Abstract. We introduce the OWL Plugin, a Semantic Web extension of the Protégé ontology development platform. The OWL Plugin can be used to edit ontologies in the Web Ontology Language (OWL), to access description logic reasoners, and to acquire instances for semantic markup. In many of these features, the OWL Plugin has created and facilitated new practices for building Semantic Web contents, often driven by the needs of and feedback from our users. Furthermore, Protégé's flexible open-source platform means that it is easy to integrate customtailored components to build real-world applications. This document describes the architecture of the OWL Plugin, walks through its most important features, and discusses some of our design decisions.

No abstract

Abstract. Rule languages and rule systems are widely used in business applications including computer-aided training, diagnostic fact finding, compliance monitoring, and process control. However, there is little interoperability between current rule-based systems. Interoperation is one of the main goals of the Semantic Web, and developing a language for sharing rules is often seen as a key step in reaching this goal. The Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) is an important first step in defining such a rule language. This paper describes the development of a configurable interoperation environment for SWRL built in Protégé-OWL, the most widely-used OWL development platform. This environment supports both a highly-interactive, full-featured editor for SWRL and a plugin mechanism for integrating third party rule engines. We have integrated the popular Jess rule engine into this environment, thus providing one of the first steps on the path to rule integration on the Web.

The complexity of communication scenarios between agents make multi-agent systems difficult to build. Most of the existing Agent-Oriented Software Engineering methodologies face this complexity by guiding the developers through a rather waterfall-based process with a series of intermediate modeling artifacts. While these methodologies lead to executable prototypes relatively late and are expensive when requirements change, we explore a rather evolutionary approach with explicit support for change and rapid feedback. In particular, we apply Extreme Programming, a modern agile methodology from object-oriented software technology, for the design and implementation of multi-agent systems. The only modeling artifacts that are being maintained in our approach are a process model with which domain experts and developers design and communicate agent application scenarios, and the executable agent source code including automated test cases. We have successfully applied our approach for the development of a prototypical multi-agent system for clinical information logistics.

No abstract