DAML

DAML (DARPA Agent Markup Language) is a markup language for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) that is being developed as an extension to Extensible Markup Language (XML). The goal of the DAML effort is to develop a language and tools to facilitate the concept of the Semantic Web. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense as a result it was instrumental in the creation of the Internet and many other technologies. DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) aims to enable the next generation of the web — a web that moves from simply displaying content to one that actually understands the meaning of the content.

DAML agents, programs that can dynamically identify and comprehend sources of information, can be embedded in code and maintain awareness of their environment, are user-directed, but have the capacity to behave autonomously. DAML agents improve their behavior over time as they have the capacity to ‘learn’ from experience. Different agents have different usage and so there are different types agents such as information agents, event monitoring agents, and secure agents. The properties of DAML which are going to make it capable of processing large volumes of data much as a human being can process are semantic knowledge and autonomous behavior. The query language used by DAML has an ability to find and process relevant information like it can find related information on separate Web sites and can then process it into a comprehensive report.