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Much research in artificial intelligence is concerned with the development of autonomous agents that can interact effectively with other agents. An important aspect of such agents is the ability to reason about the behaviours of other agents, by constructing models which make predictions about various properties of interest (such as actions, goals, beliefs) of the modelled agents. A variety of modelling approaches now exist which vary widely in their methodology and underlying assumptions, catering to the needs of the different sub-communities within which they were developed and reflecting the different practical uses for which they are intended. The purpose of the present article is to provide a comprehensive survey of the salient modelling methods which can be found in the literature. The article concludes with a discussion of open problems which may form the basis for fruitful future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile agents are software entities able to move from one host to another across networks. They are autonomous and independent from the environment where they are hosted, as they transport all the necessary resources for their proper needs and execution. However, this mobility feature shows many security issues related to the maliciousness of hosts receiving agents and the unsafe communications with other entities encountered in the way. In this paper, we propose a new security scheme based on two techniques: anonymous authentication and intrusion detection. In the first one, we make use of elliptic curve cryptography known for its several advantages in distributed computing, while in the second, we make use of execution tracing method basing chaining mechanism to produce traces of the executed statements in the agent's code. Practical experiments are conducted to prove the scalability and effectiveness of our approach, focusing on different metrics and compared to well-known and significant related works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate consensus and disturbance attenuation in a chain of mobile agents, which include non-autonomous agents, semi-autonomous agents and autonomous agents. In particular, the nonlinear dynamics of non-autonomous agents is given and cannot be designed, while the dynamics of semi-autonomous and autonomous agents can be partially and fully designed, respectively. To improve the robustness of multi-agent chains against disturbances, we propose a nonlinear control framework for semi-autonomous and autonomous agents such that they mimic the behavior of non-autonomous agents for compatibility while also exploiting long-range connections with distant agents. This framework ensures the existence of a unique consensus equilibrium, which is independent of the network size, connectivity topologies, control gains and information delays. Robustness of multi-agent chains against disturbances is investigated by evaluating the frequency response at the nonlinear level. For infinitely long multi-agent chains with recurrent patterns, we also derive a condition that ensures the disturbance attenuation but only requires the analysis of the linearized model. A case study is conducted for a connected vehicle system where numerical simulations are used to validate the analytical results. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a mobile agent based distributed EM (Expectation Maximization) algorithm is developed for density estimation and data clustering in sensor networks. It has been assumed that sensor measurements can be statistically modeled by a common Gaussian mixture model. This algorithm not only executes the EM algorithm in a distributed manner, but reduces the number of iterations of the EM algorithm and increases its convergence rate. Convergence of the proposed method will also be studied analytically and will be shown that the estimated parameters will eventually converge to their true values. Finally, the proposed method will be applied to synthetic data sets in order to show its promising performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of physical assets has become a major determinant success factor for urban flood control. However, managing these assets is always challenging as there are a huge number of diverse assets involved, which are distributed throughout the city, and owned by different agencies. Aiming at improving the management efficiency of these assets, and ensuring their performance, this paper proposes the concept of cloud asset based on cloud computing, mobile agent, and various smart devices. Through hardware integration and software encapsulation, cloud asset could sense its real-time status, adapt to varied working scenarios, be controlled remotely, and shared among agencies. It enables accurate real-time control of every asset, and thus improves the management efficiency and effectiveness. This paper first presents the concept of cloud asset with its technical architecture, and then analyses the software agent model for cloud asset, which is the key enabler to realize UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) management of assets, and provides mobility and intelligence for them. After that, the framework of cloud asset-enabled workflow management is built, in which cloud asset could be easily found and dynamically invoked by different workflows. Finally, a demonstrative case is provided to verify the effectiveness of cloud asset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two mobile agents starting at different nodes of an unknown network have to meet. This task is known in the literature as