Sustainable operations of industrial symbiosis: an enterprise input-output model integrated by agent-based simulation

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is a key for implementing circular economy. Through IS, wastes produced by one company are used as inputs by other companies. The operations of IS suffers from uncertainty barriers since wastes are not produced upon demand but emerge as secondary outputs. Such an uncertainty, triggered by waste supply-demand quantity mismatch, influences IS business dynamics. Accordingly, companies have difficulty to foresee potential costs and benefits of implementing IS. The paper adopts an enterprise input-output model providing a cost–benefit analysis of IS integrated to an agent-based model to simulate how companies share the total economic benefits stemming from IS. The proposed model allows to explore the space of cooperation, defined as the operationally favourable conditions to operate IS in an economically win-win manner. This approach, as a decision-support tool, allows the user to understand whether the IS relationship is created and how should the cost-sharing policy be. The proposed model is applied to a numerical example. Findings show that cost-sharing strategies are dramatically affected by waste supply-demand mismatch and by the relationship between saved and additional costs to run IS. Apart from methodological and theoretical contributions, the paper proposes managerial and practical implications for business strategy development in IS

Implementing MAS agreement processes based on consensus networks

[EN] Consensus is a negotiation process where agents need to agree upon certain quantities of interest. The theoretical framework for solving consensus problems in dynamic networks of agents was formally introduced by Olfati-Saber and Murray, and is based on algebraic graph theory, matrix theory and control theory. Consensus problems are usually simulated using mathematical frameworks. However, implementation using multi-agent system platforms is a very difficult task due to problems such as synchronization, distributed finalization, and monitorization among others. The aim of this paper is to propose a protocol for the consensus agreement process in MAS in order to check the correctness of the algorithm and validate the protocol. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013.This work is supported by ww and PROMETEO/2008/051 projects of the Spanish government, CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 under grant CSD2007-00022, TIN2012-36586-C03-01 and PAID-06-11-2084.Palomares Chust, A.; Carrascosa Casamayor, C.; Rebollo Pedruelo, M.; Gómez, Y. (2013). Implementing MAS agreement processes based on consensus networks. Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence. 217:553-560. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00551-5_66S553560217Argente, E.: et al: An Abstract Architecture for Virtual Organizations: The THOMAS approach. Knowledge and Information Systems 29(2), 379–403 (2011)Búrdalo, L.: et al: TRAMMAS: A tracing model for multiagent systems. Eng. Appl. Artif. Intel. 24(7), 1110–1119 (2011)Fogués, R.L., et al.: Towards Dynamic Agent Interaction Support in Open Multiagent Systems. In: Proc. of the 13th CCIA, vol. 220, pp. 89–98. IOS Press (2010)Luck, M., et al.: Agent technology: Computing as interaction (a roadmap for agent based computing). Eng. Appl. Artif. Intel. (2005)Mailler, R., Lesser, V.: Solving distributed constraint optimization problems using cooperative mediation. In: AAMAS 2004, pp. 438–445 (2004)Olfati-Saber, R., Fax, J.A., Murray, R.M.: Consensus and cooperation in networked multi-agent systems. Proceedings of the IEEE 95(1), 215–233 (2007)Pujol-Gonzalez, M.: Multi-agent coordination: Dcops and beyond. In: Proc. of IJCAI, pp. 2838–2839 (2011)Such, J.: et al: Magentix2: A privacy-enhancing agent platform. Eng. Appl. Artif. Intel. 26(1), 96–109 (2013)Vinyals, M., et al.: Constructing a unifying theory of dynamic programming dcop algorithms via the generalized distributive law. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 22, 439–464 (2011

Evoplex: A platform for agent-based modeling on networks

Agent-based modeling and network science have been used extensively to advance our understanding of emergent collective behavior in systems that are composed of a large number of simple interacting individuals or agents. With the increasing availability of high computational power in affordable personal computers, dedicated efforts to develop multi-threaded, scalable and easy-to-use software for agent-based simulations are needed more than ever. Evoplex meets this need by providing a fast, robust and extensible platform for developing agent-based models and multi-agent systems on networks. Each agent is represented as a node and interacts with its neighbors, as defined by the network structure. Evoplex is ideal for modeling complex systems, for example in evolutionary game theory and computational social science. In Evoplex, the models are not coupled to the execution parameters or the visualization tools, and there is a user-friendly graphical interface which makes it easy for all users, ranging from newcomers to experienced, to create, analyze, replicate and reproduce the experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in SoftwareX [software available at https://evoplex.org

