Broadening adoption of social network tools within the enterprise suggests a new and valuable source for insight into the social structure through organizations. While online social media tools are being evolved by enterprises in recent years, the social media are used much for knowledge sharing. This paper focuses on how enterprise social network builds within and between the departments and utilize an agent-based model of social networks to clarify employees with critical network positions who other employees trust to them for receive knowledge. The structure of the paper is: first, the concept of the social network and trusting are described in the social network environment with effective knowledge sharing construct through the enterprise social network. Next, the paper presents complex network models which be used for agent based simulation. Finally, the last part investigates the agent based model to impact knowledge recipient trust on sharing knowledge through the enterprise social networks. Our results show the position of critical employees in the network and network with high trust between employees keeps close social proximity to people who actively share knowledge.
The use of sensor networks in different kinds of sophisticated applications is emerging due to several advances in sensor/ embedded system technologies. However, the integration and coordination of heterogeneous sensors is still a challenge. especially when the target application environment is susceptible to changes. Such systems must adapt themselves in order to fulfil increasing requirements. Especially the handling of real-rime requirements is a challenge in this context in which different technologies are applied to build the overall system. Moreover. these changing scenarios require services located at different places during the system runtime. Thus a support for adaptability is needed. Timing and precision requirements play an important role in such scenarios. Besides. QoS management must provide the necessary support to offer the flexibility demanded in such scenarios. In this paper we present the real-time perspective of a middleware that aims at providing the support required by sophisticated heterogeneous sensor network applications. We propose to address the real-time concerns by using the OMG Data Distribution Service for Real-time Systems approach. but with a more flexible approach that firs in the heterogeneous environment in which the proposed middleware is intended to be used. We also present a coordination protocol to support the proposed approach.
The encounter between emotion research and agent-based technology is multifaceted. One the one hand, results from emotion research start to serve as role model from nature, providing inspirations for technical design criteria for individual agents at the micro level and agent groups and societies at the macro level as well as the sophisticated linkages in between them. On the other hand, they are of immediate impact in important aspects of human-agent interaction and effective social cooperation between humans and conversational interfaces. In this broad survey, we offer an appetising selection of results from different areas of emotion research.
Logics for agents are useful when specifying, implementing and verifying agent programs.W e show that modal logic provides a nice tool to define informational, motivational and dynamic aspects of agents. We conclude by showing how an agent programming language can also benefit from this modal approach.
This paper presents some of the key techniques for reaching agreements in multi-agent environments. It discusses game-theory and economics based techniques: strategic negotiation, auctions, coalition formation, market-oriented programming and contracting. It also presents logical based mechanisms for argumentations. The focus of the survey is on negotiation of self-interested agents, but several mechanisms for cooperative agents who need to resolve conflicts that arise from conflicting beliefs about different aspects of their environment are also mentioned. For space reasons, we couldn't cover all the relevant works, and the papers that are mentioned only demonstrate the possible approaches. We present some of the properties of the approaches using our own previous work.
An Agent Communication Language (ACL) is a collection of speech-act-like message types, with agreed-upon semantics, which facilitate the knowledge and information exchange between software agents. From Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML) to FIPA ACL, ACL’s have been a cornerstone for the development of systems of communicating agents, and simultaneously they have been the subject of intensive standardization efforts. Standardization’s goal is usability. As a result, although the initial focus on ACL’s revolved around establishing the semantics of ACL’s, a variety of usability-related questions have entered the picture of standardizing communication among agents. In this article, we present these questions and the work that addresses them, alongside the historical evolution of ACL’s, their semantics and the results of their standardization.
This paper presents the concept of social knowledge in multi-agent systems. Basic classification of the various types of social knowledge is provided and different mechanisms for social knowledge maintenance are presented. An inseparable part of this contribution is an analysis of the different classes of industrial applications with respect to different role of social knowledge in either of these.
Learning is a crucial ability of intelligent agents. Rather than presenting a complete literature review, we focus in this paper on important issues surrounding the application of machine learning (ML) techniques to agents and multi-agent systems (MAS). In this discussion we move from disembodied ML over single-agent learning to full multi-agent learning. In the second part of the paper we focus on the application of Inductive Logic Programming, a knowledge-based ML technique, to MAS, and present an implemented framework in which multi-agent learning experiments can be carried out.
The contribution sketches several ways of considering systems from the position of their modularity through viewing systems without any attention focused to their modularization, then as composed from functionally specified modules, up to the post-modular systems consisting of relatively independent autonomous modules sharing a common environment and acting in it. A relatively simple, uniform and productive theoretical framework for study of the mentioned aspects of systems behavior and modularity - the framework of the theory of grammar systems - will be presented, illustrated and discussed in certain details.
Virtual enterprises paradigm represents an important application field for multi-agent approaches, both in terms of modeling and infrastructure development. This article summarizes the main challenges in this field and describes several current Multi-Agent System application approaches. A particular emphasis is given to the creation and operation phases of the virtual enterprise life cycle. Several open challenges in this area are also introduced.
Having a robot that carries out a task for you is certainly of some help. Having a group of robots seems to be even better because in this case the task may be finished faster and more reliably. However, dealing with a group of robots can make some problems more difficult. In this paper we sketch some of the advantages and some problems that come up when dealing with groups of robots. In particular, we describe techniques as they have been developed and tested in the area of robotic soccer.
