<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="client.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
<article article-type="other">
<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id/>
<issn/>
<banner>
<!--<href>banner.jpg</href>-->
<size width="100%"/>
</banner>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<title-group>
<article-title>Scaling-Up Shopbots - a Dynamic Allocation-Based Approach</article-title>
</title-group>

<author><name>David Sarne</name></author>
<aff>School of Engineering and Applied Sciences <br/>Harvard niversity Cambridge MA 02138 USA</aff>

<author><name>Sarit Kraus</name></author>
<aff>Department of Computer Science<br/> Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan, 52900 Israel</aff>

<author><name>Takayuki Ito</name></author>
<aff>Dept. of Techno-Business Administration <br/>Nagoya Institute of Technology Nagoya 466-8555, Japan</aff>

</article-meta></front>
<body>
<abstract>
<title>ABSTRACT</title>
<p>In this paper we consider the problem of eCommerce comparison
shopping agents (shopbots) that are limited by capacity constraints.
In light of the phenomenal increase both in demand for price comparison
services over the internet and in the number of opportunities
available in electronic markets, shopbots are nowadays required
to improve the utilization of their finite set of querying resources.
In this paper we introduce <italic>PlanBot</italic>, an innovative shopbot
which uniquely integrates concepts from production management
and economic search theory. <italic>PlanBot</italic> aims to maximize its efficiency
by dynamically re-planning the allocation of its querying
resources according to the results of formerly executed queries and
new arriving requests. We detail the design principles that drive
the <italic>PlanBot</italic>'s operation and illustrate its improved performance (in
comparison to the traditional shopbots' First-Come-First-Served
(FCFS) query execution mechanisms) using a simulated environment
which is based on price datasets collected over the internet.
Our encouraging results suggest that the design principles we apply
have the potential of being used as an infrastructure for various
implementations of future comparison shopping agents.</p>
</abstract>
<fpdf>
<href>pdflogo.jpg</href>
<hpdf>AAMAS07_0370_75b8bbd1d21684dd043e4e440f2fb66b</hpdf>
</fpdf>
</body>
</article>

