A contracting model for flexible distributed scheduling

We are interested in building systems of autonomous agents that can automate routine information processing activities in human organizations. Computational infrastructures for cooperative work should contain embedded agents for handling many routine tasks [9], but as the number of agents increases and the agents become geographically and/or conceptually dispersed, supervision of the agents will become increasingly problematic. We argue that agents should be provided with deep domain knowledge that allows them to make quantitatively justifiable decisions, rather than shallow models of users to mimic. In this paper, we use the application domain of distributed meeting scheduling to investigate how agents embodying deeper domain knowledge can choose among alternative strategies for searching their calendars in order to create flexible schedules within reasonable cost.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44288/1/10479_2005_Article_BF02187332.pd

Assembling Collaboration:Informing the Design of Interaction Spaces

A historical analysis of the Spanish verb shows that the transition between the classical system and the modern system is characterized by two disappearances: the future subjunctive and the contrast between cantara and cantase. The present paper aims to show that: 1) abandoning the use of the future subjunctive has led directly to abandoning the contrast between cantara and cantase; 2) by the end of the classical period cantara was a form which was "programmed" to replace cantase; 3) in the modern and contemporary verbal system, cantara remains the same as in the classical system. Even if its referential capacities have somewhat altered, it remains the same single linguistic sign. This paper is based on a modal theory which differs the traditional contrast between indicative an subjunctive