Resource Management in Grids: Overview and a discussion of a possible approach for an Agent-Based Middleware

14 pagesInternational audienceResource management and job scheduling are important research issues in computational grids. When software agents are used as resource managers and brokers in the Grid a number of additional issues and possible approaches materialize. The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, we discuss traditional job scheduling in grids, and when agents are utilized as grid middleware. Second, we use this as a context for discussion of how job scheduling can be done in the agent-based system under development

Reconceptualizing Support for Students with Low Language Proficiency in Transnational Higher Education

In a bid to remain competitive and respond to the forces of globalization, higher education institutions are increasingly focusing on internationalization, with English-medium instruction (EMI) as one of the key strategies for achieving this. While most institutions provide dedicated language support in the form of English for Academic Purposes programs, consideration is rarely given to the pedagogical requirements placed on disciplinary faculty for instructing non-native English-speaking students in degree programs. This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) examines how the learning and teaching capacity of disciplinary faculty can be developed to support the language needs of students with low language proficiency at a transnational EMI university in China. Feedback from a recent focus group on professional development needs supports such a teaching culture change, indicating faculty desire for EMI training. The OIP is explored through social cognition and cultural lenses utilizing a distributed leadership (DL) approach, with the aim of co-constructing discipline-specific EMI support solutions with faculty. Cawsey et al.\u27s (2016) Change Path Model, Scharmer\u27s (2016a) Theory U, and Jones and Harvey\u27s (2017) Sustainable Enabling and Evaluating Reflective DL Change Process Model underpin a change framework facilitated by sensemaking and growth mindset strategies, to support and guide faculty towards adopting a change in teaching practice. Successive pilots will steer the implementation of this change, monitored and evaluated through a series of participative action research cycles and feedback loops, with the aim of incrementally building support for the change and leading to the institutionalization of a revised approach of EMI

Engineering complex systems with multigroup agents

Doctor of PhilosophyComputing and Information SciencesScott A. DeLoachAs sensor prices drop and computing devices continue to become more compact and powerful, computing capabilities are being embedded throughout our physical environment. Connecting these devices in cyber-physical systems (CPS) enables applications with significant societal impact and economic benefit. However, engineering CPS poses modeling, architecture, and engineering challenges and, to fully realize the desired benefits, many outstanding challenges must be addressed. For the cyber parts of CPS, two decades of work in the design of autonomous agents and multiagent systems (MAS) offers design principles for distributed intelligent systems and formalizations for agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE). MAS foundations offer a natural fit for enabling distributed interacting devices. In some cases, complex control structures such as holarchies can be advantageous. These can motivate complex organizational strategies when implementing such systems with a MAS, and some designs may require agents to act in multiple groups simultaneously. Such agents must be able to manage their multiple associations and assignments in a consistent and unambiguous way. This thesis shows how designing agents as systems of intelligent subagents offers a reusable and practical approach to designing complex systems. It presents a set of flexible, reusable components developed for OBAA++, an organization-based architecture for single-group MAS, and shows how these components were used to develop the Adaptive Architecture for Systems of Intelligent Systems (AASIS) to enable multigroup agents suitable for complex, multigroup MAS. This work illustrates the reusability and flexibility of the approach by using AASIS to simulate a CPS for an intelligent power distribution system (IPDS) operating two multigroup MAS concurrently: one providing continuous voltage control and a second conducting discrete power auctions near sources of distributed generation