Secure agent data integrity shield

In the rapidly expanding field of E-Commerce, mobile agent is the emerging technology that addresses the requirement of intelligent filtering/processing of information. This paper will address the area of mobile agent data integrity protection. We propose the use of Secure Agent Data Integrity Shield (SADIS) as a scheme that protects the integrity of data collected during agent roaming. With the use of a key seed negotiation protocol and integrity protection protocol, SADIS protects the secrecy as well as the integrity of agent data. Any illegal data modification, deletion, or insertion can be detected either by the subsequent host or the agent butler. Most important of all, the identity of each malicious host can be established. To evaluate the feasibility of our design, a prototype has been developed using Java. The result of benchmarking shows improvement both in terms of data and time efficiency

DATA Agent

This paper introduces DATA Agent, a system which creates murder mystery adventures from open data. In the game, the player takes on the role of a detective tasked with finding the culprit of a murder. All characters, places, and items in DATA Agent games are generated using open data as source content. The paper discusses the general game design and user interface of DATA Agent, and provides details on the generative algorithms which transform linked data into different game objects. Findings from a user study with 30 participants playing through two games of DATA Agent show that the game is easy and fun to play, and that the mysteries it generates are straightforward to solve.peer-reviewe

Binary data corruption due to a Brownian agent

We introduce a model of binary data corruption induced by a Brownian agent (active random walker) on a d-dimensional lattice. A continuum formulation allows the exact calculation of several quantities related to the density of corrupted bits \rho; for example the mean of \rho, and the density-density correlation function. Excellent agreement is found with the results from numerical simulations. We also calculate the probability distribution of \rho in d=1, which is found to be log-normal, indicating that the system is governed by extreme fluctuations.Comment: 39 pages, 10 figures, RevTe

A customizable multi-agent system for distributed data mining

We present a general Multi-Agent System framework for distributed data mining based on a Peer-to-Peer model. Agent protocols are implemented through message-based asynchronous communication. The framework adopts a dynamic load balancing policy that is particularly suitable for irregular search algorithms. A modular design allows a separation of the general-purpose system protocols and software components from the specific data mining algorithm. The experimental evaluation has been carried out on a parallel frequent subgraph mining algorithm, which has shown good scalability performances

Skin-derived dendritic cells acquire and degrade the scrapie agent following in vitro exposure

The accumulation of the scrapie agent in lymphoid tissues following inoculation via the skin is critical for efficient neuroinvasion, but how the agent is initially transported from the skin to the draining lymph node is not known. Langerhans cells (LCs) are specialized antigen-presenting cells that continually sample their microenvironment within the epidermis and transport captured antigens to draining lymph nodes. We considered LCs probable candidates to acquire and transport the scrapie agent after inoculation via the skin. XS106 cells are dendritic cells (DCs) isolated from mouse epidermis with characteristics of mature LC cells. To investigate the potential interaction of LCs with the scrapie agent XS106 cells were exposed to the scrapie agent in vitro. We show that XS106 cells rapidly acquire the scrapie agent following in vitro exposure. In addition, XS106 cells partially degrade the scrapie agent following extended cultivation. These data suggest that LCs might acquire and degrade the scrapie agent after inoculation via the skin, but data from additional experiments demonstrate that this ability could be lost in the presence of lipopolysaccharide or other immunostimulatory molecules. Our studies also imply that LCs would not undergo maturation following uptake of the scrapie agent in the skin, as the expression of surface antigens associated with LC maturation were unaltered following exposure. In conclusion, although LCs or DCs have the potential to acquire the scrapie agent within the epidermis our data suggest it is unlikely that they become activated and stimulated to transport the agent to the draining lymph node

Agent-based Social Psychology: from Neurocognitive Processes to Social Data

Moral Foundation Theory states that groups of different observers may rely on partially dissimilar sets of moral foundations, thereby reaching different moral valuations. The use of functional imaging techniques has revealed a spectrum of cognitive styles with respect to the differential handling of novel or corroborating information that is correlated to political affiliation. Here we characterize the collective behavior of an agent-based model whose inter individual interactions due to information exchange in the form of opinions are in qualitative agreement with experimental neuroscience data. The main conclusion derived connects the existence of diversity in the cognitive strategies and statistics of the sets of moral foundations and suggests that this connection arises from interactions between agents. Thus a simple interacting agent model, whose interactions are in accord with empirical data on conformity and learning processes, presents statistical signatures consistent with moral judgment patterns of conservatives and liberals as obtained by survey studies of social psychology.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 2 C codes, to appear in Advances in Complex System