88-917
Intelligent Agents for e-Commerce (Spring 2002)

Announcements

• AS you may have noticed, the auction site was down for a while. The site is now up at: http://dori.technion.ac.il/auction/ and the deadline for the project is extended by 10 days to August 20.
• An (partial) example of c++ code is here
• Due to multiple requests, the deadline for assignment 3 was extended to June 23
• The project, which is essentialy an extension of assignment 3, is here
• An example of java code that (among other things) maintains a session and follows a redirection is here
• An example of java code for connecting to the internet is here
• An example of assignment 1 is here

Course Information

Class location: Life Sciences - 414

Class hours: Thu. 18:00-20:00

1. Class presentations will be posted on the web in PDF format.
2. Monitor the site for changes. New links for course references will be added frequently.
3. Class notes of high quality will be appreciated. Outstanding quality notes may serve as assignment substitute.
4. Assignments and projects must be submitted on time. Late submissions will be penalized.

Grade calculation:

70% project, 30% homework

There will be 3 assignments, from among the best 2 will be selected for grade calculation.

Each assignment will have a 15% weight in the final grade.

The project will be of one of the following types:

1. Design and programming: create an agent or a related component/service.
2. Survey: a critical review of a topic related to the course.
3. Mechanism design/analysis: designing or analyzing and agent oriented EC mechanism.

Staff

Teaching staff	Office	Office Hours	E-mail	Telephone
Lecturer: Dr.Onn Shehory		Set appointment by email	onn@il.ibm.com
TA: TBA	TBA

Lectures' Materials

Subject	Week	Slides	Remarks
Introduction	1	Lecture 1
Agents and MAS	2	Lecture 2
Agent design	3	Lecture 3
Architectures	4	Lecture 4
Concurrent architectures	5	Lecture 5
Protocols and strategies	6	Lecture 6
Auctions	7	Lecture 7	Please bring lecture 6 too
Negotiation/Coalitions	8	Lecture 8
Security	9	Lecture 9
Information-gathering/Mobility	10	Lecture 10

Assignments

Number	Submission by
Assignment 1	April 11, 2002
Assignment 2	April 25, 2002
Assignment 3	June 23, 2002
Project	August 10, 2002

Reference books

1. Agent Technology, edited by N. R. Jennings and M. J. Wooldridge, Springer 1998
2. Readings in Agents, edited by M. N. Huhns and M. P. Singh, Morgan Kaufmann 1998.
3. Software Agents, edited by J. M. Bradshaw, MIT Press 1997.