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This document is a summary of an article titled "Novel Approaches for Distributed Intelligent Systems" published in the International Journal of Parallel, Emergent & Distributed Systems. The article discusses the convergence of distributed computing and artificial intelligence in the field of distributed intelligent computing. It presents four contributions from the 15th International Symposium on Intelligent Distributed Computing, covering topics such as adaptation measures for multi-agent systems, smart city solutions for parking, seamless simulation of traffic, and the deployment of digital twins for intelligent agriculture. The article offers a nuanced perspective on the intersection of distributed systems and artificial intelligence, providing new directions for research and innovation in this field. The guest editors, Lars Braubach and Kai Jander, are experts in distributed systems and intelligent business processes, respectively. [Extracted from the article]

Manufacturing companies typically use sophisticated production planning systems optimizing production steps, often delivering near-optimal solutions. As a downside for delivering a near-optimal schedule, planning systems have high computational demands resulting in hours of computation. Under normal circumstances this is not issue if there is enough buffer time before implementation of the schedule (e.g. at night for the next day). However, in case of unexpected disruptions such as delayed part deliveries or defectively manufactured goods, the planned schedule may become invalid and swift replanning becomes necessary. Such immediate replanning is unsuited for existing optimal planners due to the computational requirements. This paper proposes a novel solution that can effectively and efficiently perform replanning in case of different types of disruptions using an existing plan. The approach is based on the idea to adhere to the existing schedule as much as possible, adapting it based on limited local changes. For that purpose an agent-based scheduling mechanism has been devised, in which agents represent materials and production sites and use local optimization techniques and negotiations to generate an adapted (sufficient, but non-optimal) schedule. The approach has been evaluated using real production data from Huawei, showing that efficient schedules are produced in short time. The system has been implemented as proof of concept and is currently reimplemented and transferred to a production system based on the Jadex agent platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of distributed systems is an intricate task due to inherent characteristics of such systems. In this paper these characteristics are categorised into software engineering, concurrency, distribution and non-functional criteria. Popular classes of distributed systems are classified with respect to these challenges, and it is deduced that modern technological trends lead to the inception of new application classes with increased demands regarding challenges from more than one area. One recent example is the class of ubiquitous computing, which assumes dynamic scenarios in which devices come and go at any time. Furthermore, it is analysed to which extent today's prevailing software development paradigms – object, component, service and agent orientation – are conceptually capable of supporting the challenges. This comparison reveals that each of the paradigms has its own strengths and weaknesses and none addresses all of the challenges. The new active component approach is proposed aiming at a conceptual integration of the existing paradigms in order to tackle all challenges in an intuitive and unified way. The structure, behaviour and composition of active components are explained, and an infrastructure for active components is introduced. To underline the usefulness of the approach real-world applications is presented and an evaluation according to the challenges is given. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Business process management is a challenging task that requires business processes being described, executed, monitored and continuously enhanced. This process management lifecycle requires business as well as IT people working together, whereby the view on business process is quite different on both sides. One important means for bridging the gap between both consists in having a modeling notation that can be easily understood but also has a precise semantics and can be used as a basis for workflow execution. Although existing approaches like BPMN and EPCs aim at being such as notation they are already very activity oriented and do not consider the underlying motivations of processes. Introducing the goal oriented process modeling notation (GPMN) a new language is presented that has the objective of bringing together both sides by establishing higher-level modeling concepts for workflows. This results in an increased intelligibility of workflow descriptions for business people and greater consideration for the way processes are described on the business side. The core idea of the approach consists in introducing different kinds of goals and goal relationships in addition to the established activity-centered behavior model. The applicability of the approach is further illustrated with an example workflow from Daimler AG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-agent systems are well suited for building large software systems. A great deal of these complex systems includes process flows that are concerned with time or are even time-critical. The activities of these process flows are often executed in distributed autonomous subsystems that have to be synchronized with respect to the superordinated task execution. To be able to build such systems and test their behavior adequately, it is often advantageous and sometimes necessary to simulate them in the run-up to their practical use. Testing and simulation of process flows within multi-agent systems requires synchronization of the participating agents with respect to the global simulation time. In this paper, a design proposal and a service implementation for time management is presented, which takes care of the special requirements imposed by multi-agent settings. This so-called time service is implemented as an FIPA-compliant agent, and can be used to couple heterogeneous subsystems implemented on different agent platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]