10325620
Agents in object-oriented software engineering
18526386
A Systematic Approach for Including Machine Learning in Multi-agent Systems
Large scale multi-agent systems (MASs) in unpredictable environments must use machine learning techniques to perform their goals and improve the performance of the system. This paper presents a systematic approach to introduce machine learning in the design and implementation phases of a software agent. We also present an incremental implementation process for building asynchronous and distributed agents, which suppors the combination of machine learning strategies. This process supports the stepwise building of adaptable MASs for unknown situations, improving their capacity to scale up. We use the Trading Agent Competition (TAC) environment as a case study to illustrate the suitability of our approach.
15338420
Aspectizing Multi-agent Systems: From Architecture to Implementation
Agent architectures have to cope with a number of internal properties (concerns), such as autonomy, learning, and mobility. As the agent complexity increases, these agent properties crosscut each other and the agent’s basic functionality. In addition, multi-agent systems encompass multiple agent types with heterogeneous architectures. Each of these agent types has different properties, which need to be composed in different ways. In this context, the separation and the flexible composition of agent concerns are crucial for the construction of heterogeneous agent architectures. Moreover the separation of agent concerns needs to be guaranteed throughout the different development phases, especially from the architectural to the implementation phase. Existing approaches do not provide appropriate support for the modularization of agent properties at the architectural stage, and do not promote a smooth transition to the system implementation. This paper presents an aspect-oriented method that allows for a better separation of concerns, supporting the systematic aspectization of agent properties through the architectural definition, detailed design and implementation. A multi-agent system for paper reviewing management is assumed as a case study through this paper to show the applicability of our proposal.
39578766
On the Quantitative Assessment of Modular Multi-Agent Architectures
5202352
Taming Agents and Objects in Software Engineering
Agent-based software engineering has been proposed in addition to object-oriented software engineering as a means of mastering the complexity associated with the development of large-scale distributed systems. However, there is still a poor understanding of the interplay between the notions of agents and objects from a software engineering perspective. Moreover, the many facets of agent-based software engineering are rarely used in the various phases of the software development lifecycle because of the lack of a comprehensive framework to provide the software designers with a clear understanding of the use of these two key abstractions. In this context, this paper presents TAO, an evolving innovative conceptual framework based on agent and object abstractions, which are the foundations for modeling large-scale software systems. The conceptual framework allows for the characterization of large-scale software systems as organizations of passive components, the objects, and autonomous components, the agents, with each of these elements playing roles to interact with each other and to coordinate their actions in order to fulfill system goals.
979214
Enhancing agent-oriented models with aspects
The modular representation of concerns is imperative in the design modeling of multi-agent systems (MASs). However, MAS designers typically face a number of concerns that inherently affect several system agents and their respective internal elements, such as actions and goals. These crosscutting concerns encompass both internal and systemic properties, such as learning, mobility, error handling, and security. Without an explicit modeling of such MAS properties, designers can not properly communicate and reason about them and their broadly-scoped effects. The result is a multitude of agent-oriented design breakdowns: poor traceability from requirements to design models, hindering of reuse opportunities, and decreased evolvability. This paper presents an enhancement of an existing agent-oriented modeling language with aspects. We illustrate the use of our approach through some classical examples of crosscutting concerns in agent-oriented design models.
13425018
Lithofacies recognition hybrid bench
Well offshore petroleum exploration is a risky, but very profitable task. Determining the rock formation of each layer of a given reservoir diminishes the risks of expending a great deal of money drilling dry wells. Since collecting offshore rock samples is difficult and expensive, geologists must decide upon drilling based on indirect measures called well log. Traditional statistical methods have been used to assist this task. Neural networks have also been successfully used. As an alternative fuzzy logic based systems have an extra appeal of intuitive comprehension of some uncertainties. This paper presents a hybrid tool that combines neural networks, fuzzy logic and neuro-fuzzy logic to improve human intuition when analyzing the potential of oil fields.
8265478
MIRA: A Distributed and Scalable WAN/LAN Real-Time Measurement Platform
In this paper we describe MIRA, a distributed and scalable architecture for flow-based monitoring and traffic analysis. MIRA relies on data inspection to provide advanced monitoring services such as Acceptable User Policy auditing. It is based on a low cost hardware platform that can be deployed in both LAN and WAN environments. The distributed architecture of the measurement platform is designed to provide real-time global results from a complex network. Processing rate can be seamlessly increased by the addition of new hardware elements. The MIRA architecture has been thoroughly tested in a field trial on RedIRIS, the Spanish National Research Network.
44575256
An X-Ray of the Brazilian e-Gov Web Sites
The digital inclusion promotes the reduction of social inequalities. Based on this principle, the Brazilian Government has been setting up an increasing number of Web access locations to render virtual support to its citizens. However, there are no guidelines for the construction and assessment of these electronic Government (e-Gov) sites. In this article we measure the web site quality in the e-Gov domain with the following proprieties: usability, accessibility, interoperability, security, privacy, information reliability, and service agility. We implemented our method, by using a checklist tool, in the evaluation of 127 Brazilian government sites (federal, state and municipal). Our method proved itself efficient in the diagnosis and identification of specific problems in the e-Gov site domain.
15357706
Modeling flow around a microrotor in creeping flow using a quasi-steady-state analysis
Paramagnetic microsphere suspensions placed in a rotating magnetic field aggregate to form rotating magnetic chains. These chains that are several tens of micrometers in length act as microrotors, and can be modeled as circular cylinders. The flow and associated micromixing around these cylinders rotating about their radial axis is studied for a very low Reynolds number, creeping-flow system.. Time-scales for momentum transfer are much smaller than boundary movement, hence a quasi-steady approximation can be used. The flow is derived at every instant from the case of a steady motion of a horizontally translating cylinder, with the rotation approximated to a series of incremental translations. A numerical simulation was used to determine the pathlines and material lines of point fluid elements, which were analyzed to understand the behavior of the microfluidic system. The results indicate the flow to be unsteady, with chaotic advection observed in the system. The flow is primarily two-dimensional with planar fluid movement limited to the immediate area around the rotating cylinder, with a small disturbance in the axial direction that is experienced up to many diameters away. Elliptic and star shaped pathlines, including periodic orbits, are observed depending on the fluid element's initial location. The trajectories and phase angles compare well with the limited experimental results, as well as with data from particle dynamics simulations. Material lines and streaklines display stretching and folding, which are indicative of the chaotic behavior of the system. The material lines have similar lengths for the same amount of rotation at different speeds, and the affect of rotational speeds appears to be primarily to change the time of mixing.