Agent Based

Agent-based and multi-agent simulations: coming of age or in search of an identity?

by Dwight Read

Published in 'Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory' (2010) 16: 329–347

The promise of agent-based for explicating properties of social systems has not yet been fully realized. Agent models... more The promise of agent-based for explicating properties of social systems has not yet been fully realized. Agent models sometimes provide only a veneer of, rather than substantive engagement with, social behavior. The problem will be illustrated with Axelrod’s model for evolution of ethnocentrism (a biological model) versus Schelling’s model for spatial segregation based on preferences (a cultural model). The examples show the need to incorporate both the biological and cultural basis for behavior through a schema that includes behavior based on cultural/cognitive processing of information and behavior based on biological/cognitive processing of information. An example of an agent-based model that implements decision making in this manner is discussed. The model accounts for heterogeneity in behavior outcomes and leads to two main predictions: (1) small scale, hunter-gatherer societies in resource scarce environments will have stable adaptations less affected by variation in resource abundance in comparison to groups in resource rich regions where inter-group conflict is more likely and (2) the relationship between community size, population size and administrative complexity will have two distinct patterns, one for patrilineally organized societies and the other for matrilineally organized societies. Both predictions have been verified empirically.

Multi-agent technology for scheduling and control projects in multi-project environments. An Auction based approach

by Jose Manuel Galan

Automated Bidding in Computing Service Markets - Strategies,Architectures, Protocols

by Nikolay Borissov

Phd thesis, Karlsruhe Institut of Technologies

This dissertation contributes to the research on Computational Mechanism Design by providing novel theoretical and... more This dissertation contributes to the research on Computational Mechanism Design by providing novel theoretical and software models - a novel bidding strategy called Q-Strategy, which automates bidding processes in imperfect information markets, a software framework for realizing agents and bidding strategies called BidGenerator and a communication protocol called MX/CS, for expressing and exchanging economic and technical information in a market-based scheduling system.

Persuasion as a Form of Inter-Agent Negotiation

by Derek Long

Alarms: An Implementation of Motivated Agency

by Derek Long

The Holonic Production System: A Multi Agent Simulation Approach Open Access

by Gandolfo Dominici

Gandolfo Dominici, Pierluigi Argoneto, Paolo Renna, Luigi Cuccia. 2010. The Holonic Production System: A Multi Agent Simulation Approach. iBusiness 2(3): 201-209

Today’s turbulent markets are facing unpredictable and sudden variations in demand. In this context, the Holonic... more Today’s turbulent markets are facing unpredictable and sudden variations in demand. In this context, the Holonic Production System (HPS) seems to be able to overcome the operational and economic problems of traditional production systems. The HPS’ ability to adapt and react to business environment changes, whilst maintaining systemic synergies and coordination, leverage on its network organizational structure, assuring both flexibility and profitability. In this paper we study HPS experimentally, modeling holon-firms as agents. In our simulation, holon-firms interact both with each other and with the external environment without predetermined hierarchies and following their own aims and internal decision rules with a negotiation-based control system. The Multi Agent System Approach we propose aims to evaluate and test the performance of the HPS to adjust to changes in market demand by simulating variations in holon-firms’ capacity and reconfiguration costs in real time in a distributed enterprise network. Hence we demonstrate that, through a collaborative negotiation approach, the HPS results in a better adaptability and improved network responsiveness.

Agent-based simulation validation: A case study in demographic simulation

by Cristina Montañola Sales

Conference Proceeding: 01/2011; In proceeding of: The Third International Conference on Advances in System Simulation SIMUL

Two of the crucial parts in the process of performing a simulation study are validation and verification. The reason... more Two of the crucial parts in the process of performing a simulation study are validation and verification. The reason is these techniques help on increasing the confidence in
the model, since it is not possible to demonstrate its absolute validity in all contexts. This paper presents the results of a white-box validation performed in an agent-based simulator for population dynamics. The tool provides a way to simulate the demographic evolution of large populations in a parallel environment. The purpose is to obtain population projections that can be used afterwards for policy analysis. Although the
tool has been studied in terms of performance and scalability, its validation hasn’t been addressed. With a white-box validation we expect to increase the confidence of policy analysers and social scientists in our simulation model.

Traceability of Engineering Information Development in PLM Framework

by Mario Storga

co-authored by Štorga, Mario, Bojčetić, Nenad; Pavković, Neven; Stanković, Tino
published in 8th International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management PLM’11, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2011

The work reported here builds on the framework for engineering information development traceability (TRENIN - more The work reported here builds on the framework for engineering information development traceability (TRENIN - www.trenin.org) by discussing the strategy for traceability methodology implementation within product life cycle management (PLM) environment. The four key processes in the complex product development practice (requirement-, change-, characteristic-, and decision management) have been considered in more details as a basis for the development of the approaches for traceability implementation in PLM environment. The traceability records with a goal to integrate process and product information that is fragmented across different information objects managed by PLM environments have been selected as backbone for implementation. Two possible approaches, scenario- and agent- based traceability have been proposed and evaluated.

