An agent-based intelligent environmental monitoring system

Fairly rapid environmental changes call for continuous surveillance and on-line decision making. There are two main areas where IT technologies can be valuable. In this paper we present a multi-agent system for monitoring and assessing air-quality attributes, which uses data coming from a meteorological station. A community of software agents is assigned to monitor and validate measurements coming from several sensors, to assess air-quality, and, finally, to fire alarms to appropriate recipients, when needed. Data mining techniques have been used for adding data-driven, customized intelligence into agents. The architecture of the developed system, its domain ontology, and typical agent interactions are presented. Finally, the deployment of a real-world test case is demonstrated.Comment: Multi-Agent Systems, Intelligent Applications, Data Mining, Inductive Agents, Air-Quality Monitorin

Proactive environmental systems:the next generation of environmental monitoring

In this article we envision factors and trends that shape the next generation of environmental monitoring systems. One key factor in this respect is the combined effect of end-user needs and the general development of IT services and their availability. Currently, an environmental (monitoring) system is assumed to be reactive. It delivers measurement data and computational results only if the user explicitly asks for it either by query or subscription. There is a temptation to automate this by simply pushing data to end-users. This, however, leads easily to an "advertisement strategy", where data is pushed to end-users regardless of users' needs. Under this strategy, the mere amount of received data obfuscates the individual messages; any "automatic" service, regardless of its fitness, overruns a system that requires the user's initiative. The foreseeable problem is that, unless there is no overall management, each new environmental service is going to compete for end-users' attention and, thus, inadvertently hinder the use of existing services. As the main contribution we investigate the nature of proactive environmental systems, and how they should be designed to avoid the aforementioned problem. We also discuss how semantics, participatory sensing, uncertainty management, and situational awareness link to proactive environmental systems. We illustrate our proposals with some real-life examples

From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

Agent-based services for the validation and calibration of multi-agent models

Agent-based modelling in the form of multi-agent models has been increasingly applied to the simulation of spatial phenomena in silico. Validation and calibration are recurrent problems. The complexity of these models with large numbers of parameters can make validation procedures intractable. In this paper, the novel concept of using agent-based technologies to create services that assist in the validation and calibration of multi-agent models is developed. Such agent-based services offer an efficient solution where large numbers of model runs need to be carried out. In this paper, the agent-based services are collaborative sets of agents that perform calibration and sensitivity analysis as a key task in model validation. In a case study, the prototype agent-based validation services are implemented for a multi-agent wayfinding model as a means of proof-of-concept. The case study demonstrates how agent-based services can be deployed for testing the robustness of emergent patterns through sensitivity analyses and used for model calibration

Evaluation of environmental impact upon human health with decimas framework

The article is dedicated to the problem of decision making in complex systems. Application of a novel interdisciplinary approach, which widely use intelligent agents is offered. The principal ideas of the novel approach are embodied into the DeciMaS framework, that offers a logical set of stages oriented to creation of decision support systems for complex problem management. The components of the DeciMaS framework and the way in which they are organized are introduced. Design and implementation of the system are discussed. The article demonstrates how the initial information is transformed into knowledge. Impact assessment upon human health evaluation is the case study, which is resolved by DeciMas framework. It includes creation of the meta-ontology. In addition, a multi-agent architecture for a decision support system is introduced. The sequence of the steps for the DeciMaS framework design with Prometheus Development Kit and its implementation with JACK Development Environment are presented as well. Finally, data and experiment results of data modeling, simulation, impact assessment, and decision generation are discussed

An Agent-Based Variogram Modeller: Investigating Intelligent, Distributed-Component Geographical Information Systems

