Multi Agent Systems For Society

The study of multi-agent systems (MAS) focuses on systems in which many intelligent agents interact with each other. These agents are considered to be autonomous entities such as software programs or robots. Their interactions can either be cooperative (for example as in an ant colony) or selfish (as in a free market economy). This book assumes only basic knowledge of algorithms and discrete maths, both of which are taught as standard in the first or second year of computer science degree programmes. A basic knowledge of artificial intelligence would useful to help understand some of the issues, but is not essential. The book’s main aims are: To introduce the student to the concept of agents and multi-agent systems, and the main applications for which they are appropriate To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of intelligent agents To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of a multi-agent society To introduce a number of typical applications for agent technology After reading the book the student should understand: The notion of an agent, how agents are distinct from other software paradigms (e.g. objects) and the characteristics of applications that lend themselves to agent-oriented software The key issues associated with constructing agents capable of intelligent autonomous action and the main approaches taken to developing such agents The key issues in designing societies of agents that can effectively cooperate in order to solve problems, including an understanding of the key types of multi-agent interactions possible in such systems The main application areas of agent-based systems

This book will introduce students to intelligent agents, explain what these agents are, how they are constructed and how they can be made to co-operate effectively with one another in large-scale systems.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 8th Pacific Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents, PRIMA 2005, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in September 2005. The 29 revised full papers and 2 keynote papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers address many current topics in multi-agent research and development, ranging from theoretical and methodological issues to various applications in different fields.

An Application Science For Multi-Agent Systems addresses the complexity of choosing which multi-agent control technologies are appropriate for a given problem domain or a given application. Without such knowledge, when faced with a new application domain, agent developers must rely on past experience and intuition to determine whether a multi-agent system is the right approach, and if so, how to structure the agents, how to decompose the problem, and how to coordinate the activities of the agents, and so forth. This unique collection of contributions, written by leading international researchers in the agent community, provides valuable insight into the issues of deciding which technique to apply and when it is appropriate to use them. The contributions also discuss potential trade-offs or caveats involved with each decision. An Application Science For Multi-Agent Systems is an excellent reference for anyone involved in developing multi-agent systems.

The paradigm of self-organisation is fundamental to theories of collective action in economic science and democratic governance in political science. Self-organisation in these social systems critically depends on voluntary compliance with conventional rules: that is, rules which are made up, mutually agreed, and modifiable 'on the fly'. How, then, can we use the self-organisation observed in such social systems as an inspiration for decentralised computer systems, which can face similar problems of coordination, cooperation and collaboration between autonomous peers?Self-Organising Multi-Agent Systems presents an innovative and systematic approach to transforming theories of economics and politics (and elements of philosophy, psychology, and jurisprudence) into an executable logical specification of conventional rules. It shows how sets of such rules, called institutions, provide an algorithmic basis for designing and implementing cyber-physical systems, enabling intelligent software processes (called agents) to manage themselves in the face of competition for scarce resources. It also provides a basis for implementing socio-technical systems with interacting human and computational intelligences in a way that is sustainable, fair and legitimate.This interdisciplinary book is essential reading for anyone interested in the 'planned emergence' of global properties, commonly-shared values or successful collective action, especially as a product of social construction, knowledge management and political arrangements. For those studying both computer science and social sciences, this book offers a radically new gateway to a transformative understanding of complex system development and social system modelling.Understanding how a computational representation of qualitative values like justice and democracy can lead to stability and legitimacy of socio-technical systems is among the most pressing software engineering challenges of modern times. This book can be read as an invitation to make the Digital Society better.Related Link(s)

Social Order in Multiagent Systems provides an overview of current approaches, problems, and considerations related to the study of norms and institutions in the context of multiagent systems. The contributions in this volume share the assumption that norms and other social institutions are of vital importance for the development of multiagent systems and agent-mediated interaction. Both formal and computational models of norms and normative systems are presented, including formal analysis of normative concepts and foundational models of norms; agent and systems architectures for implementing norms; and implemented systems. Social Order in Multiagent Systems is an excellent reference for researchers in artificial intelligence and computer science, and can be used as text for advanced level courses in multiagent systems.

