TANDEM: a design method for integrating web services into multi-agent systems

This paper introduces a new design method for multi-agent systems (MAS) that incorporate logic programming. The DigitalFriend is an example of a MAS with a built-in logic language interpreter, which is aimed at having the end-user as developer. It uses small fragments of logic as dynamic glue, bringing together numerous sub-agents that may exist as Web services. However, application developers need to devise well-formed predicates and logic rules - and there lies the need for a specific design method. The well-established techniques of Task Analysis and entity relation Normalization are drawn together into our new design method (TANDEM), introduced here with an example application - the movie-cinema problem.