ANGELICA : choice of output modality in an embodied agent

The ANGELICA project addresses the problem of modality choice in information presentation by embodied, humanlike agents. The output modalities available to such agents include both language and various nonverbal signals such as pointing and gesturing. For each piece of information to be presented by the agent it must be decided whether it should be expressed using language, a nonverbal signal, or both. In the ANGELICA project a model of the different factors influencing this choice will be developed and integrated in a natural language generation system. The application domain is the presentation of route descriptions by an embodied agent in a 3D environment. Evaluation and testing form an integral part of the project. In particular, we will investigate the effect of different modality choices on the effectiveness and naturalness of the generated presentations and on the user's perception of the agent's personality

The organisation of sociality: a manifesto for a new science of multi-agent systems

In this paper, we pose and motivate a challenge, namely the need for a new science of multi-agent systems. We propose that this new science should be grounded, theoretically on a richer conception of sociality, and methodologically on the extensive use of computational modelling for real-world applications and social simulations. Here, the steps we set forth towards meeting that challenge are mainly theoretical. In this respect, we provide a new model of multi-agent systems that reflects a fully explicated conception of cognition, both at the individual and the collective level. Finally, the mechanisms and principles underpinning the model will be examined with particular emphasis on the contributions provided by contemporary organisation theory

Lifeworld Analysis

We argue that the analysis of agent/environment interactions should be extended to include the conventions and invariants maintained by agents throughout their activity. We refer to this thicker notion of environment as a lifeworld and present a partial set of formal tools for describing structures of lifeworlds and the ways in which they computationally simplify activity. As one specific example, we apply the tools to the analysis of the Toast system and show how versions of the system with very different control structures in fact implement a common control structure together with different conventions for encoding task state in the positions or states of objects in the environment.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file

Participation Rights and Mechanism Design

This paper is concerned with the procedural aspects of collective choice and the impact of the parties' participation rights on the optimal mechanism. We find that the mechanism designer generally benefits from the selective engagement of the agents-the exclusion of some agent-types from the choice process. We show that optimization of mechanisms with voluntary participation involves two mutually dependent instruments: the scope of the agents' engagement, and the functional form of the social choice function. The benefits of selective engagement, as well as two optimization methodologies, are illustrated on principal-agent models. We find that the participation constraint is redundant and generally leads tot suboptimal mechanisms. Contrary to its general interpretation, this restriction does not reflect the voluntary aspect of the agents' participation. Rather, it gives them an additional entitlement: to force their involvement in the collective choice. We formulate a free-exit constraint that is devoid of incentives and fully accounts for the voluntary aspect of participation. It also leads to an equivalent representation of incentive-compatibility that explicates incentives and specifies the feasibility of a mechanism. Key words: Participation rights, voluntary participation, economics of information, incentives, incentive compatibility, principal-agent model.

Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets

Employers structure pay and employment relationships to mitigate agency problems. A large literature in economics documents how the resolution of these problems shapes personnel policies and labor markets. For the most part, the study of agency in employment relationships relies on highly stylized assumptions regarding human motivation, e.g., that employees seek to earn as much money as possible with minimal effort. In this essay, we explore the consequences of introducing behavioral complexity and realism into models of agency within organizations. Specifically, we assess the insights gained by allowing employees to be guided by such motivations as the desire to compare favorably to others, the aspiration to contribute to intrinsically worthwhile goals, and the inclination to reciprocate generosity or exact retribution for perceived wrongs. More provocatively, from the standpoint of standard economics, we also consider the possibility that people are driven, in ways that may be opaque even to themselves, by the desire to earn social esteem or to shape and reinforce identity.agency, motivation, employment relationships, behavioral economics

Modeling human and organizational behavior using a relation-centric multi-agent system design paradigm

Today's modeling and simulation communities are being challenged to create rich, detailed models incorporating human decision-making and organizational behavior. Recent advances in distributed artificial intelligence and complex systems theory have demonstrated that such ill-defined problems can be effectively modeled with agent-based simulation techniques using multiple, autonomoous, adaptive entities. RELATE, a relation-centric design paradigm for multi-agent systems (MAS), is presented to assist developers incorporate MAS solutions into their simulations. RELATe focuses the designer on six key concepts of MAS simulations: relationships, environment, laws, agents, things, and effectors. A library of Java classes is presented which enables the user to rapidly prototype an agent-based simulation. This library utilizes the Java programming language to support cross-platform and web based designs. All Java classes and interfaces are fully documented using HTML Javadoc format. Two reference cases are provided that allow for easy code reuse and modification. Finally, an existing metworked DIS-Java-VRML simulation was modified to demonstrate the ability to utilize the RELATE library to add agents to existing applications. LCDR Kim Roddy focused on the development and refinement of the RELATE design paradigm, while LT Mike Dickson focused on the actual Java implementation. Joint work was conducted on all research and reference caseshttp://www.archive.org/details/modelinghumanorg00roddU.S. Navy (U.S.N.) author

E-AUCTION SYSTEM USING MOBILE AGENT TECHNOLOGY

Mobile agent technology has known an important rise these last years. This project will present 3 objectives in constructing an E-Auction system which are; to study on how mobile agent system is said to be useful to reduce communication cost in e-auction system as well as to accept the use of limited local resources, and to have an asynchronous computing. Instead of having to surf endlessly through the WWW (World Wide Web) and digesting huge amounts of possibly untrustworthy information, personalized mobile agents autonomously gather information about the item user want to buy. Once they have found the destination or server, the piece of software or the latest hit single which user looking for, the agent can send the result of the best requested item on behalf of the user. This project will be focusing on E-Auction business on PDA's and will be using mobile agent platform which is aglets, Java runtime, and J2sdkl.4.1_03. This project will undergo 5 stages which are; plan the hardware or software required for the project, then analyze and get Product Requirement, next is design the process of implementing PDA's E-Auction System, implement the project by using mobile agent platform - aglets that involves programming activity and last is to test the product to ensure the product successfully completed and satisfy and fulfill the objectives of this project. The result and discussion about the system produced will highlights how the system works generally .Some other interested formula and idea from other project's discussion will also be used to further doing this project. As a conclusion, this project is aimed to create a simple E-Auction system using mobile agent technology and need to be improved in many aspects and that can be the recommendation for future work for expansion and continuation