Modeling Human Behaviour in Emergency: A Research Agenda for the Creation of a Rescue Robot

by Nicla Rossini

co-autored with Anna Esposito.
In Apolloni, B., Bassis, S., Esposito, A., Morabito, C.F. (Eds): Neural Nets WIRN11, Vol. 234, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, pp. 235-46, ISBN 978-1-60750-971-4, IOSpress, 2011.
N.B.: THIS IS A PRE-PUBLICATION DRAFT. IT MAY CONTAIN ERROS AND DIFFER SIGNIFICANTLY FROM THE PUBLISHED VERSION. FOR QUOTATION PLEASE ASK US A COPY OF THE PUBLISHED VERSION.

Self-organising Pervasive Ecosystems: A Crowd Evacuation Example

by Danilo Pianini

Co-authored with Sara Montagna, Mirko Viroli, Matteo Risoldi e Giovanna Di Marzo Serugentdo

The dynamics of pervasive ecosystems are typically highly unpredictable, and therefore self-organising approaches are... more The dynamics of pervasive ecosystems are typically highly unpredictable, and therefore self-organising approaches are often exploited to make their applications resilient to changes and failures. The SAPERE approach we illustrate in this paper aims at addressing this issue by taking inspiration from natural ecosystems, which are regulated by a limited set of ``laws'' evolving the population of individuals in a self-organising way. Analogously, in our approach, a set of so-called eco-laws coordinate the individuals of the pervasive computing system (humans, devices, signals), in a way that is shown to be expressive enough to model and implement interesting real-life scenarios. We exemplify the proposed framework discussing a crowd evacuation application, tuning and validating it by simulation.

An Agent Framework Based on Signal Concepts for Highlighting the Image Semantic Content

by Mohammed Belkhatir

A multimedia retrieval framework highlighting agents and coordinating their interactions to address the semantic gap

by Mohammed Belkhatir

published in Elsevier ESWA 2010

Towards A Novel Unified Framework for Developing Formal, Network and Validated Agent-Based Simulation Models of Complex Adaptive Systems

by Muaz Niazi

PhD Thesis, Computing Science and Mathematics, 
School of Natural Sciences,
University of Stirling, Scotland.

Literature on the modeling and simulation of complex adaptive systems (cas) has primarily advanced vertically in... more Literature on the modeling and simulation of complex adaptive systems (cas) has primarily advanced vertically in different scientific domains with scientists developing a variety of domain-specific approaches and applications. However, while cas researchers are inherently interested in an interdisciplinary comparison of models, to the best of our knowledge, there is currently no single unified framework for facilitating the development, comparison, communication and validation of models across different scientific domains. In this thesis, we propose first steps towards such a unified framework using a combination of agent-based and complex network-based modeling approaches and guidelines formulated in the form of a set of four levels of usage, which allow multidisciplinary researchers to adopt a suitable framework level on the basis of available data types, their research study objectives and expected outcomes, thus allowing them to better plan and conduct their respective research case studies. Firstly, the complex network modeling level of the proposed framework entails the development of appropriate complex network models for the case where interaction data of cas components is available, with the aim of detecting emergent patterns in the cas under study. The exploratory agent-based modeling level of the proposed framework allows for the development of proof-of-concept models for the cas system, primarily for purposes of exploring feasibility of further research. Descriptive agent-based modeling level of the proposed framework allows for the use of a formal step-by-step approach for developing agent-based models coupled with a quantitative complex network and pseudocode-based specification of the model, which will, in turn, facilitate interdisciplinary cas model comparison and knowledge transfer. Finally, the validated agent-based modeling level of the proposed framework is concerned with the building of in-simulation verification and validation of agent-based models using a proposed Virtual Overlay Multiagent System approach for use in a systematic team-oriented approach to developing models. The proposed framework is evaluated and validated using seven detailed case study examples selected from various scientific domains including ecology, social sciences and a range of complex adaptive communication networks. The successful case studies demonstrate the potential of the framework in appealing to multidisciplinary researchers as a methodological approach to the modeling and simulation of cas by facilitating effective communication and knowledge transfer across scientific disciplines without the requirement of extensive learning curves.

Autonomous Control System for Satellite Formation Flying

by Kary Thanapalan

Co-authored with Veres.S.,
Published in the IEE Digests on Autonomous agents in Control, 2005, pp 85 -91.

