Heterogeneous Agent Systems

by V. S. Subrahmanian, Piero Bonatti, Jürgen Dix, Thomas Eiter, Sarit Kraus, Fatma Ozcan and Robert Ross

• ISBN13: 9780262194365
• ISBN10: 0262194368
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-28
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

Software agents are the latest advance in the trend toward smaller, modular pieces of code, where each module performs a well-defined, focused task or set of tasks. Programmed to interact with and provide services to other agents, including humans, software agents act autonomously with prescribed backgrounds, beliefs, and operations. Systems of agents can access and manipulate heterogeneously stored data such as that found on the Internet. After a discussion of the theory of software agents, this book presents IMPACT (Interactive Maryland Platform for Agents Collaborating Together), an experimental agent infrastructure that translates formal theories of agency into a functional multiagent system that can extend legacy software code and application-specific or legacy data structures. The book describes three sample applications: a store, a self-correcting auto-pilot, and a supply chain.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	ix
List of Tables	xi
Preface and Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(28)
A Personalized Department Store Application (STORE)	4	(4)
The Controlled Flight into Terrain Application (CFIT)	8	(3)
A Supply Chain Example (CHAIN)	11	(3)
Brief Overview of Related Research on Agents	14	(7)
Ten Desiderata for an Agent Infrastructure	21	(2)
A Birdseye View of This Book	23	(2)
Selected Commercial Systems	25	(4)
IMPACT Architecture	29	(24)
Overview of Architecture	29	(2)
Agent Architecture	31	(5)
Server Architecture	36	(14)
Related Work	50	(3)
Service Description Language	53	(22)
Agent Service Description Language	53	(4)
Metric of Service Descriptions	57	(3)
Matchmaking as Nearest Neighbor Computations	60	(6)
Range Computations	66	(2)
Simulation Evaluation	68	(4)
Related Work	72	(3)
Accessing Legacy Data and Software	75	(42)
Software Code Abstractions	75	(5)
Code Call Conditions	80	(11)
The Message Box Domain	91	(2)
Integrity Constraints	93	(3)
Some Syntactic Sugar	96	(2)
Linking Service Descriptions and Code Calls	98	(1)
Example Service Description Programs	99	(6)
Related Work	105	(12)
IMPACT Server Implementation	117	(24)
Overview of dbImpact Services	119	(3)
TCP/IP String Protocol for IMPACT servers	122	(11)
Sample Client-Server Interactions	133	(8)
Agent Programs	141	(68)
Agent Decision Architecture	141	(2)
Action Base	143	(13)
Action Constraints	156	(3)
Agent Programs: Syntax	159	(12)
Agent Programs: Semantics	171	(26)
Relationship with Logic Programming and Nonmonotonic Logic	197	(7)
Related Work	204	(5)
Meta Agent Programs	209	(42)
Extending CFIT by Route and Maneuver Planning	209	(3)
Belief Language and Data Structures	212	(14)
Meta-Agent Programs: Semantics	226	(16)
How to Implement Meta-Agent Programs?	242	(7)
Related Work	249	(2)
Temporal Agent Programs	251	(44)
Actions with Temporal Duration	253	(8)
Syntax of Taps	261	(6)
Semantics of Taps	267	(11)
Compact Representation of Temporal Status Sets	278	(1)
Computing Feasible Temporal Status Sets	279	(5)
An Application of Tap: Strategic Negotiations	284	(4)
An Application of Tap: Delivery Agents in Contract Net Environments	288	(4)
Related Work	292	(3)
Probabilistic Agent Programs	295	(34)
Probabilistic Code Calls	297	(6)
Probabilistic Agent Programs: Syntax	303	(3)
Probabilistic Agent Programs: Semantics	306	(9)
Computing Probabilistic Status Sets of Positive paps	315	(5)
Agent Programs are Probabilistic Agent Programs	320	(2)
Extensions to Other Causes of Uncertainty	322	(3)
Related Work	325	(4)
Secure Agent Programs	329	(70)
An Abstract Logical Agent Model	332	(6)
Abstract Secure Request Handling	338	(9)
Safely Approximate Data Security	347	(19)
Undecidability Results	366	(2)
IMPACT Security Implementation Architecture	368	(26)
Related Work	394	(5)
Complexity Results	399	(62)
Complexity Classes	400	(7)
Decision Making Problems	407	(4)
Overview of Complexity Results	411	(6)
Basic Complexity Results	417	(23)
Effect of Integrity Constraints	440	(19)
Related Work	459	(2)
Implementing Agents	461	(56)
Weakly Regular Agents	462	(15)
Properties of Weakly Regular Agents	477	(10)
Regular Agent Programs	487	(6)
Compile-Time Algorithms	493	(7)
The Query Maintenance Package	500	(6)
The IMPACT Agent Development Environment (IADE)	506	(3)
Experimental Results	509	(6)
Related Work	515	(2)
An Example Application	517	(12)
The Army War Reserves (AWR) Logistics Problem	517	(2)
AWR Agent Architecture	519	(1)
AWR Agent Implementation	520	(9)
Conclusions	529	(26)
Progress Towards the Ten Desiderata	529	(4)
Agent Desiderata Provided by Other Researchers	533	(4)
Appendix
A Code Calls and Actions in the Examples	537	(18)
A.1 Agents in the CFIT Example	537	(4)
A.2 Agents in the STORE Example	541	(3)
A.3 Agents in the CHAIN Example	544	(4)
A.4 Agents in the CFIT* Example	548	(7)
References	555	(16)
Index	571