Multi-agent collaboration for decision support in shared zones of intelligent buildings

In domain of intelligent buildings, saving energy in buildings and increasing preferences of occupants are two important factors. These factors are the important keys for evaluating the performance of work environment. In recent years, many researchers combine these areas to create the system that can change from original to the modern work environment called intelligent work environment. Due to advance of agent technology, it has received increasing attention in the area of intelligent pervasive environments. In this paper, we review several issues in intelligent buildings, with respect to the implementation of control system for intelligent buildings via multi-agent systems. Furthermore, we present the MASBO (Multi-Agent System for Building cOntrol) that has been implemented for controlling the building facilities to reach the balancing between energy efficiency and occupant���s comfort. In addition to enhance the MASBO system, the collaboration through negotiation among agents is presented.

Distributed intelligent management of active networks

This paper focuses on improving computer network management by the adoption of artificial intelligence techniques. A logical inference system has being devised to enable automated isolation, diagnosis, and even repair of network problems, thus enhancing the reliability, performance, and security of networks. We propose a distributed multi-agent architecture for network management, where a logical reasoner acts as an external managing entity capable of directing, coordinating, and stimulating actions in an active management architecture. The active networks technology represents the lower level layer which makes possible the deployment of code which implement teleo-reactive agents, distributed across the whole network. We adopt the Situation Calculus to define a network model and the Reactive Golog language to implement the logical reasoner. An active network management architecture is used by the reasoner to inject and execute operational tasks in the network. The integrated system collects the advantages coming from logical reasoning and network programmability, and provides a powerful system capable of performing high-level management tasks in order to deal with network fault.

Intelligent wireless web services: context-aware computing in construction-logistics supply chain

The construction industry has incurred a considerable amount of waste as a result of poor logistics supply chain network management. Therefore, managing logistics in the construction industry is critical. An effective logistic system ensures delivery of the right products and services to the right players at the right time while minimising costs and rewarding all sectors based on value added to the supply chain. This paper reports on an on-going research study on the concept of context-aware services delivery in the construction project supply chain logistics. As part of the emerging wireless technologies, an Intelligent Wireless Web (IWW) using context-aware computing capability represents the next generation ICT application to construction-logistics management. This intelligent system has the potential of serving and improving the construction logistics through access to context-specific data, information and services. Existing mobile communication deployments in the construction industry rely on static modes of information delivery and do not take into account the worker���s changing context and dynamic project conditions. The major problems in these applications are lack of context-specificity in the distribution of information, services and other project resources, and lack of cohesion with the existing desktop based ICT infrastructure. The research works focus on identifying the context dimension such as user context, environmental context and project context, selection of technologies to capture context-parameters such wireless sensors and RFID, selection of supporting technologies such as wireless communication, Semantic Web, Web Services, agents, etc. The process of integration of Context-Aware Computing and Web-Services to facilitate the creation of intelligent collaboration environment for managing construction logistics will take into account all the necessary critical parameters such as storage, transportation, distribution, assembly, etc. within off and on-site project.

Developing a Communication link between Agents and cross Platform IDE

The main objective of this thesis work is to develop communication link between Runrev Revolution (IDE) and JADE (Multi-Agent System) through Socket programming using TCP/IP layer. These two independent platforms are connected using socket programming technique. Socket programming is considered to be newly emerging technology among these two platforms, the work done in this thesis work is considered to be a prototype.A Graphical simulation model is developed by salixphere (Company in Hedemora) to simulate logistic problems using Runrev Revolution (IDE). The simulation software/program is called ���BIOSIM���. The logistic problems are complex, and conventional optimization techniques are unlikely very successful. ���BIOSIM��� can demonstrate the graphical representation of logistic problems depending upon the problem domains. As this simulation model is developed in revolution programming language (Transcript) which is dynamically typed and English-like language, it is quite slow compared to other high level programming languages. The object of this thesis work is to add intelligent behaviour in graphical objects and develop communication link between Runrev revolution (IDE) and JADE (Multi-Agent System) using TCP/IP layers.The test shows the intelligent behaviour in the graphical objects and successful communication between Runrev Revolution (IDE) and JADE (Multi-Agent System).