rendezvous. Each agent has a different label which is a positive integer known to it but unknown to the other agent. Agents move in an asynchronous way: the speed of agents may vary and is controlled by an adversary. The cost of a rendezvous algorithm is the total number of edge traversals by both agents until their meeting. The only previous deterministic algorithm solving this problem has cost exponential in the size of the graph and in the larger label. In this paper we present a deterministic rendezvous algorithm with cost polynomial in the size of the graph and in the length of the smaller label. Hence, we decrease the cost exponentially in the size of the graph and doubly exponentially in the labels of agents. As an application of our rendezvous algorithm we solve several fundamental problems involving teams of unknown size larger than 1 of labeled agents moving asynchronously in unknown networks. Among them are the following problems: team size, in which every agent has to find the total number of agents; leader election, in which all agents have to output the label of a single agent; perfect renaming, in which all agents have to adopt new and different labels from the set {1,...,k}, where k is the number of agents; and gossiping, in which each agent has initially a piece of information (value) and all agents have to output all the values. Using our rendezvous algorithm, we solve all of these problems at cost polynomial in the size of the graph and in the smallest length of all labels of participating agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature study and analysis on mobile agents reveal many challenging and uncovered aspects that still do not have comprehensive solutions. Despite the fact that significant research has been carried out on mobile agents, it is still not widely adopted by industry and research community because of the immaturity of various technical aspects of agent paradigm. One of the main reasons that limits the scope of the potential applications of mobile agents is the lack of reliable security solutions for mobile agents' code and their baggage. The protection of mobile agents' codes has been solved by the research community to some extent; however, there is not even a single solution that provides complete protection and access control mechanism for agents' code and their baggage (data being accumulated/ carried by agent during execution). Most of the existing solutions such as execution tracing, code obfuscation, encrypted code execution and partial result encapsulation mainly cover security threats of mobile agents' code. In this paper, we present a security solution to overcome the security threats on traditional mobile agents computing paradigm. Our proposed solution is one step ahead of extant solutions in that it provides complete protection and enforces access control on agents' complex baggage structure. We have extended our previous work that was limited to the protection of agents and the agent platforms only. Our approach provides holistic access control mechanism between users and agents, agents and agent platform resources and platform and agents baggage. By adopting the proposed solution in the mobile agent-oriented software engineering, secure and complex mobile agent-based applications can be developed, which will greatly benefit the software industry. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of popular technology adoption models identified several factors that are likely to influence Voice Activated Personal Assistant (VAPA) use in public spaces. To inform design decisions of how to make the private use of the VAPA in public spaces more acceptable from the users’ point of view, an online survey was conducted to investigate the likelihood of usage of the smartphone VAPA such as Apple’s Siri (compared to the usage of smartphone keyboard) as a function of location (private vs. public) and type of information (private vs. nonprivate). Responses from participants showed that users were more cautious of transmitting private than nonprivate information. This effect of type of information was amplified in the social context of public locations and when using conspicuous methods of information input such as the VAPA. Participants also preferred using the VAPA in private locations and showed no preference of location for keyboard entries. Correlations between likelihood of usage of VAPA and the social acceptability ratings were positive and predicted similar patterns of smartphone usage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we consider a multi agent planning problem where given a set of plans of the individual agents that may lead to conflict during execution, the task is to find a conflict-free plan for the agents. For this we give a formal model of the multi agent planning problem (MAPP) and give a description of the multi agent path planning. We demonstrate this technique in a grid world domain. The experimental results show promise for our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A team consisting of an unknown number of mobile agents, starting from different nodes of an unknown network, have to meet at the same node. Agents move in synchronous rounds. Each agent has a different label. Up to f of the agents are Byzantine. We consider two levels of Byzantine behavior. A strongly Byzantine agent can choose an arbitrary port when it moves and it can convey arbitrary information to other agents, while a weakly Byzantine agent can do the same, except changing its label. What is the minimum number of good agents that guarantees deterministic gathering of all of them, with termination? We solve exactly this Byzantine gathering problem in arbitrary networks for weakly Byzantine agents and give approximate solutions for strongly Byzantine agents, both when the size of the network is known and when it is unknown. It turns out that both the strength versus the weakness of Byzantine behavior and the knowledge of network size significantly impact the results. For weakly Byzantine agents, we show that any number of good agents permits solving the problem for networks of known size. If the size is unknown, then this minimum number is f + 2. More precisely, we show a deterministic polynomial algorithm that gathers all good agents in an arbitrary network, provided that there are at least f + 2 of them. We also provide a matching lower bound: we prove that if the number of good agents is at most f + 1, then they are not able to gather deterministically with termination in some networks. For strongly Byzantine agents, we give a lower bound of f + 1, even when the graph is known: we show that f good agents cannot gather deterministically in the presence of f Byzantine agents even in a ring of known size. On the positive side, we give deterministic gathering algorithms for at least 2 f + 1 good agents when the size of the network is known and for at least 4 f + 2 good agents when it is unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software agent platforms have enjoyed a broad interest in the last 20 years from many parts of computer science research and industry. In the previous sections of this survey we discussed the impact of platform design on agent systems and proposed a categorization of agents and their platforms, identifying intelligent agents, mobile agents, and simulation agents as the main branches of agent technology. This article is the last part of a three-part survey on agent platform technology. We now present the numbers of our survey on platforms. Also, we comment on recent trends in software engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile agent is a distributed program which can move autonomously in a network, to perform its tasks, on behalf of the user. During migration, the mobile agents and so its data are susceptible to failures due to the faults in the network components like the machine and the channel. It is a challenging issue to address the mobile agent failure scenario during its migration. This paper presents a failure recovery model for mobile agents that ensure the recovery of the lost mobile agent and the data. This is done by allowing a replication of the actual mobile agent at the previously visited servers. However, unlike existing methods, in this paper the replication is temporary and limited to an optimal value. This is achieved by making the mobile agents that operates in multi-region environment, to track, communicate and share the retrieved information between them. After the information sharing, in this paper, the number of replica to be maintained at each region is reduced to one. Furthermore, as there is at least one server in each region that holds the replica, this paper guarantees that the information collected at each server is not lost. In addition, the presented model survives the region failure too, when implemented in a multi-region environment. Experiments were conducted in a web environment, and the results obtained are analyzed and compared with existing methods, based on different testing parameters. The experimental results appear to be more encouraging in claiming the presented recovery model to be a reliable one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group communication applications in Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) require stringent bounds on Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. In this paper, we propose an agent driven QoS mesh based multicast routing scheme in MANET that satisfies the user requirements with good reasoning by using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). Four types of agents are used in the scheme: Multicast administer, ANFIS, Route inventing and Guard agents. The proposed scheme operates in following steps. (1) ANFIS agent at the source node optimizes membership functions of QoS parameters according to the user QoS requirement. It also computes QoS factor for different combinations of parameter values from optimized membership functions. (2) Route inventing mobile agent carries the QoS requirement, set of parameter values and their corresponding QoS factors to reach multicast receivers through intermediate nodes by using selective flooding and agent cloning. Multicast administer agent (MAA) at the intermediate node decides its QoS satisfiability. (3) Route inventing mobile agents trace back the traversed path by marking QoS nodes. They facilitate MAA at the source node to construct QoS mesh between source and destinations. (4) MAA at the source node selects a shortest path to reach each of the multicast receivers from the constructed QoS mesh, and (5) Guard mobile agent is employed for the link/node failures and management of the group. Our proposed scheme performs better than fuzzy based, and autonomic QoS multicast routing schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not many computer science topics have enjoyed a similarly broad interest like autonomous software agents. In the last 20 years more than 180 platforms were created, intended to facilitate agent application creation. In recent years agent platform research seems to have lost much of its attractiveness. This article is the second part of a three-part survey on agent platform technology. In this section we elaborate on standardization efforts for agent platforms and provide a selection of platforms which we consider as characteristic for each of the platform classes as introduced in the previous article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of software agent platforms during the last two decades. Topics include the role of platforms for agent software engineering, the categories of software agent systems and their properties. Other topics include the requirements for the platforms and the uses for intelligent agents.

