The Semantic Grid: A future e-Science infrastructure

e-Science offers a promising vision of how computer and communication technology can support and enhance the scientific process. It does this by enabling scientists to generate, analyse, share and discuss their insights, experiments and results in an effective manner. The underlying computer infrastructure that provides these facilities is commonly referred to as the Grid. At this time, there are a number of grid applications being developed and there is a whole raft of computer technologies that provide fragments of the necessary functionality. However there is currently a major gap between these endeavours and the vision of e-Science in which there is a high degree of easy-to-use and seamless automation and in which there are flexible collaborations and computations on a global scale. To bridge this practice–aspiration divide, this paper presents a research agenda whose aim is to move from the current state of the art in e-Science infrastructure, to the future infrastructure that is needed to support the full richness of the e-Science vision. Here the future e-Science research infrastructure is termed the Semantic Grid (Semantic Grid to Grid is meant to connote a similar relationship to the one that exists between the Semantic Web and the Web). In particular, we present a conceptual architecture for the Semantic Grid. This architecture adopts a service-oriented perspective in which distinct stakeholders in the scientific process, represented as software agents, provide services to one another, under various service level agreements, in various forms of marketplace. We then focus predominantly on the issues concerned with the way that knowledge is acquired and used in such environments since we believe this is the key differentiator between current grid endeavours and those envisioned for the Semantic Grid

Agent fabrication and its implementation for agent-based electronic commerce

In the last decade, agent-based e-commerce has emerged as a potential role for the next generation of e-commerce. How to create agents for e-commerce applications has become a serious consideration in this field. This paper proposes a new scheme named agent fabrication and elaborates its implementation in multi-agent systems based on the SAFER (Secure Agent Fabrication, Evolution & Roaming) architecture. First, a conceptual structure is proposed for software agents carrying out e-commerce activities. Furthermore, agent module suitcase is defined to facilitate agent fabrication. With these definitions and facilities in the SAFER architecture, the formalities of agent fabrication are elaborated. In order to enhance the security of agent-based e-commerce, an infrastructure of agent authorization and authentication is integrated in agent fabrication. Our implementation and prototype applications show that the proposed agent fabrication scheme brings forth a potential solution for creating agents in agent-based e-commerce applications

Agent-based automated negotiation system for e-marketplaces

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

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

Shopbots: A Syntactic Present, A Semantic Future

Despite high expectations, shopbots have yet to significantly facilitate a richer, more satisfying online shopping experience for users. By taking advantage of Semantic Web and Web services technologies, however, researchers can overcome current technological limitations and finally realize the shopbot's significant potential. © 2006 IEEE

Secure mobile multiagent systems in virtual marketplaces : a case study on comparison shopping

The growth of the Internet has deeply influenced our daily lives as well as our commercial structures. Agents and multiagent systems will play a major role in the further development of Internet-based applications like virtual marketplaces. However, there is an increasing awareness of the security problems involved. These systems will not be successful until their problems are solved. This report examines comparison shopping, a virtual marketplace scenario and an application domain for a mobile multiagent system, with respect to its security issues. The interests of the participants in the scenario, merchants and clients, are investigated. Potential security threats are identified and security objectives counteracting those threats are established. These objectives are refined into building blocks a secure multiagent system should provide. The building blocks are transformed into features of agents and executing platforms. Originating from this analysis, solutions for the actual implementation of these building blocks are suggested. It is pointed out under which assumptions it is possible to achieve the security goals, if at all

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

On the Use of Optimization Techniques for Strategy Definition in Multi Issue Negotiations

Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία αναλύεται το πρόβλημα της λήψης απόφασης σε συστήματα αυτόματων διαπραγματεύσεων. Σκοπός είναι να σχεδιαστεί ένας αποδοτικός αλγόριθμος βάσει του οποίου οι πράκτορες λογισμικού θα δρουν σε ένα σενάριο ταυτόχρονων διαπραγματεύσεων.Οι πράκτορες δεν έχουν καμία πληροφόρηση για τα χαρακτηριστικά των αντιπάλων.Οι διαπραγματεύσεις πραγματοποιούνται με απώτερο στόχο την ανταλλαγή προϊόντων μεταξύ αγοραστών και πωλητών με συγκεκριμένα ανταλλάγματα. Κάθε προϊόν χαρακτηρίζεται από μια ομάδα χαρακτηριστικών. Για παράδειγμα, ένα προϊόν μπορεί να χαρακτηριζεται από την τιμή, από το χρόνο παράδοσης, κλπ. Κάθε αγοραστής αντιστοιχίζεται στις αυτόματες διαπραγματεύσεις με έναν αριθμό πωλητών. Προτείνουμε αλγόριθμους που προσπαθούν να επιλύσουν το πρόβλημα προσέγγισης αβεβαιότητας με τελικό σκοπό τη μεγιστοποίηση της ανταμοιβής των χρηστών. Η ανταμοιβή υπολογίζεται ως το άθροισμα με τα αντίστοιχα βάρη των χαρακτηριστικών. Εστιάζουμε στην πλευρά του αγοραστή και ορίζουμε μεθοδους για τον υπολογισμό των βαρών που επηρεάζουν τη χρησιμότητα του χρήστη. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, προτείνουμε μεθόδους για την αλλαγή της στρατηγικής του αγοραστή με στόχο να προσεγγίσουμε την καλύτερη συμφωνία. Ακόμα, χρησιμοποείται ο αλγόριθμος της θεωρία του σμήνους (Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm) ώστε μέσω της κίνησης στο Ν-διαστατο χώρο να συγκλίνουν οι πράκτορες λογισμικού στη βέλτιστη συμφωνία. Παρουσιάζεται, τέλος, ένας αριθμός από πειράματα για τις προτεινόμενες μεθόδους για να αξιολογηθεί η απόδοσή τους και να συγκριθούν τα αποτελέσματα με τη σχετική βιβλιογραφία. In this thesis, we deal with the problem of decision making in automated negotiations. We consider the case where software agents undertake the responsibility of representing their owners in such negotiations. The final aim is to provide an efficient algorithm in which software agents will act in a scenario of concurrent negotiations. Agents have no knowledge on the opponents’ characteristics. Negotiations are held for the exchange of products between buyers and sellers with specific returns. Each product is characterized by a set of issues. For example, a product could be characterized by its price, delivery time, and so on. The buyer is involved in concurrent negotiations with a number of sellers. We propose algorithms that try to solve the problem of handling the uncertainty with the final aim of maximizing the entities rewards. The reward is calculated as a weighted sum of the discussed issue values. We focus on the buyer side and define specific methodologies for defining the weights that affect the utility of the buyer. Moreover, we propose a methodology for changing the strategy of the buyer in order to reach the optimal agreement. We are based on the widely known Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm that is implemented by software agents’ movements in N-dimensional space to reach the optimal solution. We present a number of experiments for the proposed methodologies that show their performance and we compare our results with results found in the literature

E-Negotiation systems: A theoretical framework and empirical investigation

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH