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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Concurrent Multiple- Issue Negotiation For Internet-Based Services, Jiangbo Dang, Michael N. Huhns
Concurrent Multiple- Issue Negotiation For Internet-Based Services, Jiangbo Dang, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Negotiation is a technique for reaching a mutually beneficial agreement among autonomous entities. In an Internet-based services context, multiple entities are negotiating simultaneously. The concurrent negotiation protocol extends existing negotiation protocols, letting both service requestors and service providers manage several negotiation processes in parallel. Colored Petri nets, which have greater expressive power than finite state machines and offer support for concurrency, represent the negotiation protocol and facilitate the analysis of desirable properties.
The Sentient Web, Michael N. Huhns
The Sentient Web, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
In a startling revelation, a team of university scientists has reported that a network of computers has become conscious and sentient, and is beginning to assume control of online information system. In spite of the ominous tone typically chosen for dramatic effect, a sentient Web would be more helpful and much easier for people to use. An agent is an active, persistent software component that perceives, reasons, and acts, and whose actions include communication. Agents inherently take intentional actions based on sensory information and memories of past actions. All agents have necessary communication ability, but they do not necessarily possess …
Commitments Among Agents, Ashok U. Mallya, Michael N. Huhns
Commitments Among Agents, Ashok U. Mallya, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Commitments are a powerful representation for modeling multiagent interactions. Previous approaches have considered the semantics of commitments and how to check compliance with them. However, these approaches do not capture some of the subtleties that arise in real-life applications such as e-commerce, in which contracts and institutions have implicit temporal references. In this column, we describe a rich representation for the temporal content of commitments that lets us capture realistic contracts and avoid ambiguities. Consequently, this approach lets us reason about whether, and at what point, a commitment is satisfied or breached, and whether it is or ever becomes unenforceable.
Being And Acting Rational, Michael N. Huhns
Being And Acting Rational, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Rationality alone is insufficient to specify agent design. Using economic theory, we can program agents to behave in ways that maximize their utility while responding to environmental changes. However, economic models for agents, although general in principle, are typically limited in practice because the value functions that are tractable essentially reduce an agent to acting selfishly. Building a stable social system from a collection of agents motivated by self-serving interests is difficult. Finally, understanding rationality and knowledge requires interdisciplinary results from artificial intelligence, distributed.
Weaving A Computing Fabric, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens, John W. Keele, Jim E. Wray, Warren M. Snelling, Greg P. Harhay, Randy R. Bradley
Weaving A Computing Fabric, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens, John W. Keele, Jim E. Wray, Warren M. Snelling, Greg P. Harhay, Randy R. Bradley
Faculty Publications
As sources of information relevant to a particular domain proliferate, we need a methodology for locating, aggregating, relating, fusing, reconciling, and presenting information to users. Interoperability thus must occur not only among the information, but also among the different software applications that process it. Given the large number of potential sources and applications, interoperability becomes an extremely large problem for which manual solutions are impractical. A combination of software agents and ontologies can supply the necessary methodology for interoperability.
Agents As Web Services, Michael N. Huhns
Agents As Web Services, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Web services are extremely flexible. Most advantageously, a developer of Web services need not know who or what will use the services being provided. The paper discusses current standards for Web services, directory services and the Semantic Web. It considers how agents extend Web services in several important ways.
Robust Software, Michael N. Huhns, Vance T. Holderfield
Robust Software, Michael N. Huhns, Vance T. Holderfield
Faculty Publications
Agents offer a convenient level of granularity at which to add redundancy a key factor in developing robust software. Blindly adding code introduces more errors, makes the system more complex, and renders it harder to understand. However, adding more code can make software better, if it is added in the right way. As this article describes, the key concepts appear to be redundancy and the appropriate granularity.
