scholarly journals Multi-agent Systems research: General research - on-line resources

2002 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 101-103
Author(s):  
I&S Monitor
Keyword(s):  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
On Line ◽  
Multi Agent

Practical and theoretical innovations in multi-agent systems research

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-301
Author(s):  
MARK DINVERNO ◽  
MICHAEL LUCK ◽  
UKMAS 2001 Contributors
Keyword(s):  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Multi Agent

Multi-Agent Systems Research and Social Science Theory Building

2007 ◽  
pp. 101-110
Author(s):  
H. Verhagen
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Science Theory ◽  
Multi Agent

This chapter describes the possible relationship between multi-agent systems research and social science research, more particularly sociology. It gives examples of the consequences and possibilities of these relationships, and describes some of the important issues and concepts in each of these areas. It finally points out some future directions for a bi-directional relationship between the social sciences and multi-agent systems research which hopefully will help researchers in both research areas, as well as researchers in management and organization theory.

scholarly journals Introduction to the special issue on ontologies in agent systems

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN CRANEFIELD ◽  
STEVEN WILLMOTT ◽  
TIM FININ
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Coupled System ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Message Content ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Distributed Information ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Loosely Coupled ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Multi Agent

It is now more than ten years since researchers in the US Knowledge Sharing Effort envisaged a future where complex systems could be built by combining knowledge and services from multiple knowledge bases and the first agent communication language, KQML, was proposed (Neches et al., 1991). This model of communication, based on speech acts, a declarative message content representation language and the use of explicit ontologies defining the domains of discourse (Genesereth & Ketchpel, 1994), has become widely recognised as having great benefits for the integration of disparate and distributed information sources to form an open, extensible and loosely coupled system. In particular, this idea has become a key tenet in the multi-agent systems research community.

scholarly journals Cooperative Information Sharing to Improve Distributed Learning in Multi-Agent Systems

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 407-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. S. Dutta ◽  
N. R. Jennings ◽  
L. Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Information Sharing ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Task Completion ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
State Information ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Multi Agent

Effective coordination of agents' actions in partially-observable domains is a major challenge of multi-agent systems research. To address this, many researchers have developed techniques that allow the agents to make decisions based on estimates of the states and actions of other agents that are typically learnt using some form of machine learning algorithm. Nevertheless, many of these approaches fail to provide an actual means by which the necessary information is made available so that the estimates can be learnt. To this end, we argue that cooperative communication of state information between agents is one such mechanism. However, in a dynamically changing environment, the accuracy and timeliness of this communicated information determine the fidelity of the learned estimates and the usefulness of the actions taken based on these. Given this, we propose a novel information-sharing protocol, post-task-completion sharing, for the distribution of state information. We then show, through a formal analysis, the improvement in the quality of estimates produced using our strategy over the widely used protocol of sharing information between nearest neighbours. Moreover, communication heuristics designed around our information-sharing principle are subjected to empirical evaluation along with other benchmark strategies (including Littman's Q-routing and Stone's TPOT-RL) in a simulated call-routing application. These studies, conducted across a range of environmental settings, show that, compared to the different benchmarks used, our strategy generates an improvement of up to 60% in the call connection rate; of more than 1000% in the ability to connect long-distance calls; and incurs as low as 0.25 of the message overhead.

Progress in multi-agent systems research

2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-292
Author(s):  
OMER RANA ◽  
CHRIS PREIST ◽  
MICHAEL LUCK
Keyword(s):  
Interest Group ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Hewlett Packard ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Computer Scientists ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
The Uk

Continuing the series of workshops begun in 1996 (Luck, 1997; Doran et al., 1997; d'Inverno et al., 1997; Fisher et al., 1997) and held in each of the two years since (Luck et al., 1998; Aylett et al., 1998; Binmore et al., 1998; Decker et al., 1999; Beer et al., 1999), the 1999 workshop of the UK Special Interest Group on Multi-Agent Systems (UKMAS'99) took place in Bristol in December. Chaired and organised by Chris Preist of Hewlett Packard Laboratories, with support from both HP and BT Laboratories, the workshop brought together a diverse range of participants, from the agent community in both the UK and abroad, to discuss and present work spanning all areas of agent research. Although dominated by computer scientists, also present at the meeting were electronic engineers, computational biologists, philosophers, sociologists, statisticians, game-theorists, economists and behavioural scientists, with both academia and industry well represented. Indeed, numbers attending these workshops continue to grow, reflecting the continued and rising interest in agent-based systems. The meeting truly demonstrated the wider view of what the term “agency” implied to research in other disciplines and the questions raised at the end of presentations were a pertinent reminder of the diversity of the audience.

scholarly journals Asynchronous Partial Overlay: A New Algorithm for Solving Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems

2006 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 529-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Mailler ◽  
V. R. Lesser
Keyword(s):  
Constraint Satisfaction ◽  
Constraint Satisfaction Problems ◽  
Mediation Process ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Distributed Constraint Satisfaction ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Critical Paths ◽  
Real World Problems

Distributed Constraint Satisfaction (DCSP) has long been considered an important problem in multi-agent systems research. This is because many real-world problems can be represented as constraint satisfaction and these problems often present themselves in a distributed form. In this article, we present a new complete, distributed algorithm called Asynchronous Partial Overlay (APO) for solving DCSPs that is based on a cooperative mediation process. The primary ideas behind this algorithm are that agents, when acting as a mediator, centralize small, relevant portions of the DCSP, that these centralized subproblems overlap, and that agents increase the size of their subproblems along critical paths within the DCSP as the problem solving unfolds. We present empirical evidence that shows that APO outperforms other known, complete DCSP techniques.

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