The rapid development of computer network especially the internet has enabled new software capabilities and wide market interest. The reality that this technology will virtually place all computer users on the internet is a major motivating factor in this work. This paper proposes a software piracy prevention technique in which client/user purchases a software product, but must connect to the remote server of the software developer before installation. The user provides an activation code that activates mobile agent. The validity of the activation is checked, the software user identity information is compared with store information in the database of the developer to ascertain authenticity and prevent piracy. A mathematical model is adopted for measuring the effectiveness of mobile agent migration in terms of network load which is expected to be at minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agent-based systems have long been recognized as a candidate technology for delivering autonomous and autonomic behaviors; however it is only recently that their usage has been explored in a new, emerging generation of systems that involve embedding agents on computationally challenged devices. The prudent harnessing of such agents can offer software engineers additional tools in their efforts to construct and deploy innovative mobile services or to realize practical smart environments. However, documented results of comprehensive evaluations of mobile services conducted in real world environments are rare; evaluations of systems that harness the agent paradigm are almost non-existent. This paper seeks to remedy this deficiency. It is hoped that the results of this study will encourage researchers to reflect further on the potential and implications of harnessing the intelligent agent paradigm in the broad Ambient Intelligence domain, from a software engineering perspective, and as an enabler of intelligent interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using mobile agents to assist students in virtual learning environments has become increasingly common for hands-on experiments. Although virtual learning environments provide mobile agents as a platform for services to learners, one type of mobile agent only serves in one course, bringing possible benefits to users. This study was conducted to use agent techniques to construct a ubiquitous teaching assistant (u-TA) for assisting students solve problems in laboratory courses. We gave the u-TA enhanced social skills so that it can reduce the burden on teachers. The proposed u-TA system consists of both Web-based and instant messenger-based (IM-based) interfaces, and the u-TA can learn from other agents by analyzing their dialogues. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the u-TA and the results show that the u-TA can assist students and share the TA's workload in courses. The experimental results also demonstrated that the u-TA has good communications ability; its two user interfaces can increase interactions with students. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 245-255, 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We investigate the relation between the (ideal) time and space complexities for the gathering problem with anonymous agents in asynchronous anonymous tree networks. The gathering problem requires that all the agents in the network have to meet at a single node within a finite time. Although an asymptotically space-optimal algorithm is known, its time complexity is quite large. In this paper, we consider asymptotically (ideal-)time-optimal algorithms and investigate the minimum memory requirement per agent for asymptotically time-optimal algorithms. First, we show that there exists a tree with nodes in which bits of memory per agent is required to solve the gathering problem in time (asymptotically time-optimal). Then, we present an asymptotically time-optimal gathering algorithm. This algorithm can be executed if each agent has bits of memory. From this lower/upper bound, this algorithm is asymptotically space-optimal on the condition that the time complexity is asymptotically optimal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Mobile agents (MA) systems have gained popularity in use because they ease the application design process by giving software engineers greater flexibility. The research in MA is a rapidly growing field contributing to autonomous software agents and distributed systems. And related is affecting the world of network computing and the agents technology is well suited for the network application. Mobility is both a useful abstraction and tool for agent-based system designers; it allows for increased resource efficiency, capability, and robustness. It is expected the mobile agent to be mobile and be able to do collaboration, integrating these technologies, to facilitated network user in retrieving information. For fulfilling these aspects, the frame for accessing remote machine configuration using MA is developed. Therefore, in the present study, the various non-java and java based mobile agent systems are studied for their strategic application in the area of integration and gathering of the