Geo-Information Science (GIScience) is the field of study that addresses substantive questions concerning the handling, analysis and visualisation of spatial data. Geo- Information Systems (GIS), including software, data acquisition and organisational arrangements, are the key technologies underpinning GIScience. A GIS is normally tailored to the service it is supposed to perform. However, there is often the need to do a function that might not be supported by the GIS tool being used. The normal solution in these circumstances is to go out and look for another tool that can do the service, and often an expert to use that tool. This is expensive, time consuming and certainly stressful to the geographical data analyses. On the other hand, GIS is often used in conjunction with other technologies to form a geocomputational environment. One of the complex tools in geocomputation is geostatistics. One of its functions is to provide the means to determine the extent of spatial dependencies within geographical data and processes. Spatial datasets are often large and complex. Currently Agent system are being integrated into GIS to offer flexibility and allow better data analysis. The theis will look into the current application of Agents in within the GIS community, determine if they are used to representing data, process or act a service. The thesis looks into proving the applicability of an agent-oriented paradigm as a service based GIS, having the possibility of providing greater interoperability and reducing resource requirements (human and tools). In particular, analysis was undertaken to determine the need to introduce enhanced features to agents, in order to maximise their effectiveness in GIS. This was achieved by addressing the software agent complexity in design and implementation for the GIS environment and by suggesting possible solutions to encountered problems. The software agent characteristics and features (which include the dynamic binding of plans to software agents in order to tackle the levels of complexity and range of contexts) were examined, as well as discussing current GIScience and the applications of agent technology to GIS, agents as entities, objects and processes. These concepts and their functionalities to GIS are then analysed and discussed. The extent of agent functionality, analysis of the gaps and the use these technologies to express a distributed service providing an agent-based GIS framework is then presented. Thus, a general agent-based framework for GIS and a novel agent-based architecture for a specific part of GIS, the variogram, to examine the applicability of the agent- oriented paradigm to GIS, was devised. An examination of the current mechanisms for constructing variograms, underlying processes and functions was undertaken, then these processes were embedded into a novel agent architecture for GIS. Once the successful software agent implementation had been achieved, the corresponding tool was tested and validated - internally for code errors and externally to determine its functional requirements and whether it enhances the GIS process of dealing with data. Thereafter, its compared with other known service based GIS agents and its advantages and disadvantages analysed

Modelo sistémico para el manejo con SIG de indicadores de calidad de vida

Este trabajo aborda el tema de la calidad de vida, en adelante CV, la posibilidad de su estudio a través de conjuntos de índices e indicadores, y el uso de SIG como herramienta de análisis. En el marco de este trabajo se entenderá por CV el hecho de poder lograr consolidar un desarrollo social sin deteriorar la base de recursos: naturales, humanos, energéticos y ambientales. Dado que si quisiéramos "capturar" la realidad el volumen de datos a analizar sería excesivo, en su lugar lo que se busca es tomar unas pocas pero significativas observaciones que nos permitan comprender de manera bastante aproximada la realidad. Es aquí donde intervienen entonces los indicadores. Por lo tanto, para el estudio de la CV será necesario contar con un conjunto de indicadores para describir cada una de las diferentes dimensiones que abarca el concepto de CV. Desde luego que este conjunto debe ser diseñado por un grupo multidisciplinario de expertos en el tema. Estos indicadores pueden clasificarse en objetivos y subjetivos, siendo los primeros los que intentan precisar lo que la gente realmente necesita y los últimos lo que la gente cree necesitar. Puesto que distintos grupos sociales perciben las cosas de distintas maneras, un estudio que intente dar cuenta de la calidad de vida no puede tener un modelo aplicable a todos los lugares por igual. Un modelo de CV deberá tener en cuenta necesariamente las particularidades de la región bajo estudio. Por ser la CV un tema que presenta cambios en el espacio y en el tiempo no es de extrañar que varios autores hayan usado SIG como herramienta para su análisis. Ocurre, sin embargo, que la modificación de tales indicadores no suele ser un hecho aislado y que, dada la naturaleza interdependiente de la realidad, el cambio en un indicador normalmente implica cambios en otros indicadores. Por este motivo, la actualización de aquellos indicadores modelizados mediante SIG se torna una tarea de difícil mantenimiento. No obstante, existen en la actualidad técnicas para tratar con el manejo complejo de dependencias. Una de ellas son los patrones de diseño, que representan el último eslabón en desarrollo de software bajo el paradigma de la programación orientada a objetos. Mediante esta técnica, se construirán 3 frameworks para abordar el tema de la calidad de vida. Dada la importancia que tiene para cualquier individuo o grupo social, no sólo desde el punto de vista político, el poder lograr una mejor calidad de vida, el presente trabajo pretende contribuir al estudio y monitoreo de la CV de un lugar, con el objetivo de detectar problemas en forma temprana y servir como base para la toma de decisiones tendientes a mejorar la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos.Facultad de Informátic