2,368 research outputs found
A multi-agent approach for design consistency checking
The last decade has seen an explosion of interest to advanced product development methods, such as Computer Integrated Manufacture, Extended Enterprise and Concurrent Engineering. As a result of the globalization and future distribution of design and manufacturing facilities, the cooperation amongst partners is becoming more challenging due to the fact that the design process tends to be sequential and requires communication networks for planning design activities and/or a great deal of travel to/from designers' workplaces. In a virtual environment, teams of designers work together and use the Internet/Intranet for communication. The design is a multi-disciplinary task that involves several stages. These stages include input data analysis, conceptual design, basic structural design, detail design, production design, manufacturing processes analysis, and documentation. As a result, the virtual team, normally, is very changeable in term of designers' participation. Moreover, the environment itself changes over time. This leads to a potential increase in the number of design. A methodology of Intelligent Distributed Mismatch Control (IDMC) is proposed to alleviate some of the related difficulties.
This thesis looks at the Intelligent Distributed Mismatch Control, in the context of the European Aerospace Industry, and suggests a methodology for a conceptual framework based on a multi-agent architecture. This multi-agent architecture is a kernel of an Intelligent Distributed Mismatch Control System (IDMCS) that aims at ensuring that the overall design is consistent and acceptable to all participating partners.
A Methodology of Intelligent Distributed Mismatch Control is introduced and successfully implemented to detect design mismatches in complex design environments.
A description of the research models and methods for intelligent mismatch control, a taxonomy of design mismatches, and an investigation into potential applications, such as aerospace design, are presented. The Multi-agent framework for mismatch control is developed and described. Based on the methodology used for the IDMC application, a formal framework for a multi-agent system is developed.
The Methods and Principles are trialed out using an Aerospace Distributed Design application, namely the design of an A340 wing box. The ontology of knowledge for agent-based Intelligent Distributed Mismatch Control System is introduced, as well as the distributed collaborative environment for consortium based projects
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Multi-agent system for consumer-oriented electronic commerce
This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.With the advent of the information superhighway and the exponential growth of
the Internet usage, the importance of multi-agent systems is proliferating. The central theme of this thesis is to demonstrate the benefits of adopting multi-agent system (MAS) paradigm to implement consumer oriented electronic commerce system. The discipline of computational science is exploited to provide insights into the behaviour of a model of consumer behaviour that reflect the cognitive notion that the thesis has developed. For this, a multi-agent system computational environment is used to model and investigate the consumer purchase over the Internet. The MAS is developed based on a presented taxonomy, that is most relevant to the thesis application. The thesis also presents a novel approach to negotiation. Results of empirical evaluations provide a strong support that agents using the proposed approach would achieve higher payoff than human subjects. An empirical evaluation for the usability of the prototype system is also
presented. Reported results are very encouraging to implement a fieldable
system. To complement the perspective for a complete consumer-oriented EC system, the thesis addresses and develops approaches for searching and extracting relevant information. Example experiments are also reported to act as indicators for the effectiveness of the developed approaches
Distributed decision-making in electric power system transmission maintenance scheduling using Multi-Agent Systems (MAS)
In this work, motivated by the need to coordinate transmission maintenance scheduling among a multiplicity of self-interested entities in restructured power industry, a distributed decision support framework based on multiagent negotiation systems (MANS) is developed. An innovative risk-based transmission maintenance optimization procedure is introduced. Several models for linking condition monitoring information to the equipment\u27s instantaneous failure probability are presented, which enable quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of maintenance activities in terms of system cumulative risk reduction. Methodologies of statistical processing, equipment deterioration evaluation and time-dependent failure probability calculation are also described. A novel framework capable of facilitating distributed decision-making through multiagent negotiation is developed. A multiagent negotiation model is developed and illustrated that accounts for uncertainty and enables social rationality. Some issues of multiagent negotiation convergence and scalability are discussed. The relationships between agent-based negotiation and auction systems are also identified. A four-step MAS design methodology for constructing multiagent systems for power system applications is presented. A generic multiagent negotiation system, capable of inter-agent communication and distributed decision support through inter-agent negotiations, is implemented. A multiagent system framework for facilitating the automated integration of condition monitoring information and maintenance scheduling for power transformers is developed. Simulations of multiagent negotiation-based maintenance scheduling among several independent utilities are provided. It is shown to be a viable alternative solution paradigm to the traditional centralized optimization approach in today\u27s deregulated environment. This multiagent system framework not only facilitates the decision-making among competing power system entities, but also provides a tool to use in studying competitive industry relative to monopolistic industry
The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XII, Issue 1
This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy
The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XII, Issue 1
This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy
The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XII, Issue 1
This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy
The ISCIP Analyst, Volume XII, Issue 1
This repository item contains a single issue of The ISCIP Analyst, an analytical review journal published from 1996 to 2010 by the Boston University Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy
Satellite communications: the political determination of technological development, 1961-1975
The thesis sets forth a model relating political contention
to technological development. The selective realisation of
a technical potentiality is shown to have been determined
by conflict and negotiation among shifting alliances of
state and private-industrial entities, each attempting to
impose its requirements upon an emergent technology and
thereby to dictate the precise form and pace of technical
development.