Agent Societies: Magnitude And Duration, Michael N. Huhns
Agent Societies: Magnitude And Duration, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
If you only need agents to search the Web for cheap CDs, scalability is not an issue. The Web can support numerous agents if each acts independently. In short order, however, billions of embedded agents that sense their environment and interact with us and other agents will fill our world, making the human environment friendlier and more efficient. These agents will need not only scalable infrastructures and communication services, but also scalable social services encompassing ethics and laws. Research projects are under way around the world to develop and deploy such services. The author takes a look at the critical …
Inside An Agent, José M. Vidal, Paul A. Buhler, Michael N. Huhns
Inside An Agent, José M. Vidal, Paul A. Buhler, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
When we discuss agent-based system construction with software developers or ask students to implement common agent architectures using object-oriented techniques, we find that it is not trivial for them to create an elegant system design from the standard presentation of these architectures in textbooks or research papers. To better communicate our interpretation of popular agent architectures, we draw UML (Unified Modeling Language) diagrams to guide an implementer's design. However, before we describe these diagrams, we need to review some basic features of agents. The paper considers an architecture showing a simple agent interacting with an environment. The agent senses its …
Probability And Agents, Marco Valtorta, Michael N. Huhns
Probability And Agents, Marco Valtorta, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
To make sense of the information that agents gather from the Web, they need to reason about it. If the information is precise and correct, they can use engines such as theorem provers to reason logically and derive correct conclusions. Unfortunately, the information is often imprecise and uncertain, which means they will need a probabilistic approach. More than 150 years ago, George Boole presented the logic that bears his name. There is concern that classical logic is not sufficient to model how people do or should reason. Adopting a probabilistic approach in constructing software agents and multiagent systems simplifies some …
Consensus Ontologies: Reconciling The Semantics Of Web Pages And Agents, Larry M. Stevens, Michael N. Huhns
Consensus Ontologies: Reconciling The Semantics Of Web Pages And Agents, Larry M. Stevens, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
As you build a Web site, it is worthwhile asking, "Should I put my information where it belongs or where people are most likely to look for it?" Our recent research into improving searching through ontologies is providing some interesting results to answer this question. The techniques developed by our research bring organization to the information received and reconcile the semantics of each document. Our goal is to help users retrieve dynamically generated information that is tailored to their individual needs and preferences. We believe that it is easier for individuals or small groups to develop their own ontologies, regardless …
Automating Supply Chains, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens
Automating Supply Chains, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens
Faculty Publications
A recent study found that supply-chain problems cost companies between 9 and 20 percent of their value over a six-month period (T.J. Becker, 2000). The problems range from part shortages to poorly utilized plant capacity. When you place this in the context of the overall business-to-business (B2B) market expected to reach US$7 trillion by 2004 (37 percent of which is projected to be e-commerce sales), it is easy to see that effective supply-chain management (SCM) tools could save companies billions of dollars. Attempts to automate solutions to these problems are complicated by the need for the different companies in a …
Philosophical Agents, John R. Rose, Michael N. Huhns
Philosophical Agents, John R. Rose, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Abstraction is the technique we use to deal with complexity. What is the proper kind and level of abstraction for complex software agents? We think it would be reasonable to endow agents with a philosophy. Then, by understanding their philosophies, we can use them more effectively. To endow agents with ethical principles, developers need an architecture that supports explicit goals, principles and capabilities, as well as laws and ways to sanction or punish miscreants. All of the ethical approaches described in this article are single-agent in orientation and encode other agents implicitly.
Trust And Persistence, Paul A. Buhler, Michael N. Huhns
Trust And Persistence, Paul A. Buhler, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
We rely on computers to control our power plants and water supplies, our automobiles and transportation systems, and soon our economic and political systems. Increasingly, software agents are enmeshed in these systems, serving as the glue that connects distributed components. Clearly, we need mechanisms to determine whether these agents are trustworthy. What do we need to establish trust? Agents are often characterized by features such as autonomy, sociability, proactiveness, and persistent identity. This latter feature is key in determining trust. When agents operate over an extended period, they can earn a reputation for competence, timeliness, ease of use, and trustworthiness, …
The Emergence Of Language Among Autonomous Agents, Piotr Gmytrasiewicz, Michael N. Huhns
The Emergence Of Language Among Autonomous Agents, Piotr Gmytrasiewicz, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Suppose some autonomous shopbot agents had been representing us by dealing with a vendor's pricebot, and suppose they didn't share an agent communication language (ACL). What should they know at a fundamental level, what could each point to, and how could they establish a common language? Recent research at the University of Texas at Arlington has shown that agents first establish a common vocabulary, progress to a primitive language similar to human pidgin, then enrich the language's grammar to develop a creole, and eventually arrive at a full-blown ACL. During this process, the vocabulary and grammatical structures most important to …
Sensors + Agents + Networks = Aware Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Sreenath Seshadri
Sensors + Agents + Networks = Aware Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Sreenath Seshadri
Faculty Publications
Software agents are being deployed in increasing numbers to help users find and manage information, particularly in open environments such as the Internet. For the most part, they operate independently and are typically designed to be aware only of their users and the environment in which they perform their tasks. Thus, they fail to take advantage of each other's abilities or results. For example, a shopping agent might periodically access several online databases to find the best price for a music CD and then purchase it if the price falls below its user's threshold. Other agents might be tracking prices …
Benevolent Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Abdulla Mohamed
Benevolent Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Abdulla Mohamed
Faculty Publications
Some agents roaming the Web these days are benevolent-for example, they may clean up stalled or failed database transactions, or share query results that may have cost substantial resources to acquire and might consume more to share. The Agent Behavior Testbed is a tool for studying the economics of agent altruism. As more agents hit the Internet, benevolence and cooperation will help with overall efficiency and productivity. The paper discusses benevolent agents on the Web.