We present agent-based modelling and social simulation in particular application to ecosystem management. The steps in designing and building an agent-based model are discussed, as are the methodological problems typically encountered. Examples of relevant agent-based models are given. The task of integrated ecosystem management is considered and examples are given of agent-based modelling in this context. As a further illustration, consideration is given to a possible agent-based model of the Fraser River watershed in British Columbia, and to particular difficulties that it presents.
The aim of this paper is to illustrate and sensitize reader to the variety of perspectives and the fundamental nature of organizations as stable/stabilizing systems and as multi-perspective action systems. Researchers have been explicitly thinking about MAS/DAI organizations and attempting to link formal (human) organization theory with MAS/DAI models for at least twenty years. Despite this, the idea of organizations has been a peripheral theme in MAS/DAI research---primarily a specific coordination technique---not really one of the central intellectual issues of the field. The theory of 'natural' organizations has a somewhat longer, more diverse, and more thorough intellectual history than that of organizations in MAS. Beyond recent work in human social and organization theory, some newer research on abstract organizations has been attempting to unify concepts in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and computing theory (e.g., the lambda calculus), with those of natural social organizations and multi-agent systems. The landscape for thinking about organizations in MAS is growing quite interesting, and this paper surveys this landscape. It presents and contrasts some conceptions of organization that have emerged and proven useful, and attempts to show how these have been implemented, experimented with, and applied. It also projects some future directions for research on MAS organizations, and gives some thoughts on where the most exciting issues lie.
Agent-based systems suitable for dealing with applications where the environment is both dynamic and populated with competitors demand for sophisticated characteristics including adaptation, negotiation and coordination. We here briefly summarize some proposals on agents' negotiation capabilities including adaptation through reinforcement learning as well as qualitative multi-criteria negotiation and coalition formation protocols. Also, and inspired by robosoccer domain, some basic hints on knowledge representation for agents' team work are here described. All those proposals on automatic negotiation have been implemented through agent-based systems for different application domains (MACIV, SMACE, ForEV).
Agent integration architectures enable a heterogeneous, distributed set of agents to work together to address problems of greater complexity than those addressed by the individual agents themselves. Unfortunately, integrating software agents and humans to perform real-world tasks in a large-scale system remains difficult, especially due to two key challenges: ensuring robust execution in the face of a dynamic environment and providing abstract task specifications without all the low-level coordination details. To address these challenges, our Teamcore project provides the integration architecture with general-purpose teamwork coordination capabilities. We make each agent team-ready by providing it with a proxy capable of general teamwork reasoning. Thus, a key novelty and strength of our framework is that powerful teamwork capabilities are built into its foundations by providing the proxies themselves with a teamwork model called STEAM. While STEAM has earlier been demonstrated in domains involving homogeneous agent teams, its use in Teamcore proxies illustrates that teamwork models may also be applied in domains involving heterogeneous agents. Given STEAM, the Teamcore proxies addresses the first agent integration challenge, robust execution, by automatically generating the required coordination actions for the agents they represent. We can also exploit the proxies' reusable general teamwork knowledge to address the second agent integration challenge. Through team-oriented programming, a developer specifies a hierarchical organization and its goals and plans, abstracting away from coordination details. Our integration architecture enables teamwork among agents with no coordination capabilities, and it establishes and automates consistent teamwork among agents with some coordination capabilities. We illustrate how the Teamcore architecture successfully addressed the challenges of agent integration in two application domains: simulated rehearsal of a military evacuation mission and facilitation of human collaboration.
This manuscript discusses multi-agent coordination and control using techniques inspired by the behavior of social insects. It presents a system design that enables desirable overall behavior to emerge without exposing the individual agents to the complexity and dynamics of the overall system. The research, which this paper discusses, focuses on manufacturing control. However, the approach remains applicable to the coordination and control of other types of ironware systems (e.g. traffic, supply chain...).
A prolific number of different Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and associated applications have been developed in numerous research institutes and industrial laboratories world-wide. Perhaps the most important barrier to MAS making a successful transition from this research environment towards widespread adoption for consumer products and businesses, is the lack of interoperability between heterogeneous MA Systems. In 1996, the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) was formed to provide a forum for developing specifications for agent systems. Since its formation, FIPA has increasingly focussed more on standardizing (multi-agent system) agent interoperability. As a result, it is often said that FIPA really stands for the Foundation for InteroPerable Agents. In this article, we discuss both technical and scientific issues in defining standards for interoperability between agents in different MA systems with a particular focus on the FIPA agent interoperability standards.
With the ever growing usage of the world wide IT networks, agent technologies and multiagent systems (MAS) are attracting more and more attention. (Multi-)Agent technologies aim at the design of agents that perform well in environments that are not necessarily well structured and benevolent. This article tries to give an overview over MAS applications. However, because of the lack of space and time it is not possible to make this overview comprehensive in any sense. We therefore concentrate on the application of MAS in the context of supply chain management in virtual enterprises. Additionally, we give pointers to related workan d general literature for application-oriented research of MAS. In MAS applications emergent system behaviour is one of the most interesting phenomena one can investigate. However, there is more to MAS design than the interaction between a number of agents. For an effective system behaviour we need structure and organisation. To achieve this we present the concept of holonic multiagent systems and demonstrated how it can be utilised in the selected application domain.
This chapter has two parts. In Part I, we present an overview of issues in modeling Multi Agent Systems (MAS), discuss what features and components are required for a MAS infrastructure, and present a model of a generic infrastructure. In addition, we present RETSINA as an example of an implemented MAS infrastructure. In Part II, we present issues in agent and service discovery and interoperation through a set of domain independent active and intelligent registries, called middle agents.