Urban Traffic Control and Monitoring - An Approach for the Brazilian Intelligent Cities Project

This paper describes an urban traffic control system which aims at contributing to a more efficient traffic management system in the cities of Brazil. It uses fuzzy sets, case-based reasoning, and genetic algorithms to handle dynamic and unpredictable traffic scenarios, as well as uncertain, incomplete, and inconsistent information. The system is composed by one supervisor and several controller agents, which cooperate with each other to improve the system's results through Artificial Intelligence Techniques.

A multi-agent architecture for intelligent data analysis

The present study introduces a multi-agent architecture designed for doing automation process of data integration and intelligent data analysis. Different from other approaches the multi-agent architecture was designed using a multi-agent based methodology. Tropos, an agent based methodology was used for design. Based on the proposed architecture, we describe a Web based application where the agents are responsible to analyse petroleum well drilling data to identify possible abnormalities occurrence. The intelligent data analysis methods used was the Neural Network.

Energy Management and Control for Islanded Microgrid Using Multi-Agents

This paper presents a multi-agent system for real-time operation of simulated microgrid using the Smart-Grid Test Bed at Washington State University. The multi-agent system (MAS) was developed in JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework) which is a Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) compliant open source multi-agent platform. The proposed operational strategy is mainly focused on using an appropriate energy management and control strategies to improve the operation of an islanded microgrid, formed by photovoltaic (PV) solar energy, batteries and resistive and rotating machines loads. The focus is on resource management and to avoid impact on loads from abrupt variations or interruption that changes the operating conditions. The management and control of the PV system is performed in JADE, while the microgrid model is simulated in RSCAD/RTDS (Real-Time Digital Simulator). Finally, the outcome of simulation studies demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed multi-agent approach for real-time operation of a microgrid.

BDI agents for Real Time Strategy games

While the use of distributed intelligence has been incrementally spreading in the design of a great number of intelligent systems, the field of Artificial Intelligence in Real Time Strategy games has remained mostly a centralized environment. Despite turn-based games have attained AIs of world-class level, the fast paced nature of RTS games has proven to be a significant obstacle to the quality of its AIs. Chapter 1 introduces RTS games describing their characteristics, mechanics and elements. Chapter 2 introduces Multi-Agent Systems and the use of the Beliefs-Desires-Intentions abstraction, analysing the possibilities given by self-computing properties. In Chapter 3 the current state of AI development in RTS games is analyzed highlighting the struggles of the gaming industry to produce valuable. The focus on improving multiplayer experience has impacted gravely on the quality of the AIs thus leaving them with serious flaws that impair their ability to challenge and entertain players. Chapter 4 explores different aspects of AI development for RTS, evaluating the potential strengths and weaknesses of an agent-based approach and analysing which aspects can benefit the most against centralized AIs. Chapter 5 describes a generic agent-based framework for RTS games where every game entity becomes an agent, each of which having its own knowledge and set of goals. Different aspects of the game, like economy, exploration and warfare are also analysed, and some agent-based solutions are outlined. The possible exploitation of self-computing properties to efficiently organize the agents activity is then inspected. Chapter 6 presents the design and implementation of an AI for an existing Open Source game in beta development stage: 0 a.d., an historical RTS game on ancient warfare which features a modern graphical engine and evolved mechanics. The entities in the conceptual framework are implemented in a new agent-based platform seamlessly nested inside the existing game engine, called ABot, widely described in Chapters 7, 8 and 9. Chapter 10 and 11 include the design and realization of a new agent based language useful for defining behavioural modules for the agents in ABot, paving the way for a wider spectrum of contributors. Chapter 12 concludes the work analysing the outcome of tests meant to evaluate strategies, realism and pure performance, finally drawing conclusions and future works in Chapter 13.

