Keynote Presentations

Designing Agent Systems

by Dr. Marcin Paprzycki, Computer Science Department, Oklahoma State University, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

and Mathematics and Computer Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

E-Mail: marcin at cs.okstate.edu

Abstract

Since 1994 we are told to believe that software agents will become the next revolution in computer science [3]. This change is to occur not only in the ways we construct software [2] but it is also to have a much broader impact on the field of human-computer interaction [1,3]. Unfortunately, as it is easy to see, the revolution prophesized in 1994 does not seem to materialize (regardless of the rapidly increasing number of conferences, workshops, special sessions, publications, etc). It is not the case that when we turn the computer on in the morning, we contact “our agent” to receive a personalized newscast, our day-plan and, on the basis of that plan as well as the weather forecast and knowledge of our dressing-preferences, an advice what to wear (agent ideal servant). Similarly, when creating software for an e-shop we do not utilize pre-existing agent-modules (e.g. advertising agents, seller agents, inventory managers etc.). To the contrary, it is rather difficult to point to a successful large-scale implementation of an agent system.

The aim of the presentation will be three-fold. First, a general introduction to software agents will be presented followed by the discussion of major points raised “for” and “against” software agent systems (including highly critical analysis presented in [4]). Second, it will be shown, that it should be possible to develop large scale agent systems as state-of-the-art agent platforms, like JADE, scale up to more than a thousand agents and a few hundred thousand messages [5]. Finally, a positive research program will be stated, in a context of an e-commerce system, and illustrated using negotiating agents with dynamically loadable “reasoning” modules [6].

References

  1. J. Hendler, Is There an Intelligent Agent in Your Future?, Nature, 11 March, 1999, http://www.nature.com/nature/webmatters/agents/agents.html
  2. N. R. Jennings, An agent-based approach for building complex software systems,” Communications of the ACM, 44 (4), 2001, 35-41
  3. P. Maes. "Agents that Reduce Work and Information Overload." Communications of the ACM, 37(7), 1994, 31-40
  4. H. Nwana, D. Ndumu, A perspective on software agents research, The Knowledge Engineering Review, 14 (2), 1999, 1-18
  5. K. Chmiel, D. Tomiak, M. Gawinecki, P. Karczmarek, M. Szymczak M. Paprzycki, Testing the Efficiency of JADE Agent Platform, in: Proceedings of ISPDC 2004, IEEE CS Press, Los Angeles, 2004, 49-56
  6. M. Paprzycki, A. Privanescu, C. Badica, A. Abraham, Implementing Agents Capable of Dynamic Negotiations, in: D. Petcu et. al. (eds.) Proceedings of SYNASC04: Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing, Mirton Press, Timisoara, 2004, 369-380

BIO

Dr. Marcin Paprzycki is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University. His research interests include parallel computing and agent-based distributed systems. He received his PhD from Southern Methodist University. Contact him at the Computer Science Dept., Oklahoma State Univ., Tulsa, OK 74106, USA.

 

Engineering Hybrid Soft Computing Systems

by Dr. Ajith Abraham
Distinguished Visiting Professor
IITA Professorship Program
School of Computer Science and Engineering,
Chung-Ang University, S. Korea
Email: ajith.abraham at ieee.org
WWW: http://ajith.softcomputing.net

Abstract

The emerging need for hybrid soft computing systems is currently motivating important research and development work. It is well known that the intelligent systems, which can provide human like expertise such as domain knowledge, uncertain reasoning, and adaptation to a noisy and time varying environment, are important in tackling practical computing problems. In contrast with conventional artificial intelligence techniques which only deal with precision, certainty and rigor the guiding principle of hybrid soft computing systems is to exploit the tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty, low solution cost, robustness, partial truth to achieve tractability, and better rapport with reality [5]. The integration of different learning and adaptation techniques, to overcome individual limitations and achieve synergetic effects through hybridization or fusion of these techniques, has in recent years contributed to a large number of new intelligent system designs. These ideas have led to the emergence of several different kinds of intelligent system architectures [1][2].

This talk presents some of the generic hybrid architectures which have evolved over the past decade in the hybrid soft computing community. We further attempt to discuss the importance of these architectures with an emphasis on the best practices for selection and combination of intelligent methods. Two application examples will be presented to demonstrate how such systems could be used for solving real world problems [3][4].

References

[1] Abraham A., Hybrid Intelligent Systems: Evolving Intelligence in Hierarchical Layers, Do Smart Adaptive Systems Exist? Best Practice for Selection and Combination of Intelligent Methods', Bogdan Gabrys, Kauko Leiviska and Jens Strackeljan (Eds.), Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, Vol. 173, Springer Verlag Germany, Chapter 8, pp. 159-169, 2005.

[2] Abraham A., Meta-Learning Evolutionary Artificial Neural Networks, Neurocomputing Journal, Elsevier Science, Netherlands, Vol. 56c, pp. 1-38, 2004.

 http://top25.sciencedirect.com/index.php?subject_area_id=7&journal_id=09252312

[3] Abraham A., Business Intelligence from Web Usage Mining, Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 375-390, 2003. http://www.worldscinet.com/jikm/jikm.shtml

[4] Abraham A., Intelligent Systems: Architectures and Perspectives, Recent Advances in Intelligent Paradigms and Applications, Abraham A., Jain L. and Kacprzyk J. (Eds.), Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing, Springer Verlag Germany, Chapter 1, pp. 1-35, 2002.

[5] Zadeh L.A, Roles of Soft Computing and Fuzzy Logic in the Conception, Design and Deployment of Information/Intelligent Systems, Computational Intelligence: Soft Computing and Fuzzy-Neuro Integration with Applications, O Kaynak, LA Zadeh, B Turksen, IJ Rudas (Eds.), pp1-9, 1998.

BIO

Ajith Abraham is currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chung-Ang University, Korea. His primary research interests are in computational intelligence with application areas including information security, bioinformatics, Web intelligence, energy management, financial modeling, etc. He is associated with over 150 research publications in peer reviewed reputed journals, books and international conference proceedings of which three have won "best paper" awards.

He is the founding Co Editor-in-Chief of The International Journal of Hybrid Intelligent Systems (IJHIS), IOS Press, Netherlands; Associate Editor of the International Journal of Systems Science (IJSS), Taylor & Francis, UK; Editor of Journal of Universal Computer Science (J.UCS); Editor of Journal of Information and Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific, Singapore and Editor of Journal of Digital and Information Management (JDIM), Digital Information Research Foundation, India. Since 2001, he is actively involved in the Hybrid Intelligent Systems (HIS) and the Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA) series of annual International conferences. He is also the General Co-Chair of The Fourth IEEE International Workshop on Soft Computing as Transdisciplinary Science and Technology (WSTST05) which will be held in Japan during May'05. He received Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Monash University, Australia. More information at http://ajith.softcomputing.net .

 

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