information. The InfoGatherAgent java program is designed and implemented for gathering the information from the different ports of Aglets-Tahiti Server to reduce the network load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Mobile agent-based e-marketplaces are business applications that have been developed as flexible and efficient approaches to help companies or corporations to extend their businesses to outreach larger markets without regional and continental boundaries. Every distributed system is unable to avoid security problems due to the open internet environment. Mobile agent-based e-marketplaces are no exceptions. The purpose of this paper is to design and implement a framework and system of a secure and trustworthy mobile agent-based e-marketplace to overcome this problem. Design/methodology/approach – The authors present an analysis and evaluation of a secure and trustworthy mobile agent-based e-marketplace, which was specified and prototyped. The experimental results of the implemented system are used to address the evaluation of the system. The discussion of the solution is also presented. Findings – The evaluation and performance results show that the proposed framework and system have the ability to provide a secure and efficient e-marketplace environment for trading products. The authors draw conclusions and highlight future work on this specific research area. Originality/value – The performance and scalability are the two most important issues for mobile-agent based systems together with their feasibility. The evaluation and performance results are used to reflect the results of the research in its entirety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Navigation of a group of autonomous agents that are required to maintain a formation is a challenging task which has not been studied much especially in 3-D terrains. This paper presents a novel approach to collision free path finding of multiple agents preserving a predefined formation in 3-D terrains. The proposed method could be used in many areas like navigation of semi-automated forces (SAF) at unit level in military simulations and non-player characters (NPC) in computer games. The proposed path finding algorithm first computes an optimal path from an initial point to a target point after analyzing the 3-D terrain data from which it constructs a weighted graph. Then, it employs a real-time path finding algorithm specifically designed to realize the navigation of the group from one waypoint to the successive one on the optimal path generated at the previous stage, preserving the formation and avoiding collision. Software was developed to test the methods discussed here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper proposes a multi-agent framework to support applications development of ambient systems. In the programming model of the framework, ambient systems can be developed by collaboration of mobile agents and service (or resident) agents, where resident agents provide application services on devices and mobile agents provide communication services on behalf of owner applications. On top of device infrastructure, the architecture of the framework consists of three layers: framework service layer, software agents layer and application layer, to fully support dynamic and collaborative tasks of ambient systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Large-scale agent-based software solutions need to be able to assure constant delivery of services to end-users, regardless of the underlying software or hardware failures. Fault-tolerance of multi-agent systems is, therefore, an important issue. We present two algorithms for an easy and flexible introduction of fault-tolerance to existing agent frameworks. The first algorithm is based on a new type of mobile agent, named Connection Agent, for efficient construction and maintenance of fault-tolerant multi-agent system networks. The algorithm has been experimentally verified, and then significantly optimized by relying on the mobility feature of Connection Agents. Secondly, a robust agent tracking technique based on a special type of agent, named RemnantAgent, is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Nowadays wireless body sensor networks (WBSNs) have great potential to enable a broad variety of assisted living applications such as human biophysical/biochemical control and activity monitoring for health care, e-fitness, emergency detection, emotional recognition for social networking, security, and highly interactive games. It is therefore important to define design methodologies and programming frameworks which enable rapid prototyping of WBSN applications. Several effective application development frameworks have been already proposed for WBSNs designed for TinyOS-based sensor platforms, e.g. CodeBlue, SPINE, and Titan. In this paper we present an application of MAPS, an agent framework for wireless sensor networks based on the Java-programmable Sun SPOT sensor platform, for the development of a real-time WBSN-based system for human activity monitoring. The agent-oriented programming abstractions provided by MAPS allow effective and rapid prototyping of the sensor-side software. In particular, the architecture of the developed system is a typical star-based WBSN composed of a coordinator node and two sensor nodes located respectively on the waist and the thigh of the monitored assisted living. The coordinator relies on a JADE-based enhancement of the SPINE coordinator and allows configuring sensors, receiving their data, and recognizing pre-defined human activities. On the other hand, each sensor node runs a MAPS-based agent