Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 15:55:00 -0500
From: Charles Sutton 
To: social@cs.umass.edu
Subject: TEA in the Atrium in 5 minutes

Suppose you want to solve a complex problem, such as "Will there be TEA this
week?"  You may wish to combine several sources of evidence: for example, you
may have a chemical-sensor agent, which monitors the lab atmosphere for
certain chemical compounds that signal the presence of TEA.  Or, you may have
a floor-monitoring agent, which detects the presence of bread crumbs
carelessly left by the TEA totallers as they toted groceries in.  Or, you may
have a police-band monitoring agent, which picked up on the increase in radio
traffic by the Hadley police, as the TEA Totallers sped to and from the
grocery store (Traffic laws? Shmaffic laws!)

Or, you may have a email-reading agent, which notices a missive with the
subject "TEA in the Atrium in 5 minutes."  So you conclude, in Tarskian
fashion, that "TEA in the Atrium in 5 minutes" means that there will be TEA in
the Atrium in 5 minutes.  Hence the need for multiple sources of information.

TEA this week is sponsored by Victor Lesser and the Multi-Agent Systems
laboratory.  

As always, we are

   Your obedient savants,

     The Tea Totallers
     Laylaa Ali and Charles Sutton

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