Computing confidence Values: does trust dynamics matter?

Computing Confidence Values: Does Trust Dynamics Matter?Em um Sistema Multi-agente, a selecção de outros agentes para trabalho conjunto depende da eventual confiança que é esperada existir no desempenho desses outros.Propomos uma forma de agregar indícios para computar correctamente uma função cujo resultado seja um valor de confiançaComputational Trust and Reputation (CTR) systems are platforms capable of collecting trust information about candidate partners and of computing confidence scores for each one of these partners. These systems start to be viewed as vital elements in environments of electronic institutions, as they support fundamental decision making processes, such as the selection of business partners and the automatic and adaptive creation of contractual terms and associated enforcement methodologies. In this article, we propose a model for the aggregation of trust evidences that computes confidence scores taking into account dynamic properties of trust. We compare our model with a traditional statistical model that uses weighted means to compute trust, and show experimental results that show that in certain scenarios the consideration of the trust dynamics allows for a better estimation of confidence scores

Engineering Multiagent Systems - Reflections

This report documents the programme and outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 12342 ``Engineering multiagent Systems\u27\u27. The seminar brought together researchers from both academia and industry to identify the potential for and facilitate convergence towards standards for agent technology. As such it was particularly relevant to industrial research. A key objective of the seminar, moreover, has been to establish a road map for engineering multiagent systems. Various research areas have been identified as important topics for a research agenda with a focus on the development of multiagent systems. Among others, these include the integration of agent technology and legacy systems, component-based agent design, standards for tooling, establishing benchmarks for agent technology, and the development of frameworks for coordination and organisation of multiagent systems. This report presents a more detailed discussion of these and other research challenges that were identified. The unique atmosphere of Dagstuhl provided the perfect environment for leading researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds to discuss future directions in programming languages, tools and platforms for multiagent systems, and the road map produced by the seminar will have a timely and decisive impact on the future of this whole area of research

Coalition based approach for shop floor agility – a multiagent approach

Dissertation submitted for a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, speciality of Robotics and Integrated Manufacturing from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaThis thesis addresses the problem of shop floor agility. In order to cope with the disturbances and uncertainties that characterise the current business scenarios faced by manufacturing companies, the capability of their shop floors needs to be improved quickly, such that these shop floors may be adapted, changed or become easily modifiable (shop floor reengineering). One of the critical elements in any shop floor reengineering process is the way the control/supervision architecture is changed or modified to accommodate for the new processes and equipment. This thesis, therefore, proposes an architecture to support the fast adaptation or changes in the control/supervision architecture. This architecture postulates that manufacturing systems are no more than compositions of modularised manufacturing components whose interactions when aggregated are governed by contractual mechanisms that favour configuration over reprogramming. A multiagent based reference architecture called Coalition Based Approach for Shop floor Agility – CoBASA, was created to support fast adaptation and changes of shop floor control architectures with minimal effort. The coalitions are composed of agentified manufacturing components (modules), whose relationships within the coalitions are governed by contracts that are configured whenever a coalition is established. Creating and changing a coalition do not involve programming effort because it only requires changes to the contract that regulates it

Adaptive SLA management along value chains for service individualization

The object of our investigation is a software architecture for adaptive Service Level Agreement (SLA) management in value chains for service individualization. We address the problem that current SLA management is not capable to represent the full complexity of SLAs existing in real-world service industries. The problem is investigated from a functional-analytical supply chain perspective. The solution is developed from a software architecture modeling perspective according to the design science paradigm. The contribution of this paper is a software architecture that facilitates SLA negotiation and SLA-based resource management in complex agreement hierarchies. The architecture is validated in an application scenario from the airport logistics domain

Multi Agent Systems in Logistics: A Literature and State-of-the-art Review

Based on a literature survey, we aim to answer our main question: “How should we plan and execute logistics in supply chains that aim to meet today’s requirements, and how can we support such planning and execution using IT?†Today’s requirements in supply chains include inter-organizational collaboration and more responsive and tailored supply to meet specific demand. Enterprise systems fall short in meeting these requirements The focus of planning and execution systems should move towards an inter-enterprise and event-driven mode. Inter-organizational systems may support planning going from supporting information exchange and henceforth enable synchronized planning within the organizations towards the capability to do network planning based on available information throughout the network. We provide a framework for planning systems, constituting a rich landscape of possible configurations, where the centralized and fully decentralized approaches are two extremes. We define and discuss agent based systems and in particular multi agent systems (MAS). We emphasize the issue of the role of MAS coordination architectures, and then explain that transportation is, next to production, an important domain in which MAS can and actually are applied. However, implementation is not widespread and some implementation issues are explored. In this manner, we conclude that planning problems in transportation have characteristics that comply with the specific capabilities of agent systems. In particular, these systems are capable to deal with inter-organizational and event-driven planning settings, hence meeting today’s requirements in supply chain planning and execution.supply chain;MAS;multi agent systems

