Twenty years of coordination technologies: State-of-the-art and perspectives

Since complexity of inter- and intra-systems interactions is steadily increasing in modern application scenarios (e.g., the IoT), coordination technologies are required to take a crucial step towards maturity. In this paper we look back at the history of the COORDINATION conference in order to shed light on the current status of the coordination technologies there proposed throughout the years, in an attempt to understand success stories, limitations, and possibly reveal the gap between actual technologies, theoretical models, and novel application needs

Efficient Communication and Coordination for Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systems

The growth of the computational power of computers and the speed of networks has made large-scale multi-agent systems a promising technology. As the number of agents in a single application approaches thousands or millions, distributed computing has become a general paradigm in large-scale multi-agent systems to take the benefits of parallel computing. However, since these numerous agents are located on distributed computers and interact intensively with each other to achieve common goals, the agent communication cost significantly affects the performance of applications. Therefore, optimizing the agent communication cost on distributed systems could considerably reduce the runtime of multi-agent applications. Furthermore, because static multi-agent frameworks may not be suitable for all kinds of applications, and the communication patterns of agents may change during execution, multi-agent frameworks should adapt their services to support applications differently according to their dynamic characteristics. This thesis proposes three adaptive services at the agent framework level to reduce the agent communication and coordination cost of large-scale multi-agent applications. First, communication locality-aware agent distribution aims at minimizing inter-node communication by collocating heavily communicating agents on the same platform and maintaining agent group-based load sharing. Second, application agent-oriented middle agent services attempt to optimize agent interaction through middle agents by executing application agent-supported search algorithms on the middle agent address space. Third, message passing for mobile agents aims at reducing the time of message delivery to mobile agents using location caches or by extending the agent address scheme with location information. With these services, we have achieved very impressive experimental results in large- scale UAV simulations including up to 10,000 agents. Also, we have provided a formal definition of our framework and services with operational semantics

Coalition based approach for shop floor agility – a multiagent approach

Dissertation submitted for a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, speciality of Robotics and Integrated Manufacturing from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaThis thesis addresses the problem of shop floor agility. In order to cope with the disturbances and uncertainties that characterise the current business scenarios faced by manufacturing companies, the capability of their shop floors needs to be improved quickly, such that these shop floors may be adapted, changed or become easily modifiable (shop floor reengineering). One of the critical elements in any shop floor reengineering process is the way the control/supervision architecture is changed or modified to accommodate for the new processes and equipment. This thesis, therefore, proposes an architecture to support the fast adaptation or changes in the control/supervision architecture. This architecture postulates that manufacturing systems are no more than compositions of modularised manufacturing components whose interactions when aggregated are governed by contractual mechanisms that favour configuration over reprogramming. A multiagent based reference architecture called Coalition Based Approach for Shop floor Agility – CoBASA, was created to support fast adaptation and changes of shop floor control architectures with minimal effort. The coalitions are composed of agentified manufacturing components (modules), whose relationships within the coalitions are governed by contracts that are configured whenever a coalition is established. Creating and changing a coalition do not involve programming effort because it only requires changes to the contract that regulates it

Comunicación ibero-americana: los desafíos de la internacionalización: libro de actas del II Congreso Mundial de la Comunicación iberoamericana

(Excerto da Nota Introdutória) Com uma tradição académica que remonta a meados do século XX, os estudos de comunicação têm acompanhado as principais transformações sociais e culturais operadas sob o signo dos média e por efeito de uma organização cada vez mais tecnológica da vida em sociedade. Ao analisarem as dinâmicas discursivas de um tempo marcado pelo convívio com meios de comunicação igualmente dinâmicos e mutantes, as ciências da comunicação prestam-se a uma compreensão mais vasta dos processos de socialização e manifestação cultural. É por isso que esta é uma área tão recetiva à interdisciplinaridade e, ao mesmo tempo, tão sensível à expressão nas diversas línguas que servem a comunicação. Dedicando-se a um objeto de estudo que nada tem de estável, as ciências da comunicação partilham com todas as outras áreas científicas o repto de internacionalização do conhecimento. À semelhança do que tem acontecido com outros grupos disciplinares, também as ciências da comunicação estão hoje organizadas numa lógica de globalização da ciência. A partir da década de 1950, começaram a ser criadas associações internacionais, como a International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), lançada em 1957, e a International Communication Association (ICA), criada em 1950 como National Society for the Study of Communication (NSSC), a que se sucederam muitas outras de âmbitos mais especializados ou regionalizados. Por iniciativa destas associações, passaram a realizar-se periodicamente congressos internacionais que depressa concorreram para instituir o Inglês como uma espécie de língua oficial.(Nota introdutória no completa) Con una tradición académica que se remonta a mediados del siglo XX, los estudios de comunicación han sido capaces de acompañar los principales cambios sociales y culturales en el marco de los medios de comunicación social, una consecuencia que resulta de una organización cada vez más tecnológica de la vida en sociedad. Mediante el análisis científico de las dinámicas discursivas de nuestro tiempo, caracterizado por la existencia de múltiples medios de comunicación igualmente dinámicos y cambiantes, las ciencias de la comunicación se proponen comprender los procesos de socialización y las diversas manifestaciones culturales. Es quizás por eso que dicha área científica es tan receptiva tanto a la interdisciplinariedad como a la muy sensible expresión en diversas lenguas que sirven de base a la comunicación. Aunque su objeto de estudio se caracterice por la inestabilidad, las ciencias de la comunicación comparten con todas las áreas científicas el gran reto de la internacionalización del conocimiento. Tal y como ha pasado con otros grupos disciplinares, también las ciencias de la comunicación se presentan hoy más organizadas en la lógica de globalización de la ciencia. En este sentido, a partir de la década de 1950 se han creado asociaciones internacionales como la AIECS (Asociación Internacional de Estudios de Comunicación Social), en 1957, y la ICA (Asociación de Comunicación Internacional), fundada en 1950 como Sociedad Nacional para el Estudio de la Comunicación (NSSC), a las cuáles les han seguido numerosas asociaciones más de ámbitos más especializados o más regionalizados. Como resultado de este proceso, se han organizado con gran frecuencia congresos internacionales que casi han convertido a la lengua inglesa en el idioma oficial de dichos encuentros científicos.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT