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.

Strategic Argumentation Dialogues for Persuasion: Framework and Experiments Based on Modelling the Beliefs and Concerns of the Persuadee

Persuasion is an important and yet complex aspect of human intelligence. When undertaken through dialogue, the deployment of good arguments, and therefore counterarguments, clearly has a significant effect on the ability to be successful in persuasion. Two key dimensions for determining whether an argument is good in a particular dialogue are the degree to which the intended audience believes the argument and counterarguments, and the impact that the argument has on the concerns of the intended audience. In this paper, we present a framework for modelling persuadees in terms of their beliefs and concerns, and for harnessing these models in optimizing the choice of move in persuasion dialogues. Our approach is based on the Monte Carlo Tree Search which allows optimization in real-time. We provide empirical results of a study with human participants showing that our automated persuasion system based on this technology is superior to a baseline system that does not take the beliefs and concerns into account in its strategy.Comment: The Data Appendix containing the arguments, argument graphs, assignment of concerns to arguments, preferences over concerns, and assignment of beliefs to arguments, is available at the link http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/a.hunter/papers/unistudydata.zip The code is available at https://github.com/ComputationalPersuasion/MCC

A methodology for maintaining trust in virtual environments

The increasing interest in carrying out business in virtual environments has resulted in much research and discussion of trust establishment between the entities involved. Researchers over the years have acknowledged that the success of any transaction or interaction via the virtual medium is determined by the trust level between trusting agent and trusted agent. Numerous publications have attempted to address the various challenges of assigning a trust level and building trust in an interacting party. However, the building and allocating a value of trust is neither easy nor quick. It involves high cost and effort. Hence, the ensuing research challenge is how to maintain the trust that has been established and assigned. Due to the dynamic nature of trust, the trust evolution, and the fragility of trust in virtual environments, one of the most pressing challenges facing the research community is how trust can be maintained over time. This thesis is an effort in that direction. Specifically, the objective of this thesis is to propose a methodology for trust maintenance in virtual environments which we term “Trust Maintenance Methodology” (TMM). The methodology comprises five frameworks that can be used to achieve the objective of trust maintenance.In order to achieve the aforesaid objective, this thesis proposes a: (a) Framework for third party agent selection, (b) Framework for Formalization and Negotiation of service requirements, (c) Framework for Proactive Continuous Performance Monitoring, (d) Framework for Incentive Mechanism, and (e) Framework for Trust Re-calibration.The framework for third party agent selection is used for choosing and selecting a neutral agent who will supervise the interaction between two parties. This is the first step of our methodology. The neutral agent is involved throughout the course of the interaction between two parties and takes a proactive-corrective role in continuous performance monitoring. Once both parties have chosen a neutral agent, they carry out a formalization and negotiation process of their service requirements using our proposed framework. This is in order to create an SLA which will guide the interaction between two parties. The framework for proactive continuous performance monitoring then can be used to evaluate the performance of both parties in delivering their service based on the SLA. If a performance gap occurs during the course of transaction, the third party agent will take action to help both parties close the performance gap in a timely manner. A key salient feature of our continuous performance monitoring is that it is proactive-corrective. Additionally, we design a framework for providing an incentive during the course of interaction to motivate both parties to perform as closely as possible to the terms of the mutual agreement or SLA. By the end of the interaction time space, both parties will be able to re-assess or re-calibrate their trust level using our proposed framework for trust re-calibration.Finally, in order to validate our proposed methodology, we engineered a multi-agent system to simulate the validity of the TMM. Numerous case studies are presented to elucidate the workings of our proposed methodology. Moreover, we run several experiments under various testing conditions including boundary conditions. The results of experiments show that our methodology is effective in assisting the parties to maintain their trust level in virtual environments

Strategic argumentation dialogues for persuasion: Framework and experiments based on modelling the beliefs and concerns of the persuadee

Persuasion is an important and yet complex aspect of human intelligence. When undertaken through dialogue, the deployment of good arguments, and therefore counterarguments, clearly has a significant effect on the ability to be successful in persuasion. Two key dimensions for determining whether an argument is 'good' in a particular dialogue are the degree to which the intended audience believes the argument and counterarguments, and the impact that the argument has on the concerns of the intended audience. In this paper, we present a framework for modelling persuadees in terms of their beliefs and concerns, and for harnessing these models in optimizing the choice of move in persuasion dialogues. Our approach is based on the Monte Carlo Tree Search which allows optimization in real-time. We provide empirical results of a study with human participants that compares an automated persuasion system based on this technology with a baseline system that does not take the beliefs and concerns into account in its strategy

Wearables at work:preferences from an employee’s perspective

This exploratory study aims to obtain a first impression of the wishes and needs of employees on the use of wearables at work for health promotion. 76 employ-ees with a mean age of 40 years old (SD ±11.7) filled in a survey after trying out a wearable. Most employees see the potential of using wearable devices for workplace health promotion. However, according to employees, some negative aspects should be overcome before wearables can effectively contribute to health promotion. The most mentioned negative aspects were poor visualization and un-pleasantness of wearing. Specifically for the workplace, employees were con-cerned about the privacy of data collection

Multi-Agent Systems

A multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems which are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or monolithic system to solve. Agent systems are open and extensible systems that allow for the deployment of autonomous and proactive software components. Multi-agent systems have been brought up and used in several application domains