Agent-based environment for knowledge integration

Abstract

Representing knowledge with the use of ontology description languages offers several advantages arising from knowledge reusability, possibilities of carrying out reasoning processes and the use of existing concepts of knowledge integration. In this work we are going to present an environment for the integration of knowledge expressed in such a way. Guaranteeing knowledge integration is an important element during the development of the Semantic Web. Thanks to this, it is possible to obtain access to services which offer knowledge contained in various distributed databases associated with semantically described web portals. We will present the advantages of the multi-agent approach while solving this problem. Then, we will describe an example of its application in systems supporting company management knowledge in the process of constructing supply-chains. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.