The Current State of Normative Agent-Based Systems

Recent years have seen an increase in the application of ideas from the social sciences to computational systems. Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in the domain of multiagent systems. Because multiagent systems are composed of multiple individual agents interacting with each other many parallels can be drawn to human and animal societies. One of the main challenges currently faced in multiagent systems research is that of social control. In particular, how can open multiagent systems be configured and organized given their constantly changing structure? One leading solution is to employ the use of social norms. In human societies, social norms are essential to regulation, coordination, and cooperation. The current trend of thinking is that these same principles can be applied to agent societies, of which multiagent systems are one type. In this article, we provide an introduction to and present a holistic viewpoint of the state of normative computing (computational solutions that employ ideas based on social norms.) To accomplish this, we (1) introduce social norms and their application to agent-based systems; (2) identify and describe a normative process abstracted from the existing research; and (3) discuss future directions for research in normative multiagent computing. The intent of this paper is to introduce new researchers to the ideas that underlie normative computing and survey the existing state of the art, as well as provide direction for future research.Norms, Normative Agents, Agents, Agent-Based System, Agent-Based Simulation, Agent-Based Modeling

Industrial Symbiotic Relations as Cooperative Games

In this paper, we introduce a game-theoretical formulation for a specific form of collaborative industrial relations called "Industrial Symbiotic Relation (ISR) games" and provide a formal framework to model, verify, and support collaboration decisions in this new class of two-person operational games. ISR games are formalized as cooperative cost-allocation games with the aim to allocate the total ISR-related operational cost to involved industrial firms in a fair and stable manner by taking into account their contribution to the total traditional ISR-related cost. We tailor two types of allocation mechanisms using which firms can implement cost allocations that result in a collaboration that satisfies the fairness and stability properties. Moreover, while industries receive a particular ISR proposal, our introduced methodology is applicable as a managerial decision support to systematically verify the quality of the ISR in question. This is achievable by analyzing if the implemented allocation mechanism is a stable/fair allocation.Comment: Presented at the 7th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Systems Management (IESM-2017), October 11--13, 2017, Saarbr\"ucken, German

Modelling Fresh Strawberry Supply "From-Farm-to-Fork" as a Complex Adaptive Network

 The purpose of this study is to model and thereby enable simulation of the complete business entity of fresh food supply. A case narrative of fresh strawberry supply provides basis for this modelling. Lamming et al. (2000) point to the importance of discerning industry-specific product features (or particularities) regarding managing supply networks when discussing elements in "an initial classification of a supply network" while Fisher (1997) and Christopher et al. (2006, 2009) point to the lack of adopting SCM models to variations in products and market types as an important source of SCM failure. In this study we have chosen to move along a research path towards developing an adapted approach to model end-to-end fresh food supply influenced by a combination of SCM, system dynamics and complex adaptive network thinking...

Spatial interactions in agent-based modeling

Agent Based Modeling (ABM) has become a widespread approach to model complex interactions. In this chapter after briefly summarizing some features of ABM the different approaches in modeling spatial interactions are discussed. It is stressed that agents can interact either indirectly through a shared environment and/or directly with each other. In such an approach, higher-order variables such as commodity prices, population dynamics or even institutions, are not exogenously specified but instead are seen as the results of interactions. It is highlighted in the chapter that the understanding of patterns emerging from such spatial interaction between agents is a key problem as much as their description through analytical or simulation means. The chapter reviews different approaches for modeling agents' behavior, taking into account either explicit spatial (lattice based) structures or networks. Some emphasis is placed on recent ABM as applied to the description of the dynamics of the geographical distribution of economic activities, - out of equilibrium. The Eurace@Unibi Model, an agent-based macroeconomic model with spatial structure, is used to illustrate the potential of such an approach for spatial policy analysis.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 105 references; a chapter prepared for the book "Complexity and Geographical Economics - Topics and Tools", P. Commendatore, S.S. Kayam and I. Kubin, Eds. (Springer, in press, 2014