The 'course of communications satellite development is
examined during the technology's formative period from
1961 to 1975--as the product of struggles over technological
control. Negotiation centered upon control, and
contending modes of technical development were promoted
and opposed on the basis of their perceived consequences
upon the distribution of effective control over the technology.
The initial mode of satellite development lasted from
1961 to 1971 and is characterised as pre-emptive underdevelopment;
urgency and haste were combined with tight
constraints on the qualitative breadth allowed to technological
articulation. Pre-emptive underdevelopment derived
from an uneasy political accommodation struck among constituencies
dominant during this phases the U.S. government,
American communications carrier industry and a Western
European intergovernmental bloc. The reigning compromise
was directed toward expediting satellite development sufficiently
to forestall rival deployments without endangering
existing and anticipated interests in both satellite
and competitive technologies. Technical development beneath
a minimum level risked undermining the regime of
control by leaving open the possibility of rival satellite
systems; but development beyond a maximum level would have
harmed the outstanding industrial and political interests
in whose defence control was sought, while subverting the
control regime by widening the legitimate scope for multinational
participation in authority over the technology.
Pre-emptive underdevelopment, it is argued, was succeeded
largely by the products of its own success in meeting
the policy requirements of initially dominant entities
and in thus reducing the continued importance of satellite
technology as a political arena and instrumentality. Restraints
upon development could therefore, in the post-1971
period, be relaxed, while the growing demand for a wider
array of satellite services encouraged emergence of a more
intensive mode of technological development under the auspices
of a de-cartelised, quasi-federal and multinational
political regime
Proceedings of the Distribution Automation and Control Working Group. Volume 2: Proceedings
The meeting provided a forum in which electric utilities could communicate with each other, with DOE, and with DOE's contractors regarding research, development, and demonstration efforts to apply DAC (Distribution Automation and Control) to the electric power system. In the discussions emphasis was to be placed on identifying the priorities and needs for DAC development
Earth observing system. Data and information system. Volume 2A: Report of the EOS Data Panel
The purpose of this report is to provide NASA with a rationale and recommendations for planning, implementing, and operating an Earth Observing System data and information system that can evolve to meet the Earth Observing System's needs in the 1990s. The Earth Observing System (Eos), defined by the Eos Science and Mission Requirements Working Group, consists of a suite of instruments in low Earth orbit acquiring measurements of the Earth's atmosphere, surface, and interior; an information system to support scientific research; and a vigorous program of scientific research, stressing study of global-scale processes that shape and influence the Earth as a system. The Eos data and information system is conceived as a complete research information system that would transcend the traditional mission data system, and include additional capabilties such as maintaining long-term, time-series data bases and providing access by Eos researchers to relevant non-Eos data. The Working Group recommends that the Eos data and information system be initiated now, with existing data, and that the system evolve into one that can meet the intensive research and data needs that will exist when Eos spacecraft are returning data in the 1990s
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