Cognitive Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Cognitive Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Faculty Publications
Several researchers have proposed using cognitive concepts as a semantic basis for agent communications (M.N. Huhns and M.P. Singh, 1997). One of the leading candidates for such a semantics is based on Arcol, the communication language used within Artimis. Interestingly, this application (not only of Arcol, but also in general) appears extremely misguided. The intentional concepts are well suited to designing agents, but are not suited to giving a basis to a public, standardizable view of communication. A challenge for using the cognitive concepts is that although they are natural in several respects and can guide implementations, full blown implementations …
Workflow Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Workflow Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Faculty Publications
Software agents as user agents, resource agents, and brokers may be able to enhance usefulness of workflow applications. Workflow technology is important to network computing because workflows exist naturally wherever distributed resources are interrelated. The problem with current workflow technology is that it is often too rigid. The lack of freedom accorded to human participants causes workflow management systems to appear unfriendly. As a result, they are often ignored or circumvented. This rigidity also causes productivity losses by making it harder to accommodate the flexible, ad hoc reasoning of human intelligence. Another challenge is that system requirements are rarely static. …
All Agents Are Not Created Equal, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
All Agents Are Not Created Equal, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Faculty Publications
As the technology advances, we can expect the development of specialized agents to be used as standardized building blocks for information systems. Two trends lend credence to such a prediction. First, software systems in general are being constructed with larger components, such as ActiveX and JavaBeans, which are becoming closer to being agents themselves. They have more functionality than simple objects, respond to events autonomously, and, most importantly, respond to system builders at development time, as well as to events at runtime. Moreover, there is a move toward more cooperative information systems, in which the architecture itself plays an important …
Agent Jurisprudence, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Agent Jurisprudence, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Faculty Publications
The agent metaphor comes packaged with a number of powerful abstractions. Some of these are psychological, such as beliefs, knowledge, and intentions-abstractions that were traditionally studied in AI. However, there are a number of other abstractions that the agent metaphor brings to the fore. Of these, one has been emphasizing the social abstractions. Close cousins of the social abstractions are the ethical and legal abstractions. These too are being recognized as increasingly important in developing agents that are not only sociable, but also well behaved.
Anthropoid Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Anthropoid Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Faculty Publications
In the study of agents on the Internet, we often ascribe to them human qualities, such as beliefs and intentions. These qualities are best understood as metaphors that give developers a way to talk about and design the capabilities and applications of agents. Despite all the progress in computing, users have been slow to accept the technology. They have often accepted what was thrown at them, but only under economic duress. Bringing the technology closer to their emotional needs might ease this resistance. So how can we put a human face on computing? Maybe by putting an animated face on …
Ontologies For Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Ontologies For Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Faculty Publications
An ontology is a computational model of some portion of the world. It is often captured in some form of a semantic network-a graph whose nodes are concepts or individual objects and whose arcs represent relationships or associations among the concepts. This network is augmented by properties and attributes, constraints, functions, and rules that govern the behavior of the concepts. Formally, an ontology is an agreement about a shared conceptualization, which includes frameworks for modeling domain knowledge and agreements about the representation of particular domain theories. Definitions associate the names of entities in a universe of discourse (for example, classes, …
The Agent Test, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
The Agent Test, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh
Faculty Publications
The authors consider agents on the World Wide Web, including information retrieval agents. They propose a test for agenthood, involving communication in multi-agent systems.
Internet-Based Agents: Applications And Infrastructure, Munindar P. Singh, Michael N. Huhns
Internet-Based Agents: Applications And Infrastructure, Munindar P. Singh, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Software agents are mitigating the complexity of modern information systems—technically by providing a locus for managing information subsets, and psychologically by providing an abstraction for human interaction with them.