Topic Relations
1.2
The ELCOMAG Project
This thesis is a result of the Electronic Commercial Agents (ElComAg)
project.
The focus of the project was on facilities for trading of knowledge
through electronic commerce (e-commerce), including these topics:
1. Conceptual Modeling of Knowledge and Trading Process
2. The design of sale-sites (electronic marketplaces)
3. The design of agents for serving the trade process
4. Information system architecture for knowledge trade
The main objectives of this thesis are related to topic 3 and 4, in particular
with respect to agent-based information system architecture for e-commerce. We
consider e-commerce to be a part of cyberspace.
The word serving (part of topic 3) is a key issue in this thesis since the underlying
motivation for all the presented work is to better serve the cyberspace users.
Users in general prefer cyberspace services that have the following characteristics:
1. Are easy and flexible to use
2. Provide relevant and interesting information
3. Have a decent response time
Characteristic 1 is studied in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI),
and is considered outside the scope of this thesis. Amazon.com's product rec-
ommendation system is an example on how to provide relevant and interesting
information (characteristic 2). Response time can be improved with predictive