A Review of Platforms for the Development of Agent Systems

Agent-based computing is an active field of research with the goal of building autonomous software of hardware entities. This task is often facilitated by the use of dedicated, specialized frameworks. For almost thirty years, many such agent platforms have been developed. Meanwhile, some of them have been abandoned, others continue their development and new platforms are released. This paper presents a up-to-date review of the existing agent platforms and also a historical perspective of this domain. It aims to serve as a reference point for people interested in developing agent systems. This work details the main characteristics of the included agent platforms, together with links to specific projects where they have been used. It distinguishes between the active platforms and those no longer under development or with unclear status. It also classifies the agent platforms as general purpose ones, free or commercial, and specialized ones, which can be used for particular types of applications.Comment: 40 pages, 2 figures, 9 tables, 83 reference

Multiagent-Based Model For ESCM

Web based applications for Supply Chain Management (SCM) are now a necessity for every company in order to meet the increasing customer demands, to face the global competition and to make profit. Multiagent-based approach is appropriate for eSCM because it shows many of the characteristics a SCM system should have. For this reason, we have proposed a multiagent-based eSCM model which configures a virtual SC, automates the SC activities: selling, purchasing, manufacturing, planning, inventory, etc. This model will allow a better coordination of the supply chain network and will increase the effectiveness of Web and intel-ligent technologies employed in eSCM software

Trust in Sharing Resources in Logistics Collaboration

Collaboration on resource sharing advocates a joint usage of resources by multiple parties (actors) to attain mutual benefits. Resource sharing becomes vital when resources under consideration are scarce, challenging, and expensive to attain; as well when they are idle or underutilized. In collaborative logistics, resource sharing entails the joint usage of the physical and non-physical assets. Shared assets include the transportation vehicles (trucks), warehouses, distribution centers, information, on-demand staffing, and logistics services offered under cloud computing. Through sharing, collaborating partners in logistics can reduce costs and harms to the environment, but also improve the efficiency of logistical functions. Although collaborative sharing is beneficial, still many difficulties impede its uptake. The difficulties include how to choose partners, establish and maintain trust among partners involved. Indeed, in both academia and industry, low-level trust inhibits the collaboration critically on sharing logistics resources. To this end, the present dissertation addresses the trust problem encountered by collaborating partners when they are sharing logistics resources. It deals with the trust problem by developing the Trust Mechanism (TrustMech) concept. The primary role of the TrustMech is to help logistics stakeholders acquire the far-reaching understanding about the trustworthiness of prospective networks of sharing they configure, before advancing them to an implementation stage. The TrustMech stands on a mitigation approach that focuses on estimating outcomes of trust uncertainties a rather than a their sources. Henceforth, this dissertation advances on estimating outcomes of trust uncertainties to answer the following central Research Question (RQ): how can collaborating partners acquire the far-reaching understanding about the trustworthiness of prospective networks of sharing they configure? An approach to the research problem, which as well answers the RQ proceeds as follows. The first steps involve establishing behavioral factors and parameters, which influence trust in collaborative sharing of logistics resources. The second stage entails establishing a conceptual framework that depicts and guides trust-based interaction of collaborating partners. The third step comprises developing the TrustMech concept, validating it in both the conceptual and operational aspects, and demonstrating its application by carrying out controlled (simulation) experiments in Multi-Agent Systems. In particular, the proposed TrustMech concept characterizes fundamental logical processes that account for trusting decisions, actions, and reactions of collaborating partners to reinforce emergent trusting outcomes The core contributions of this dissertation are the general-purpose TrustMech and the operational TrustMech. The operational TrustMech is customary for collaborative sharing of logistics resources. Regarding its application, the operational TrustMech provides logistics managers and stakeholders the ability to forecast how a configured network of sharing may, in respect of trustworthiness, function upon its implementation. To clarify further, the operational TrustMech scrutinizes many issues. For example, it scrutinizes trustworthiness of the configured network regarding possible strengths and pitfalls and provides pathway explanations underlying such foreseen strengths and pitfalls. Secondly, the operational TrustMech scrutinizes effects which such strengths and pitfalls can generate. Moreover, the operational TrustMech estimates an extent to which behavioral factors influence the trustworthiness of the individual partner and entire resource sharing network. Future research works include extending the TrustMech and replicating the study using system data. Additional future work consists of adjusting the design and settings used, as well as incorporating additional predictor and response variables into the operational TrustMech