Advances in infrastructures and tools for multiagent systems

In the last few years, information system technologies have focused on solving challenges in order to develop distributed applications. Distributed systems can be viewed as collections of service-provider and ser vice-consumer components interlinked by dynamically defined workflows (Luck and McBurney 2008).Alberola Oltra, JM.; Botti Navarro, VJ.; Such Aparicio, JM. (2014). Advances in infrastructures and tools for multiagent systems. Information Systems Frontiers. 16:163-167. doi:10.1007/s10796-014-9493-6S16316716Alberola, J. M., Búrdalo, L., Julián, V., Terrasa, A., & García-Fornes, A. (2014). An adaptive framework for monitoring agent organizations. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9478-x .Alfonso, B., Botti, V., Garrido, A., & Giret, A. (2014). A MAS-based infrastructure for negotiation and its application to a water-right market. 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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

Cooperative agent-based software architecture for distributed simulation

This paper proposes a cooperative multiagent model using distributed object-based systems for supporting distributed virtual environment and distributed simulation technologies for military and government applications. The agent model will use the condition-event driven rule based system as the basis for representing knowledge. In this model, the updates and revision of beliefs of agents corresponds to modifying the knowledge base. These agents are reactive and respond to stimulus as well as the environment in which they are embedded. Further, these agents are smart and can learn from their actions. The distributed agent-based software architecture will enable us to realise human behaviour model environment and computer-generated forces (also called computer-generated actor (CGA)) architectures. The design of the cooperative agent-based architecture will be based on mobile agents, interactive distributed computing models, and advanced logical modes of programming. This cooperative architecture will be developed using Java based tools and distributed databases

Simulator for Undergraduate Multi-Agent Systems

In recent years, Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) have for the first time begun to be accepted in mainstream computing. Software companies haave been founded focusing purely on MAS software, telecommunications companies now use agent-based technologies in cell phones, and there have even been two successful DARPA funded, military-grade defense projects in the past ten years. The growth in demand development tools available. The various development platforms focus on mobile devices, large-scale distributed systems, and specific research applications; however, these tools leave an important facet of MAS development unsatisfied--undergraduate research and teaching. Each of the solutions available is either too complex, too specific, or in some way infeasible to be used by students in what is possibly their first introduction to MAS. This research concentrates on creating a distributed, graphical MAS simulator in Java and an associated Application Program Interface (API) for developing agent-based systems at the undergraduate level. Whether in research or in the classroom, the well designed, easily extensible API allows students to create and immediately display their agents\u27 interactions in the simulation environment with minimal programming. The API provides agents with the capacity for perception, communication, memory, and action. Future undergraduate research and learning in the field of MAS will be greatly facilitated by this intuitive simulation platform. Students can learn MAS by observing agents visually, and student researchers can focus purely on programming and analyzing agent behavior

Simplifying Context-Aware Agent Coordination Using Context-Sensitive Data Structures

Context-aware computing, an emerging paradigm in which applications sense and adapt their behavior to changes in their operational environment, is key to developing dependable agent-based soft-ware systems for use in the often unpredictable settings of ad hoc net-works. However, designing an application agent which interacts with other agents to gather, maintain, and adapt to context can be a difficult undertaking in an open and continuously changing environment, even for a seasoned programmer. Our goal is to simplify the programming task by hiding the details of agent coordination from the programmer, allowing one to quickly and reliably produce a context-aware application agent for use in large-scale ad hoc networks. With this goal in mind, we introduce a novel abstraction called context-sensitive data structures (CSDS). The programmer interacts with the CSDS through a familiar programming interface, without direct knowledge of the context gathering and maintenance tasks that occur behind the scenes. In this paper, we define a model of context-sensitive data structures, and we identify key requirements and issues associated with building an infrastructure to support the development of context-sensitive data structures

Multi-Agent Approach to Modeling and Implementing Fault-Tolerance in Reactive Autonomic Systems

Recently, autonomic computing has been proposed as a promising solution for software complexity in IT industry. As an autonomic approach, the Reactive Autonomic Systems Framework (RASF) proposes a formal modeling based on mathematical category theory, which addresses the self-* properties of reactive autonomic systems in a more abstract level. This thesis is about the specification and implementation of the reactive autonomic systems (RAS) through multi-agent approach by laying emphasis on the fault-tolerance property of RAS. Furthermore, this thesis proposes a model-driven approach to transform the RAS model to agent templates in multi-agent model using Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT). The multi-agent approach in this research is implemented by Jadex, a high-level Java-based agent programming language. The intelligent agents are created in Jadex based on the Belief-Desire-Intension (BDI) agent architecture. The approach is illustrated on a case study

Agent-oriented software engineering methodologies : analysis and future directions

The Internet of Things (IoT) facilitates in building cyber-physical systems, which are significant for Industry 4.0. Agent-based computing represents effective modeling, programming, and simulation paradigm to develop IoT systems. Agent concepts, techniques, methods, and tools are being used in evolving IoT systems. Over the last years, in particular, there has been an increasing number of agent approaches proposed along with an ever-growing interest in their various implementations. Yet a comprehensive and full-fledged agent approach for developing related projects is still lacking despite the presence of agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) methodologies. One of the moves towards compensating for this issue is to compile various available methodologies, ones that are comparable to the evolution of the unified modeling language (UML) in the domain of object-oriented analysis and design. These have become de facto standards in software development. In line with this objective, the present research attempts to comprehend the relationship among seven main AOSE methodologies. More specifically, we intend to assess and compare these seven approaches by conducting a feature analysis through examining the advantages and limitations of each competing process, structural analysis, and a case study evaluation method. This effort is made to address the significant characteristics of AOSE approaches. The main objective of this study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of selected AOSE methodologies and provide a proposal of a draft unified approach that drives strengths (best) of these methodologies towards advancement in this area.publishedVersio

A MAS-based infrastructure for negotiation and its application to a water-right market

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10796-013-9443-8This paper presents a MAS-based infrastructure for the specification of a negotiation framework that handles multiple negotiation protocols in a coherent and flexible way. Although it may be used to implement one single type of agreement mechanism, it has been designed in such a way that multiple mechanisms may be available at any given time, to be activated and tailored on demand (on-line) by participating agents. The framework is also generic enough so that new protocols may be easily added. 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