Observation of large-scale multi-agent based simulations

The computational cost of large-scale multi-agent based simulations (MABS) can be extremely important, especially if simulations have to be monitored for validation purposes. In this paper, two methods, based on self-observation and statistical survey theory, are introduced in order to optimize the computation of observations in MABS. An empirical comparison of the computational cost of these methods is performed on a toy problem

Graphical tool for comparing ratios proposed in the literature on traffic accidents+

Investigators of accidents use accident rates and ratios to measure risk of being involved in a traffic accident. This paper uses two examples to present a graphical technique, that summmarizes scatters of points by ellipses, to help describe the accident involvement of drivers. The first appendix tells how the technique works and the second appendix summarizes other types of ratios used in the literature. The paper discusses how the technique may tie together ratios in the literature on accidents and ageing of drivers.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25714/1/0000271.pd

Phase Structure of Resource Allocation Games

We consider a class of games that are generalizations of the minority game, in that the demand and supply of the resource are specified independently. This allows us to study systems in which agents compete under different demand loads. Among other features, we find the existence of a robust phase change with a coexistence region as the demand load is varied, separating regions with nearly balanced supply and demand from regions of scarce or abundant resources. The coexistence region exists when the amount of information used by the agents to make their choices is greater than a critical value, which is related to the point at which there is a phase transition in the standardd minority game.Comment: 11 pages 4 figures. Submitted to Physics Letter A, Feb. 2002W

Production/maintenance cooperative scheduling using multi-agents and fuzzy logic

Within companies, production is directly concerned with the manufacturing schedule, but other services like sales, maintenance, purchasing or workforce management should also have an influence on this schedule. These services often have together a hierarchical relationship, i.e. the leading function (most of the time sales or production) generates constraints defining the framework within which the other functions have to satisfy their own objectives. We show how the multi-agent paradigm, often used in scheduling for its ability to distribute decision-making, can also provide a framework for making several functions cooperate in the schedule performance. Production and maintenance have been chosen as an example: having common resources (the machines), their activities are actually often conflicting. We show how to use a fuzzy logic in order to model the temporal degrees of freedom of the two functions, and show that this approach may allow one to obtain a schedule that provides a better compromise between the satisfaction of the respective objectives of the two functions

Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition

To know is to cognize, to cognize is to be a culturally bounded, rationality-bounded and environmentally located agent. Knowledge and cognition are thus dual aspects of human sociality. If social epistemology has the formation, acquisition, mediation, transmission and dissemination of knowledge in complex communities of knowers as its subject matter, then its third party character is essentially stigmergic. In its most generic formulation, stigmergy is the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Extending this notion one might conceive of social stigmergy as the extra-cranial analog of an artificial neural network providing epistemic structure. This paper recommends a stigmergic framework for social epistemology to account for the supposed tension between individual action, wants and beliefs and the social corpora. We also propose that the so-called "extended mind" thesis offers the requisite stigmergic cognitive analog to stigmergic knowledge. Stigmergy as a theory of interaction within complex systems theory is illustrated through an example that runs on a particle swarm optimization algorithm

OperA/ALIVE/OperettA

Comprehensive models for organizations must, on the one hand, be able to specify global goals and requirements but, on the other hand, cannot assume that particular actors will always act according to the needs and expectations of the system design. Concepts as organizational rules (Zambonelli 2002), norms and institutions (Dignum and Dignum 2001; Esteva et al. 2002), and social structures (Parunak and Odell 2002) arise from the idea that the effective engineering of organizations needs high-level, actor-independent concepts and abstractions that explicitly define the organization in which agents live (Zambonelli 2002).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Досвід промислової стратегії країн Європейського Союзу

З метою прискорення виходу української економіки з кризи варто було б опиратися на накопичений у світі досвід розробки й проведення промислової й структурної політики, адаптуючи його до умов нашої країни. Найбільший інтерес представляє досвід у цій сфері Європейського союзу (ЄС) з урахуванням євроінтеграційного курсу розвитку України

Agents and Service-Oriented Computing for Autonomic Computing: A Research Agenda

Autonomic computing is the solution proposed to cope with the complexity of today\u27s computing environments. Self-management, an important element of autonomic computing, is also characteristic of single and multiagent systems, as well as systems based on service-oriented architectures. Combining these technologies can be profitable for all - in particular, for the development of autonomic computing systems