that performs sensing of the 3-axial accelerometer sensor, computation of significant features on the acquired data, feature aggregation and transmission to the coordinator. The experimentation phase of the prototype, which allows evaluating the obtainable monitoring performances and activity recognition accuracy, is described. Moreover, a comparison of the monitoring system based on MAPS, AFME and SPINE in terms of programming effectiveness and system performances is discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Once a big repository of static data, the Web has been gradually evolved into a worldwide network of information and services known as the Semantic Web. This environment allows programs to autonomously interact with Web-accessible information and services. In this sense, mobile agent technology could help in efficiently exploiting this relatively new Web in a fully automated way, since Semantic Web resources are described in a computer-understandable way. In this paper, we present SWAM, a platform for building and deploying Prolog-based intelligent mobile agents on the Semantic Web. The article also reports examples and experimental results in order to illustrate as well as to assess the benefits of SWAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When an emergency occurs within a building, it is safer to send autonomous mobile agents instead of human responders, to explore the area and identify hazards and victims. Existing exploration algorithms (Svennebring, J. and Koenig, S. (2004) Building terrain-covering Ant robots: a feasibility study. Auton. Robots, 16, 313–332, Ferranti, E., Trigoni, N. and Levene, M. (2007) Brick&Mortar: An On-Line Multi-Agent Exploration Algorithm. ICRA07: Proc. 2007 IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation, April, pp. 761–767. IEEE Press) allow mobile agents to make distributed navigation decisions by communicating with nearby fixed sensors embedded in the environment. These algorithms are very efficient in terms of exploration time, but they have only been evaluated in simulation environments, where idealized assumptions were made regarding the ability of agents to localize sensors and move accurately towards them. The objective of this work is to investigate practical issues of building a real testbed of mobile agents and fixed sensors, and implementing exploration algorithms in such a testbed. In particular, we describe our experiences from building a real system consisting of a Surveyor SRV-1 robot and Tmote Sky sensors running the Contiki OS (Dunkels, A., Gron̈vall, B. and Voigt, T. (2004) Contiki — A Lightweight and Flexible Operating System for Tiny Networked Sensors. Proc. 1st Annual IEEE Int. Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors, November, pp. 455–462). We select two existing exploration algorithms, Ants (Svennebring, J. and Koenig, S. (2004) Building terrain-covering Ant robots: a feasibility study. Auton. Robots, 16, 313–332) and Brick&Mortar (Ferranti, E., Trigoni, N. and Levene, M. (2007) Brick&Mortar: An On-Line Multi-Agent Exploration Algorithm. ICRA07: Proc. 2007 IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation, April, pp. 761–767. IEEE Press), and discuss challenges in trying to implement them in our testbed. To address these challenges, we propose practical solutions that allow a mobile agent to: (i) identify and localize fixed sensors deployed in its vicinity and (ii) accurately move towards a carefully selected fixed sensor. Using our real network deployment, we derive realistic models of localization and odometry errors. We then insert these error models into a realistic simulation environment, in order to extensively compare Ants and Brick&Mortar, and measure their performance degradation as a result of introducing realistic errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of spatially distributed nodes that monitor physical conditions. Thus far, WSNs have been constructed for specific applications. However, in the future, system operators may want an existing WSN to deploy simultaneous applications. Existing studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of applying mobile agents to enable simultaneous applications in WSNs. However, two problems make the present form of mobile agents impractical for applications involving cooperation and group migration by mobile agents. The first problem is the lack of a suitable architecture enabling cooperation and interaction between agents, and the second is the lack of an efficient way of achieving group migration by agents in WSNs. To address these problems, we propose an architecture organized by mobile agents that has specific functionalities and that enables group migration by multiple agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With the evolution in the computer networks, many companies are trying to come up with efficient products which can make life easier for network administrators. Silent automated installation is one category among such products. In this paper, we have proposed silent network installer and tester (SNIT) which provides silent, automated and intelligent installation of software(s) over the network. SNIT will intelligently install any kind of software on request of the network administrator. SNIT not only provides installation services, it also enables network administrators to verify the installation of software over the network. SNIT uses an efficient algorithm to transfer the software installation setup on the network nodes. The system is fully autonomous and does not require any kind of user interaction or intervention. Network administrator is responsible for assigning