Learn how to employ JADE to build multi-agent systems! JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment framework) is a middleware for the development of applications, both in the mobile and fixed environment, based on the Peer-to-Peer intelligent autonomous agent approach. JADE enables developers to implement and deploy multi-agent systems, including agents running on wireless networks and limited-resource devices. Developing Multi-Agent Systems with JADE is a practical guide to using JADE. The text will give an introduction to agent technologies and the JADE Platform, before proceeding to give a comprehensive guide to programming with JADE. Basic features such as creating agents, agent tasks, agent communication, agent discovery and GUIs are covered, as well as more advanced features including ontologies and content languages, complex behaviours, interaction protocols, agent mobility, and the in-process interface. Issues such as JADE internals, running JADE agents on mobile devices, deploying a fault tolerant JADE platform, and main add-ons are also covered in depth. Developing Multi-Agent Systems with JADE: Comprehensive guide to using JADE to build multi-agent systems and agent orientated programming. Describes and explains ontologies and content language, interaction protocols and complex behaviour. Includes material on persistence, security and a semantics framework. Contains numerous examples, problems, and illustrations to enhance learning. Presents a case study demonstrating the use of JADE in practice. Offers an accompanying website with additional learning resources such as sample code, exercises and PPT-slides. This invaluable resource will provide multi-agent systems practitioners, programmers working in the software industry with an interest on multi-agent systems as well as final year undergraduate and postgraduate students in CS and advanced networking and telecoms courses with a comprehensive guide to using JADE to employ multi agent systems. With contributions from experts in JADE and multi agent technology.

Multi-Agent System (MAS) is an exciting, emerging paradigm expected to play a key role in many society-changing practices. The International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems (PRIMA) is a leading scientific conference for research on intelligent agent systems and multi-agent systems, attracting high quality, state-of-the-art research from all over the world. PRIMA’09 was the 12th in the series of PRIMA conferences and was held in Nagoya, Japan. Beside a single-track main conference, PRIMA’09 also included a number of workshops which were designed to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to present and exchange the latest developments at the MAS frontier. This book constitutes the post-proceedings of workshops under PRIMA’09. Readers will be able to explore a diverse range of topics and detailed discussions related to a number of important themes in our ever changing world. This collection plays an important role in bridging the gap between MAS theory and practice. It emphasizes the importance of MAS in the research and development of smart power grid systems, decision support systems, optimization and analysis systems for road traffic and markets, environmental monitoring and simulation, and in many other real-world applications and publicizes and extends MAS technology to many domains in this fast moving information age.

This book provides a description of advanced multi-agent and artificial intelligence technologies for the modeling and simulation of complex systems, as well as an overview of the latest scientific efforts in this field. A complex system features a large number of interacting components, whose aggregate activities are nonlinear and self-organized. A multi-agent system is a group or society of agents which interact with others cooperatively and/or competitively in order to reach their individual or common goals. Multi-agent systems are suitable for modeling and simulation of complex systems, which is difficult to accomplish using traditional computational approaches.

Research on multi-agent systems is enlarging our future technical capabilities as humans and as an intelligent society. During recent years many effective applications have been implemented and are part of our daily life. These applications have agent-based models and methods as an important ingredient. Markets, finance world, robotics, medical technology, social negotiation, video games, big-data science, etc. are some of the branches where the knowledge gained through multi-agent simulations is necessary and where new software engineering tools are continuously created and tested in order to reach an effective technology transfer to impact our lives. This book brings together researchers working in several fields that cover the techniques, the challenges and the applications of multi-agent systems in a wide variety of aspects related to learning algorithms for different devices such as vehicles, robots and drones, computational optimization to reach a more efficient energy distribution in power grids and the use of social networks and decision strategies applied to the smart learning and education environments in emergent countries. We hope that this book can be useful and become a guide or reference to an audience interested in the developments and applications of multi-agent systems.