Recently there has been an increase of interest in the concept of satellite formation flying due to the efficiency... more Recently there has been an increase of interest in the concept of satellite formation flying due to the efficiency gains that can be obtained from using a large number of small crafts instead of one large one. In formation flying it is required that the satellites should fly in specified positions relative to the others and
with specified attitudes. For this specific motion pattern it is necessary to design control algorithms which are efficient and easy to implement on board. A cluster of satellites needs to operate autonomously to fulfil the control requirements of a mission without human intervention. An agent based control system is proposed to address the problem. The proposed software architecture allows each satellite to monitor the movements of the other satellites and to communicate and cooperate with others to maintain performance. The collaborative autonomous control system is able to reconfigure sensor and actuator functionality in face of degradation or malfunction. The control architecture is analysed for reliability and logical consistency

Agent Based Controller for Satellite Formation Flying

by Kary Thanapalan

Co-authored with Veres.S.,
Published In the proc. of 2nd Int. Conf .on Intelligent Sensor, Sensor Networks and Information Processing, IEEE-ISSNIP’05, Melbourne, Australia, 2005, pp385-390

In this paper an agent based control scheme for satellite
formation flying is discussed. The underlying idea of... more In this paper an agent based control scheme for satellite
formation flying is discussed. The underlying idea of our
design is to use a multi-agent architecture for satellite
formation flying control. The architecture is designed to
enable autonomous formation flying activities. The
performance requirements and algorithms are described.

Distributed coloring of the graph edges

by Siamak Barzegar

In-Motes: An intelligent agent based middleware for wireless sensor networks

by Dimitrios Georgoulas

Best Research Paper in SEPADS
In SEPADS, in proceedings of the 5th WSEAS International Conference on Software Engineering, Parallel and Distributed Systems, WSEAS, pp225-231, Madrid, Spain, February 2006.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been identified as a promising technology that will allow people and machines to... more Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been identified as a promising technology that will allow people and machines to interact with their environment in a revolutionary way. These networks, however, are facing limitations such as energy constraints of the sensor and difficulties in reprogramming the actual network. To address these limitations we propose a novel agent middleware. Namely In-Motes can be considered as an intelligent network which is deployed with no pre-installed application. Mobile agents are injected into the network, then migrate and clone across it, following specific rules and performing application specific tasks. By doing so, each mote is given a certain degree of perception, cognition and control, forming the basis of its intelligence. Linda-like tuplespaces and federated system architecture are proposed as the means for collaboration and coordination of the agents. In order to make the network more robust, certain behavioural rules are proposed taking inspiration from a community of bacterial strains. These preserve each agent’s certain degree of autonomy and identifies a highly coordinated architecture for them.

In-Motes Bins: A real time application for enviromental monitoring in Wireless Sensor Networks

by Dimitrios Georgoulas

In IEEE, in proceedings of the 9th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Mobile and Wireless Communications Networks, pp21-26, Cork, Ireland, September 2007.

Wireless sensor networks have been identified as one of the key technologies for the 21st century. They consist of... more Wireless sensor networks have been identified as one of the key technologies for the 21st century. They consist of tiny devices with limited processing and power capabilities, called motes that can be deployed in large numbers over a physical environment providing the end user with a number of useful sensing capabilities. Even though, they are flexible and easy to deploy, there are a number of considerations when it comes to their fault tolerance, conserving energy and re-programmability that need to be addressed before we draw any substantial conclusions about the effectiveness of this technology.

Making Motes Intelligent: An Agent-Based Approach to Wireless Sensor Networks (WSEAS on Communications Journal 5 March 2006 pp 515-522)

by Dimitrios Georgoulas

International Journal on Communications, pp 515-522, 2006, WSEAS.

In-Motes is a mobile agent middleware that generates an intelligent framework for deploying applications in Wireless... more In-Motes is a mobile agent middleware that generates an intelligent framework for deploying applications in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In-Motes is based on the injection of mobile agents into the network that can migrate or clone following specific rules and performing application specific tasks. By doing so, each mote is given a certain degree of perception, cognition and control, forming the basis for its intelligence. Our middleware incorporates technologies such as Linda-like tuplespaces and federated system architecture in order to obtain a high degree of collaboration and coordination for the agent society. A set of behavioral rules inspired by a community of bacterial strains is also generated as the means for robustness of the WSN. In this paper, we present In-Motes and provide a detailed evaluation of its implementation for MICA2 motes.

Re-Programmable Wireless Sensor Networks in the Service of a National Health System, The Sentient Future Competition 2006

by Dimitrios Georgoulas