Opinions of dating agents about strabismic subjects' ability to find a partner

AIMS: To determine the influence of strabismus on the ability to find a partner. METHODS: We interviewed Swiss dating agents retrieved from two Swiss online telephone directories using a validated questionnaire to determine whether strabismus has any impact on the ability to find a partner. During the interviews, subjects with internet access could view downloadable, digitally altered photographs of a strabismic man and women, as well as images of other computer-generated facial anomalies. RESULTS: Of the 40 dating agents, 92.5% judged that strabismic subjects have more difficulty finding a partner (p<0.001). Such difficulty was not associated with either gender or age but was perceived as being greater in exotropic than in esotropic persons (p<0.001). Among the seven facial disfigurements, strabismus was believed to have the third largest negative impact on finding a partner, after strong acne and a visible missing tooth. Dating agents also believed that potential partners perceive persons with strabismus as significantly less attractive (p<0.001), erotic (p<0.001), likeable (p<0.001), interesting (p<0.001), successful (p<0.001), intelligent (p = 0.001) and sporty (p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Visible strabismus negatively influences the ability to find a partner. Because strabismus surgery in adults restores a normal functioning condition and reduces not only physical but also psychosocial difficulties, it cannot be considered a cosmetic procedure.

Intelligent Virtual Patients for Training Clinical Skills

The article presents the design process of intelligent virtual human patients that are used for the enhancement of clinical skills. The description covers the development from conceptualization and character creation to technical components and the application in clinical research and training. The aim is to create believable social interactions with virtual agents that help the clinician to develop skills in symptom and ability assessment, diagnosis, interview techniques and interpersonal communication. The virtual patient fulfills the requirements of a standardized patient producing consistent, reliable and valid interactions in portraying symptoms and behaviour related to a specific clinical condition.

User-centric need-driven affect modeling for spoken conversational agents: design and evaluation

