The anticipated environment is that of electronic trading on the Internet. The research will involve the application of a generic technique known as reflection to a rich workflow modelling notation known as task structures. The result will be a set of operators for dynamically composing new tasks from existing ones. These operators will be provided with a rigorous theretical basis. To test the practical possibility of developing software that embodies these ideas, a prototype tool will be developed.
Software is to be developed that allows for more flexible ways of trading.
In particular, the use of agent technology is investigated to see to what extent trading over the internet could be supported. In particular, sophisticated automated negotiation needs to be possible. In this project we attempt to provide an underpinning architecture for the ultimate integration of a potentially huge collection of networked resources. The idea is to provide a supporting structure which evolves over time, and avoids bottlenecks associated with the static, once off, a priori linking resources. February 01, 2001.