E. Corchado et al. (Eds.): HAIS 2009, LNAI 5572, pp. 500–509, 2009.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009
RecMas: A Multiagent System Socioconfiguration
Recommendations Tool
Luis F. Castillo
1
, Manuel G. Bedia
2
, and Ana L. Uribe
1
1
Grupo investigación Ingeniería del Software, Universidad Autónoma de Manizales, Colombia
Antigua Estación del Ferrocarril
lfcastil@autonoma.edu.co
2
Departamento Informática Universidad de Zaragoza
C/ María de Luna, s/n, 50018, Zaragoza, Spain
mgbedia@unizar.es
Abstract. This paper presents a multiagent recommendation system (RecMAS)
able to coordinate the interactions between a user agent (AgUser) and a set of
commercial agents (AgComs) providing a useful service for monitoring
changes in the AgUser’s beliefs and decisions based on two parameters: (i) the
strength of its own beliefs and (ii) the strength of the AgComs’ suggestions.
The system was used to test several commercial activities in a shopping centre
where the AgComs (AgComs) provided information to an AgUser operating in
a wireless device (PDA, mobile phone, etc.) used by a client. The AgUser re-
ceived messages adapted for conditions of particular offers of interest to the cli-
ent. Using a theoretical model and a set of simulation experiments, commercial
strategies in relation with the socio-dynamics of the system were obtained. This
paper concludes with a presentation of a prototype in a real shopping centre.
Keywords: SocioConfiguration, Multiagent systems, Agent-based social
simulation.
1 Introduction
Models of artificial societies from different perspectives are useful in a large number
of applications. Currently, there exist several different mathematical models that try to
explain what types of relations are established in complex social systems [1]. Tradi-
tionally, theoretical models used to analyze complex social systems come from the
field of social sciences, using qualitative techniques [2] but at present, new models
from a quantitative perspective have started to be proposed [3]; in particular, models
based in the theories of complexity [4] and emergent phenomena [5]. Nevertheless,
although these models include very complex characteristics related with different
domains, generally they do not take into consideration complex internal states. In this
paper, techniques of the area of the multiagent systems are used for the design of our
model. Agent-based systems and multiagent systems [6,11] gather very interesting
techniques in order to develop tools which can help us to describe (quantitatively)
processes of change of beliefs and social adaptation. In the proposed model there are
N BDI-agents, one of which, AgUser, has capacity to buy products adapted to the