It is easy to get frustrated at spoken conversational agents (SCAs), perhaps because they seem to be callous. By and large, the quality of human-computer interaction is affected due to the inability of the SCAs to recognise and adapt to user emotional state. Now with the mass appeal of artificially-mediated communication, there has been an increasing need for SCAs to be socially and emotionally intelligent, that is, to infer and adapt to their human interlocutors��� emotions on the fly, in order to ascertain an affective, empathetic and naturalistic interaction. An enhanced quality of interaction would reduce users��� frustrations and consequently increase their satisfactions. These reasons have motivated the development of SCAs towards including socio-emotional elements, turning them into affective and socially-sensitive interfaces. One barrier to the creation of such interfaces has been the lack of methods for modelling emotions in a task-independent environment. Most emotion models for spoken dialog systems are task-dependent and thus cannot be used ���as-is��� in different applications. This Thesis focuses on improving this, in which it concerns computational modeling of emotion, personality and their interrelationship for task-independent autonomous SCAs. The generation of emotion is driven by needs, inspired by human���s motivational systems. The work in this Thesis is organised in three stages, each one with its own contribution. The first stage involved defining, integrating and quantifying the psychological-based motivational and emotional models sourced from. Later these were transformed into a computational model by implementing them into software entities. The computational model was then incorporated and put to test with an existing SCA host, a HiFi-control agent. The second stage concerned automatic prediction of affect, which has been the main challenge towards the greater aim of infusing social intelligence into the HiFi agent. In recent years, studies on affect detection from voice have moved on to using realistic, non-acted data, which is subtler. However, it is more challenging to perceive subtler emotions and this is demonstrated in tasks such as labelling and machine prediction. In this stage, we attempted to address part of this challenge by considering the roles of user satisfaction ratings and conversational/dialog features as the respective target and predictors in discriminating contentment and frustration, two types of emotions that are known to be prevalent within spoken human-computer interaction. The final stage concerned the evaluation of the emotional model through the HiFi agent. A series of user studies with 70 subjects were conducted in a real-time environment, each in a different phase and with its own conditions. All the studies involved the comparisons between the baseline non-modified and the modified agent. The findings have gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of the utility of emotion in spoken dialog systems in several ways; first, an SCA should not express its emotions blindly, albeit positive. Rather, it should adapt its emotions to user states. Second, low performance in an SCA may be compensated by the exploitation of emotion. Third, the expression of emotion through the exploitation of prosody could better improve users��� perceptions of an SCA compared to exploiting emotions through just lexical contents. Taken together, these findings not only support the success of the emotional model, but also provide substantial evidences with respect to the benefits of adding emotion in an SCA, especially in mitigating users��� frustrations and ultimately improving their satisfactions. Resumen Es relativamente f��cil experimentar cierta frustraci��n al interaccionar con agentes conversacionales (Spoken Conversational Agents, SCA), a menudo porque parecen ser un poco insensibles. En general, la calidad de la interacci��n persona-agente se ve en cierto modo afectada por la incapacidad de los SCAs para identificar y adaptarse al estado emocional de sus usuarios. Actualmente, y debido al creciente atractivo e inter��s de dichos agentes, surge la necesidad de hacer de los SCAs unos seres cada vez m��s sociales y emocionalmente inteligentes, es decir, con capacidad para inferir y adaptarse a las emociones de sus interlocutores humanos sobre la marcha, de modo que la interacci��n resulte m��s afectiva, emp��tica y, en definitiva, natural. Una interacci��n mejorada en este sentido permitir��a reducir la posible frustraci��n de los usuarios y, en consecuencia, mejorar el nivel de satisfacci��n alcanzado por los mismos. Estos argumentos justifican y motivan el desarrollo de nuevos SCAs con capacidades socio-emocionales, dotados de interfaces afectivas y socialmente sensibles. Una de las barreras para la creaci��n de tales interfaces ha sido la falta de m��todos de modelado de emociones en entornos independientes de tarea. La mayor��a de los modelos emocionales empleados por los sistemas de di��logo hablado actuales son dependientes de tarea y, por tanto, no pueden utilizarse "tal cual" en diferentes dominios o aplicaciones. Esta tesis se centra precisamente en la mejora de este aspecto, la definici��n de modelos computacionales de las emociones, la personalidad y su interrelaci��n para SCAs aut��nomos e independientes de tarea. Inspirada en los sistemas motivacionales humanos en el ��mbito de la psicolog��a, la tesis propone un modelo de generaci��n/producci��n de la emoci��n basado en necesidades. El trabajo realizado en la presente tesis est�� organizado en tres etapas diferenciadas, cada una con su propia contribuci��n. La primera etapa incluy�� la definici��n, integraci��n y cuantificaci��n de los modelos motivacionales de partida y de los modelos emocionales derivados a partir de ��stos. Posteriormente, dichos modelos emocionales fueron plasmados en un modelo computacional mediante su implementaci��n software. Este modelo computacional fue incorporado y probado en un SCA anfitri��n ya existente, un agente con capacidad para controlar un equipo HiFi, de alta fidelidad. La segunda etapa se orient�� hacia el reconocimiento autom��tico de la emoci��n, aspecto que ha constituido el principal desaf��o en relaci��n al objetivo mayor de infundir inteligencia social en el agente HiFi. En los ��ltimos a��os, los estudios sobre reconocimiento de emociones a partir de la voz han pasado de emplear datos actuados a usar datos reales en los que la presencia u observaci��n de emociones se produce de una manera mucho m��s sutil. El reconocimiento de emociones bajo estas condiciones resulta mucho m��s complicado y esta dificultad se pone de manifiesto en tareas tales como el etiquetado y el aprendizaje autom��tico. En esta etapa, se abord�� el problema del reconocimiento de las emociones del usuario a partir de caracter��sticas o m��tricas derivadas del propio di��logo usuario-agente. Gracias a dichas m��tricas, empleadas como predictores o indicadores del grado o nivel de satisfacci��n alcanzado por el usuario, fue posible discriminar entre satisfacci��n y frustraci��n, las dos emociones prevalentes durante la interacci��n usuario-agente. La etapa final corresponde fundamentalmente a la evaluaci��n del modelo emocional por medio del agente Hifi. Con ese prop��sito se llev�� a cabo una serie de estudios con usuarios reales, 70 sujetos, interaccionando con diferentes versiones del agente Hifi en tiempo real, cada uno en una fase diferente y con sus propias caracter��sticas o capacidades emocionales. En particular, todos los estudios realizados han profundizado en la comparaci��n entre una versi��n de referencia del agente no dotada de ning��n comportamiento o caracter��stica emocional, y una versi��n del agente modificada convenientemente con el modelo emocional propuesto. Los resultados obtenidos nos han permitido comprender y valorar mejor la utilidad de las emociones en los sistemas de di��logo hablado. Dicha utilidad depende de varios aspectos. En primer lugar, un SCA no debe expresar sus emociones a ciegas o arbitrariamente, incluso aunque ��stas sean positivas. M��s bien, debe adaptar sus emociones a los diferentes estados de los usuarios. En segundo lugar, un funcionamiento relativamente pobre por parte de un SCA podr��a compensarse, en cierto modo, dotando al SCA de comportamiento y capacidades emocionales. En tercer lugar, aprovechar la prosodia como veh��culo para expresar las emociones, de manera complementaria al empleo de mensajes con un contenido emocional espec��fico tanto desde el punto de vista l��xico como sem��ntico, ayuda a mejorar la percepci��n por parte de los usuarios de un SCA. Tomados en conjunto, los resultados alcanzados no s��lo confirman el ��xito del modelo emocional, sino xv que constituyen adem��s una evidencia decisiva con respecto a los beneficios de incorporar emociones en un SCA, especialmente en cuanto a reducir el nivel de frustraci��n de los usuarios y, en ��ltima instancia, mejorar su satisfacci��n.

