Supply chain optimization towards personalizing web services

Personalization, which has the ultimate goal of satisfying user’s requests, can be perceived in terms of QoS measurement. As one of the means for the success of Semantics Web, many techniques have been effectively used in modeling and developing web service personalization. However, most of these methodologies relied heavily on detailed implicit and explicit information supply by users during initial and subsequent interactions with the systems. We propose in this paper a novel approach using the supply chain management (SCM) technique in personalizing web services as against the conventional notion of applying SCM only to product manufacturing. Our user-model based framework uses multi-agent system (MAS) components in taking requests from users and working towards their satisfaction including seeking for additional information outside the system as the need arises. Only basic stereotype information furnished by potential users at initial contact is required for personalization during subsequent interactions with the system. The system is adaptive and aimed at high quality autonomous information services where users are successfully presented preferred web services with minimum information request

A collaborative multi-agent based conference planner application using web and grid services

Distributed Collaborative Computing services have taken over centralized computing platforms allowing the development of distributed collaborative user applications. These applications enable people and computers to work together more productively. Multi-Agent System (MAS) has emerged as a distributed collaborative environment which allows a number of agents to cooperate and interact with each other in a complex environment. We want to place our agents in problems whose solutions require the collation and fusion of information, knowledge or data from distributed and autonomous information sources. In this paper we present the design and implementation of an agent based conference planner application that uses collaborative effort of agents which function continuously and autonomously in a particular environment. The application also enables the collaborative use of services deployed geographically wide in different technologies i.e. Software Agents, Grid computing and Web service. The premise of the application is that it allows autonomous agents interacting with web and grid services to plan a conference as a proxy to their owners (humans). © 2005 IEEE

A hybrid agent architecture for modeling autonomous agents in SAGE

This paper highlights the Hybrid agent construction model being developed that allows the description and development of autonomous agents in SAGE (Scalable, fault Tolerant Agent Grooming Environment) - a second generation FIPA-Compliant Multi-Agent system. We aim to provide the programmer with a generic and well defined agent architecture enabling the development of sophisticated agents on SAGE, possessing the desired properties of autonomous agents - reactivity, pro-activity, social ability and knowledge based reasoning. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005

Scalable Fault Tolerant Agent Grooming Environment (SAGE)

Multi-agent systems (MAS) advocate an agent-based approach to software engineering based on decomposing problems in terms of decentralized, autonomous agents that can engage in flexible, high-level interactions. This chapter introduces scalable fault tolerant agent grooming environment (SAGE), a second-generation Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA)-compliant multi-agent system developed at NIIT-Comtec, which provides an environment for creating distributed, intelligent, and autonomous entities that are encapsulated as agents. The chapter focuses on the highlight of SAGE, which is its decentralized fault-tolerant architecture that can be used to develop applications in a number of areas such as e-health, e-government, and e-science. In addition, SAGE architecture provides tools for runtime agent management, directory facilitation, monitoring, and editing messages exchange between agents. SAGE also provides a built-in mechanism to program agent behavior and their capabilities with the help of its autonomous agent architecture, which is the other major highlight of this chapter. The authors believe that the market for agent-based applications is growing rapidly, and SAGE can play a crucial role for future intelligent applications development. © 2007, IGI Global

Increase in cortisol awakening response after two weeks of self-instruction for good sleep

There is growing evidence suggesting that the magnitude of cortisol awaking response (CAR), which is characterized by a profound increase of salivary cortisol secretion after awakening, plausibly reflects the level of a chronic stress, social stress, anxiety, etc. In this study the alternation of CAR at the start and at the end of two weeks session of self-instruction for good sleep was investigated; by which we anticipated that the self-instruction for good sleep would bring-forth a positive affection for the participants, and would result in decline of cortisol awakening response (CAR). Nevertheless, as a result unexpectedly, subjects did not change their sleep and dietary habits along with the instruction, moreover the increased CAR was observed. This result implies that the suggestion of an impractical instruction would solely be taken as a stressful task for participants, even though they know that it is effective to improve their sleep. On the contrary, if one develops an instruction with practicable indication for daily life, it is highly possible to observe a positive effect of the instruction on CAR

Autonomous Distributed Service System: Basic Concepts and Evaluation

Abstract. In both e-business and e-science, we often need to integrate services across distributed, heterogeneous, dynamic “virtual organizations ” formed from the disparate resources within a single enterprise and/or from external resource sharing and service provider relationships. This integration is technically challenging because of the need to achieve various levels of quality of service (QoS) when running on top of different native platforms and under dynamic workload conditions. We present an Autonomous Distributed Service System Architecture that addresses these challenges. Building on concepts and technologies from the Semantic Web, Multi-Agent Systems, Grid and Web services communities, this architecture put together a proposition made to cope with heterogeneous and continuously changing needs of information processing, service provision and utilization in dynamically evolving environment to meet these requirements. Autonomous Distributed Services Architecture also define agents ’ capabilities in terms of Web services Description Language (WSDL), so that agents can describe and advertise themselves in UDDI (Universal Description Discovery & Integration) as and when required.

Scalable fault tolerant Agent Grooming Environment - SAGE

Scalable fault tolerant Agent Grooming Environment (SAGE) is first open source initiative in South-Asia. It is a multi-agent system which has been developed according to FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) 2002 specifications. SAGE has been designed with a distributed and decentralized architecture to achieve fault tolerance and scalability as its key features. Due to these characteristics, SAGE is not only regarded as 2nd generation Multi Agent System but also provides a competitive edge over other platforms.</p

A distributed services based conference planner application using software agents, grid services and web services

This demonstration highlights the applications of our research work i.e. second generation (Scalable Fault Tolerant Agent Grooming Environment - SAGE) Multi Agent System, Integration of Software Agents and Grid Computing and Autonomous Agent Architecture in the Agent Platform. It is a conference planner application that uses collaborative effort of services deployed geographically wide in different technologies i.e. Software Agents, Grid computing and Web services to perform useful tasks as required. Copyright 2005 ACM