Optimized Drug Distribution for Pharmacies of the National Order of Pharmacists in DR Congo using a Multi-Agent Engineering Approach

This paper focuses on a Multi-Agent Oriented Engineering for the problem of registration of pharmacists in the National Order of Pharmacists NOP and the regulation of the sale of pharmaceutical products in a distributed environment The behavior of a pharmacist in the practice of pharmacy is characterized by interactions with the Provincial Council of the Order of Pharmacists PCOP of his jurisdiction where he obtains an authorization to practice pharmacy This authorization is accompanied by the ethical rules to be observed in order to expose medicines on the market The activities of each pharmacist are continuously subject to quality control and pharmaceutical vigilance to protect the health of the population In this paper we focus on the design of a Multi-Agent System MAS in order to help the PCOP to control the pharmaceutical activity on the one hand and the pharmacists to sell their drugs safely on the other han

Prometheus design tool

The Prometheus Design Tool (PDT) supports the structured design of intelligent agent systems. It supports the Prometheus methodology, but can also be used more generally. This paper outlines the tool and some of its many features

Design of a multi-agent system using the "MaSE" method for learners' metacognitive help

This article addresses a multi-agent approach to solving the problem of integrating metacognitive incentives into Learning Management System. The behavior of the teacher in a classroom-teaching situation, where teacher adopting the competency-based approach, is characterized by a set of didactic interventions dynamically adaptable according to the actions-reactions of the learners. These interventions are continually subjected to perfection by experience. In this article, we are interested in modeling the multi-agent system in order to help the learners develop their metacognitive skills in a continuous way. The purpose of this system is to supervise the activities and statements of the learner and communicate them to the metacognitive agent. The latter focuses on the assessment of the learner's metacognitive skills in order to trigger, automatically, metacognitive incentives to provide help messages. Integrating the agent for metacognitive control and assistance, allows learners to maintain motivation and confidence, and elicit their attention to the importance of metacognitive skills during learning activity. The "MaSE" methodology and the "agentTool" are used to model the multi-agent system

Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) Approach to Game Development Methodology

This thesis investigates existing game development methodologies, through the process of researching game and system development models. The results indicate that these methodologies are engineered to solve specific problems, and most are suitable only for specific game genres. Different approaches to building games have been proposed in recent years. However, most of these methodologies focus on the design and implementation phase. This research aims to enhance game development methodologies by proposing a novel game development methodology, with the ability to function in generic game genres, thereby guiding game developers and designers from the start of the game development phase to the end of the implementation and testing phase. On a positive note, aligning development practice with universal standards makes it far easier to incorporate extra team members at short notice. This increased the confidence when working in the same environment as super developers. In the gaming industry, most game development proceeds directly from game design to the implementation phase, and the researcher observes that this is the only industry in which this occurs. It is a consequence of the game industry’s failure to integrate with modern development techniques. The ultimate aim of this research to apply a new game development methodology using most game elements to enhance success. This development model will align with different game genres, and resolve the gap between industry and research area, so that game developers can focus on the important business of creating games. The primary aim of Agent Oriented Agile Base (AOAB) game development methodology is to present game development techniques in sequential steps to facilitate game creation and close the gap in the existing game development methodologies. Agent technology is used in complex domains such as e-commerce, health, manufacturing, games, etc. In this thesis we are interested in the game domain, which comprises a unique set of characteristics such as automata, collaboration etc. Our AOAB will be based on a predictive approach after adaptation of MaSE methodology, and an adaptive approach using Agile methodology. To ensure proof of concept, AOAB game development methodology will be evaluated against industry principles, providing an industry case study to create a driving test game, which was the problem motivating this research. Furthermore, we conducted two workshops to introduce our methodology to both academic and industry participants. Finally, we prepared an academic experiment to use AOAB in the academic sector. We have analyzed the feedbacks and comments and concluded the strengths and weakness of the AOAB methodology. The research achievements are summarized and proposals for future work outlined

Designing for planned emergence in multi-agent systems

We present an approach for designing organization-oriented multi-agent systems (MASs) to allow improvisation at run time when agents are not available to exactly match the original organizational design structure. Working with system components from an existing MAS organizational meta-model, OJAzzIC, the approach sets out five stages for the design process. We illustrate the design approach with an incident response scenario implemented in the Blocks World for Teams (BW4T) environment, and show how agents at runtime can improvise- for example they can adopt tasks even if those tasks do not precisely match a predefined role. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Method integration: An approach to develop agent oriented methodologies

Agent oriented software engineering (AOSE) is an emerging field in computer science  and  proposes some systematic ideas for multi agent systems analysis, implementation and maintenance. Despite the various methodologies introduced in the agent-oriented software engineering, the main challenges are defects in different aspects of methodologies. According to the defects resulted from weaknesses in agent oriented methodologies in different aspects, a combinatory solution named ARA using, ASPECS, ROADMAP and AOR has been proposed. The three methodologies were analyzed in a comprehensive analytical framework according to concepts and Perceptions, modeling language, process and pragmatism. According to time and resource limitations, sample methodologies for evaluation and in titration were selected. This selection was based on the use of methodologies' and their combination ability. The evaluation show that, the ROADMAP methodology supports stages of agent-oriented systems' analysis and the design stage is not complete because it doesn’t model all semi agents. On the other hand, since AOR and ASPECS methodologies support the design stage and inter agent interactions, a mixed methodology has been proposed and is a combination of analysis stage of ROADMAP methodology and design stage of AOR and ASPECS methodologies. Furthermore, to increase the performance of proposed methodology of actor models, service model, capability and programming were also added to this proposed methodology. To describe its difference phases, it was used in a case study too. Results of this project can pave the way to introduce future agent-oriented methodologies

Knowledge modeling through computational agents: application to surveillance systems.

In this work the concept of computational agent is located within the methodological framework of levels and domains of description of a calculus in the context of different usual paradigms in Artificial Intelligence (symbolic, situated, connectionist, and hybrid). Emphasis in the computable aspects of agent theory is put, leaving open the possibility to the incorporation of other aspects that are still pure cognitive nomenclature without any computational counterpart of equivalent semantic richness. The ideas presented are shown as currently being implemented on semi-automatic surveillance systems. A case study of a mobile robot application for the detection and following of humans is described

Process control and configuration of a reconfigurable production system using a multi-agent software system

Thesis (M. Tech. (Information Technology)) -- Central University of technology, Free State, 2011Traditional designs for component-handling platforms are rigidly linked to the product being produced. Control and monitoring methods for these platforms consist of various proprietary hardware controllers containing the control logic for the production process. Should the configuration of the component handling platform change, the controllers need to be taken offline and reprogrammed to take the changes into account. The current thinking in component-handling system design is the notion of re-configurability. Reconfigurability means that with minimum or no downtime the system can be adapted to produce another product type or overcome a device failure. The re-configurable component handling platform is built-up from groups of independent devices. These groups or cells are each responsible for some aspect of the overall production process. By moving or swopping different versions of these cells within the component-handling platform, re-configurability is achieved. Such a dynamic system requires a flexible communications platform and high-level software control architecture to accommodate the reconfigurable nature of the system. This work represents the design and testing of the core of a re-configurable production control software platform. Multiple software components work together to control and monitor a re-configurable component handling platform. The design and implementation of a production database, production ontology, communications architecture and the core multi-agent control application linking all these components together is presented