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.

I know what you did this summer: Users' behavior on internet

Human age is surrounded by assumed set of rules and behaviors imposed by local culture and the society they live in. This paper introduces software that counts the presence of a person on the Internet and examines the activities he/she conducts online. The paper answers questions such as how "old" are you on the Internet? How soon will a newbie be exposed to adult websites? How long will it take for a new Internet user to know about social networking sites? And how many years a user has to surf online to celebrate his/her first "birthday" of Internet presence? Paper findings from a database of 105 school and university students containing their every click of first 24 hours of Internet usage are presented. The findings provide valuable insights for Internet Marketing, ethics, Internet business and the mapping of Internet life with real life. Privacy and ethical issues related to the study have been discussed at the end. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.

Energy–aware forwarding strategies for delay tolerant networking (DTN) routing protocols

This research addresses efficient use of the available energy in resource constrained mobile sensor nodes to prevent early depletion of the battery and maximize the packet delivery rate. This research contributes two energy-aware enhancement strategies to improve the network lifetime and delivery probability for energy constrained applications in the delay-tolerant networking environment.

Free software and the law. Out of the frying pan and into the fire: How shaking up intellectual property suits competition law just fine

Free software is viewed as a revolutionary and subversive practice, and in particular has dealt a strong blow to the traditional conception of intellectual property law (although in its current form could be considered a 'hack' of IP rights). However, other (capitalist) areas of law have been swift to embrace free software, or at least incorporate it into its own tenets. One area in particular is that of competition (antitrust) law, which itself has long been in theoretical conflict with intellectual property, due to the restriction on competition inherent in the grant of ‘monopoly’ rights by copyrights, patents and trademarks. This contribution will examine how competition law has approached free software by examining instances in which courts have had to deal with such initiatives, for instance in the Oracle Sun Systems merger, and the implications that these decisions have on free software initiatives. The presence or absence of corporate involvement in initiatives will be an important factor in this investigation, with it being posited that true instances of ‘commons-based peer production’ can still subvert the capitalist system, including perplexing its laws beyond intellectual property.