the task(s) to SNIT and once assigned it performs the task(s) over the network autonomously with the help of intelligent mobile agents. SNIT has been deployed for evaluation purpose at the University Campus Lab equipped with 200 machines and some of the popular softwares were tested in the lab, results were very promising and support the implementation of the solution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper we aim to implement a highly distributed information infrastructure—MADIP by using Intelligent Agent paradigm, which is able to notify the responsible care-provider of abnormality automatically, offer distance medical advice, and perform continuous health monitoring for those who need it. To confront the issues of interoperability, scalability, and openness in heterogeneous e-health environments, a FIPA2000 standard compliant agent development platform—JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework) was adopted for the design and implementation of the proposed intelligent multi-agent based MADIP system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has received overwhelming attention in recent years. RFID tags could be regarded as ubiquitous or pervasive computing devices, which can send or receive radio frequency signal and can store a number of data. It is in fact not a new technology because its first military application can be found in the Second World War. Recently, RFID-based systems are linked to multi- agents systems such that RFID-based devices are considered as agents, in particular mobile agents. However, reported literature is related to, relatively, high-level conceptual applications of RFID technology in agent-based systems. The answers to the following questions are still unclear: whether RFID-based systems could be represented as multi- agent systems or not? If this is not true, what are the missing components in RFID-based systems in contrast to multi-agent systems? In other words, how RFID-based systems could be enhanced to become multi-agent systems? The objective of this chapter is to address these questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Logical theories of intelligent (or rational) agents have been refined and improved over the past 20 years of research. Such logical theories are used in many ways, one of which is as the basis for executable agent specifications. Here, agents are specified using a logical description and then this description is directly executed in order to implement the agent’s behaviour. This provides strong correctness results for the implemented agent, directly corresponding the formal specification with the implementation. With increased application, it has become clear that such specifications of idealised agents are inappropriate in practical situations. An agent may have many resource-bounds to contend with, both in terms of time and memory, and this should be taken into account within the agent’s formal specification. Thus, in this paper, we tackle the problem of representing and executing resource-bounded agents. The framework developed here allows the restriction of the amount of reasoning, both temporal and doxastic, that the agent is permitted. We address the formal properties of the framework, present results concerning the execution of such specifications, and consider the practical outcome of such restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main consequences of the Internet revolution was the decentralisation of information and resources. This decentralization gave rise to the need for new software architectures that supported the mobility of the code to the location where the resources resided. In order to respond to the needs of this new scenario, a promising technology emerged in which the software was able to move from one network node to another autonomously: the mobile agent technology. However, the benefits offered by mobile agents have not been sufficient to stimulate their widespread deployment. The development of mobile agents usually involves implementing complex security mechanisms, and very little research has been conducted to simplify the implementation of these mechanisms. In this paper, we will outline the relevant work done in this regard. First, we will present some of the better known mobile agent platforms. Then, we will present the most relevant work done to provide security to mobile agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We consider a fixed, undirected, known network and a number of “mobile agents” which can traverse the network in synchronised steps. Some nodes in the network may be faulty and the agents are to find the faults and repair them. The agents could be software agents, if the underlying network represents a computer network, or robots, if the underlying network represents some potentially hazardous physical terrain. Assuming that the first agent encountering a faulty node can immediately repair it, it is easy to see that the number of steps necessary and sufficient to complete this task is , where is the number of nodes in the network, is the diameter of the network, and is the number of agents. We consider the case where one agent can repair only one faulty node. After repairing the fault, the agent dies. We show that a simple deterministic algorithm for this problem terminates within steps, where , assuming that the number of faulty nodes is at most . We also demonstrate the worst-case asymptotic optimality of this algorithm by showing a network such that for any deterministic algorithm, there is a placement of faults forcing the algorithm to work for steps. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]