iCarer Project: Intelligent Care Guidance and Learning Services Platform for Informal Carers of the Elderly

The increasing ageing population is demanding new care approaches to maintain the quality of life of elderly people. Informal carers are becoming crucial agents in the care and support of elderly people, which can lead to those carers suffering from additional stress due to competing priorities with employment or due to lack of knowledge about elderly people?s care needs. Thus, support and stress relief in carers should be a key issue in the home-care process of these older adults. Considering this context, this work presents the iCarer project aimed at developing a personalized and adaptive platform to offer informal carers support by means of monitoring their activities of daily care and psychological state, as well as providing an orientation to help them improve the care provided. Additionally, iCarer will provide e-Learning services and an informal carers learning network. As a result, carers will be able to expand their knowledge, supported by the experience provided by expert counsellors and fellow carers. Additionally, the coordination between formal and informal carers will be improved, offering the informal carers flexibility to organize and combine their assistance and social activities.

Cooperative Learning Model based on Multi-Agent Architecture for Embedded Intelligent Systems

Cooperative systems are suitable for many types of applications and nowadays these system are vastly used to improve a previously defined system or to coordinate multiple devices working together. This paper provides an alternative to improve the reliability of a previous intelligent identification system. The proposed approach implements a cooperative model based on multi-agent architecture. This new system is composed of several radar-based systems which identify a detected object and transmit its own partial result by implementing several agents and by using a wireless network to transfer data. The proposed topology is a centralized architecture where the coordinator device is in charge of providing the final identification result depending on the group behavior. In order to find the final outcome, three different mechanisms are introduced. The simplest one is based on majority voting whereas the others use two different weighting voting procedures, both providing the system with learning capabilities. Using an appropriate network configuration, the success rate can be improved from the initial 80% up to more than 90%.