Multi Agent Systems in Logistics: A Literature and State-of-the-art Review

Based on a literature survey, we aim to answer our main question: “How should we plan and execute logistics in supply chains that aim to meet today’s requirements, and how can we support such planning and execution using IT?†Today’s requirements in supply chains include inter-organizational collaboration and more responsive and tailored supply to meet specific demand. Enterprise systems fall short in meeting these requirements The focus of planning and execution systems should move towards an inter-enterprise and event-driven mode. Inter-organizational systems may support planning going from supporting information exchange and henceforth enable synchronized planning within the organizations towards the capability to do network planning based on available information throughout the network. We provide a framework for planning systems, constituting a rich landscape of possible configurations, where the centralized and fully decentralized approaches are two extremes. We define and discuss agent based systems and in particular multi agent systems (MAS). We emphasize the issue of the role of MAS coordination architectures, and then explain that transportation is, next to production, an important domain in which MAS can and actually are applied. However, implementation is not widespread and some implementation issues are explored. In this manner, we conclude that planning problems in transportation have characteristics that comply with the specific capabilities of agent systems. In particular, these systems are capable to deal with inter-organizational and event-driven planning settings, hence meeting today’s requirements in supply chain planning and execution.supply chain;MAS;multi agent systems

Implementing feedback in creative systems : a workshop approach

One particular challenge in AI is the computational modelling and simulation of creativity. Feedback and learning from experience are key aspects of the creative process. Here we investigate how we could implement feedback in creative systems using a social model. From the field of creative writing we borrow the concept of a Writers Workshop as a model for learning through feedback. The Writers Workshop encourages examination, discussion and debates of a piece of creative work using a prescribed format of activities. We propose a computational model of the Writers Workshop as a roadmap for incorporation of feedback in artificial creativity systems. We argue that the Writers Workshop setting describes the anatomy of the creative process. We support our claim with a case study that describes how to implement the Writers Workshop model in a computational creativity system. We present this work using patterns other people can follow to implement similar designs in their own systems. We conclude by discussing the broader relevance of this model to other aspects of AI

Multi Agent Systems in Logistics: A Literature and State-of-the-art Review

Based on a literature survey, we aim to answer our main question: “How should we plan and execute logistics in supply chains that aim to meet today’s requirements, and how can we support such planning and execution using IT?” Today’s requirements in supply chains include inter-organizational collaboration and more responsive and tailored supply to meet specific demand. Enterprise systems fall short in meeting these requirements The focus of planning and execution systems should move towards an inter-enterprise and event-driven mode. Inter-organizational systems may support planning going from supporting information exchange and henceforth enable synchronized planning within the organizations towards the capability to do network planning based on available information throughout the network. We provide a framework for planning systems, constituting a rich landscape of possible configurations, where the centralized and fully decentralized approaches are two extremes. We define and discuss agent based systems and in particular multi agent systems (MAS). We emphasize the issue of the role of MAS coordination architectures, and then explain that transportation is, next to production, an important domain in which MAS can and actually are applied. However, implementation is not widespread and some implementation issues are explored. In this manner, we conclude that planning problems in transportation have characteristics that comply with the specific capabilities of agent systems. In particular, these systems are capable to deal with inter-organizational and event-driven planning settings, hence meeting today’s requirements in supply chain planning and execution

Regulating competence-based access to agent societies

Advances in ubiquitous computing have resulted in changes to the way we access and use everyday applications, e.g. reading mail and booking tickets. At the same time, users interact with these applications in a variety of ways, each with different characteristics, e.g., different degrees of bandwidth, different payment schemes supported and so on. These are highly dynamic interactions, as some of the applications might become unavailable (either temporarily or permanently) or their behaviour may change. As the user has to deal with a large number of proactive and dynamic applications every day, he will need a personal assistant that possesses similar characteristics. The agent paradigm meets this requirement, since it exhibits the necessary features. As a result, the user will provide its personal agent assistant with a goal, e.g. I need a smartphone which costs less than three hundred pounds, and the agent will have to use a number of applications offering information on smartphones so that it finds the requested one. This, in turn, raises a number of issues regarding the organisation and the degrees of access to these services as well as the correctness of their descriptions. In this work, we propose the organisation of applications around the concept of artificial agent societies, to which access would be possible only by a positive evaluation of an agent's application. The agent will provide the Authority Agent with the role it is applying for and its competencies in the context of a protocol, i.e., the messages that it can utter/understand. The Authority Agent will then check to see if the applicant agent is a competent user of the protocols; if yes, entry is granted. Assuming that access is granted, the next issue is to decide on the protocol(s) that agent receives. As providing the full protocol will cause security and overload problems, we only need to provide the part required for the agent to play its role. We show how this can be done and how we can repair certain protocols so that they are indeed enactable once this role decomposition is performed

Techniques for the Publication of Accessible Multimedia Content on the Web

Multimedia has become one of the most important sources of information and communication on the web. However, despite recent technological progress, people with disabilities and the elderly face difficulties accessing multimedia on the web. In some cases, these difficulties are impossible to overcome and are a fundamental cause of digital exclusion. Given the importance of this topic, several investigations on the problems of accessing multimedia resources have been carried out. Some organizations have also proposed certain standards to guide the creation and publication of accessible web content. Nevertheless, the authoring tools used in the process of publishing multimedia on the web do not offer all the accessibility features required. Authoring tools can also be used by people who do not have knowledge about web accessibility or programming, resulting in web publications lacking accessibility. This research proposes 278 novel techniques to guide authors, designers, programmers, and testers in the publication of accessible and inclusive multimedia on the web. These techniques are designed to guarantee the compliance with the recommended success criteria of Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 of the World Wide Web Consortium. Moreover, these techniques can be used to evaluate the accessibility of the existing authoring tools used to create multimedia for the web. Additionally, we present 80 possible failures that can cause the non-fulfillment of ATAG 2.0. These failures can help authors discern what to avoid and help evaluators check whether particular multimedia is accessible.This work was supported in part by the Study of Accessibility Requirements of Multimedia Content on the Web: Case Study MOOC under Research Project PII-DETRI-2019-03, in part by the EduTech under Project 609785-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP, and in part by the Erasmus C Programme of the European Union