Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

An interaction protocol for bidirectional deliberation on direct help in agent teamwork.

This thesis proposes a new interaction protocol for direct help in agent teamwork. It addresses design questions that may arise in practical systems development, and achieves higher teamwork performance impact than previous versions of the Mutual Assistance Protocol (MAP). Direct help, such as performing an action on teammate's behalf, is deliberated by team members as need arises, rather than imposed by team organization or centralized mechanisms. The deliberation can start with a request for help, or with an offer of help the two design principles have been embodied in two distinct versions of MAP. Based on their observed complementarity, we refine and combine them into a single protocol that leverages their individual advantages. Its novel features let an agent initiate help deliberation with request or offer, and also simultaneously provide and receive help. Simulation experiments demonstrate its team performance gains while varying the environment dynamism, agent resources, and communication costs. --Leaf i.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b200687

Using Computational Agents to Design Participatory Social Simulations

In social science, the role of stakeholders is increasing in the development and use of simulation models. Their participation in the design of agent-based models (ABMs) has widely been considered as an efficient solution to the validation of this particular type of model. Traditionally, "agents" (as basic model elements) have not been concerned with stakeholders directly but via designers or role-playing games (RPGs). In this paper, we intend to bridge this gap by introducing computational or software agents, implemented from an initial ABM, into a new kind of RPG, mediated by computers, so that these agents can interact with stakeholders. This interaction can help not only to elicit stakeholders' informal knowledge or unpredicted behaviours, but also to control stakeholders' focus during the games. We therefore formalize a general participatory design method using software agents, and illustrate it by describing our experience in a project aimed at developing agent-based social simulations in the field of air traffic management.Participatory Social Simulations, Agent-Based Social Simulations, Computational Agents, Role-Playing Games, Artificial Maieutics, User-Centered Design

A multi-agent system with application in project scheduling

The new economic and social dynamics increase project complexity and makes scheduling problems more difficult, therefore scheduling requires more versatile solutions as Multi Agent Systems (MAS). In this paper the authors analyze the implementation of a Multi-Agent System (MAS) considering two scheduling problems: TCPSP (Time-Constrained Project Scheduling), and RCPSP (Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling). The authors propose an improved BDI (Beliefs, Desires, and Intentions) model and present the first the MAS implementation results in JADE platform.multi-agent architecture, scheduling, project management, BDI architecture, JADE.

A mutual assistance protocol for agent teamwork.

This thesis proposes a novel protocol for incorporating helpful behavior into multiagent teamwork. In the proposed protocol, call the Mutual Assistance Protocol (MAP), an agent can use its own abilities and resources to advance a subtask assigned to another agent. The helpful act is performed only when the two agents jointly determine that it is in the interest of the team. The underlying design principle is that each agent assesses the team impact of changes in its own local plan. The distributed decision is reached through a bidding sequence similar to the Contract Net Protocol. The helpful act may consist in performing an action or in granting resources. The advantages of MAP over protocols that use unilateral help decisions are demonstrated through simulation experiments, using varying levels of mutual awareness in the team, dynamic disturbance in the environment, communication costs, and computation costs. --P. ii.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b175526

Adaptive coordination in distributed and dynamic agent organizations

We elaborate the rationale and design of OJAzzIC (OrganizationsJoining Adaptively with Improvised Coordination), a model foragents in (Jazzy) Organizations that need to engage in dynamic adaptationto respond to a dynamic situation. OJAzzIC provides an adaptivedata structure and framework for creation of multiple instances of organizationswithin a distributed system, with knowledge sharing acrossorganizational boundaries achieved through overlapping instances. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Collaborative group reasoning in ward rounds: A critical realist case study

The thesis explored the group reasoning occurring between practitioners during hospital ward rounds. A model of the reasoning was constructed, focused on information gathering, sense-making and decision making. The model explained the role of group reasoning and generated suggestions for evaluating ward rounds, improving medical education and redesigning rounds

A Research Agenda for Hybrid Intelligence:Augmenting Human Intellect With Collaborative, Adaptive, Responsible, and Explainable Artificial Intelligence

We define hybrid intelligence (HI) as the combination of human and machine intelligence, augmenting human intellect and capabilities instead of replacing them and achieving goals that were unreachable by either humans or machines. HI is an important new research focus for artificial intelligence, and we set a research agenda for HI by formulating four challenges

A Roadmap to Pervasive Systems Verification

yesThe complexity of pervasive systems arises from the many different aspects that such systems possess. A typical pervasive system may be autonomous, distributed, concurrent and context-based, and may involve humans and robotic devices working together. If we wish to formally verify the behaviour of such systems, the formal methods for pervasive systems will surely also be complex. In this paper, we move towards being able to formally verify pervasive systems and outline our approach wherein we distinguish four distinct dimensions within pervasive system behaviour and utilise different, but appropriate, formal techniques for verifying each one.EPSR