Multi-Agent Architecture for Knowledge-Driven Decision Support - Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Agent Technology, and Collaborative Applications - page 37

agent, the user agent becomes problem domain aware and is ready to assist the user through a decision
making process in the specific problem domain.
user Agents
The user agent contains methods to generate a user-friendly interface to inform the user about problem
domain attributes that are pertinent to the decision problem under consideration. The user interface
offers explanations about each domain attribute and provides the user with contextual information on
the different values that each domain attribute may take. This serves the purpose of informing the user
and increasing their knowledge about the various factors that affect a decision in the problem domain
under consideration. The user agent also contains methods to generate a decision making interface that
allows a decision maker to consider and choose values for pertinent attributes. This selection process
creates an instance of an observation that can be compared against the rules available to the user agent
through the domain knowledge. The user interacts with the User Interface agent by asking question
about the decision problem and receives responses containing decision alternatives and explanation of
Figure 3. The intelligent knowledge-based multi-agent decision support architecture (IKMDSA).