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Articles 91 - 120 of 136
Full-Text Articles in Computer Engineering
The Zen Of The Web, Jeff Heflin, Michael N. Huhns
The Zen Of The Web, Jeff Heflin, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
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.
Massive Deliberation, William H. Turkett Jr., John R. Rose, Michael N. Huhns
Massive Deliberation, William H. Turkett Jr., John R. Rose, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Agents are proliferating on the Web, making it conceivable that their collective reasoning ability might someday be harnessed for robust decision-making. The hope is that massive deliberation power can soon help solve problems that require knowledge, reasoning, and intelligence. Until recently, working individually or in small groups, agents across the Web could barely communicate and could only reason under conditions of severely bounded rationality. Projects such as Agentcities showed that widespread heterogeneous agents could collaborate on specific predefined tasks and provide diverse agent-based services. When the tasks are dynamic, of long duration, and ill defined, however, success requires planning that …
Consensus Software: Robustness And Social Good, Michael N. Huhns
Consensus Software: Robustness And Social Good, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
In this column I explore some far-reaching issues of software development that lie at the intersection of robust software and sociopolitical systems. These two areas might seem unrelated-and most software developers would likely be horrified to have politics intrude on their programming efforts-but the intersection occurs through these premises: software systems administer and control much of our societal infrastructure; people would appreciate and better accept that control if they had input into the nature of the control and the systems' behavior; designers can make software systems more robust through redundancy, in which different versions of software components might cover for …
On Localized Control In Qos Routing, Srihari Nelakuditi, Srivatsan Varadarajan, Zhi-Li Zhang
On Localized Control In Qos Routing, Srihari Nelakuditi, Srivatsan Varadarajan, Zhi-Li Zhang
Faculty Publications
In this note, we study several issues in the design of localized quality-of-service (QoS) routing schemes that make routing decisions based on locally collected QoS state information (i.e., there is no network-wide information exchange among routers). In particular, we investigate the granularity of local QoS state information and its impact on the design of localized QoS routing schemes from a theoretical perspective. We develop two theoretical models for studying localized proportional routing: one using the link-level information and the other using path-level information. We compare the performance of these localized proportional routing models with that of a global optimal proportional …
A Localized Adaptive Proportioning Approach To Qos Routing, Srihari Nelakuditi, Zhi-Li Zhang
A Localized Adaptive Proportioning Approach To Qos Routing, Srihari Nelakuditi, Zhi-Li Zhang
Faculty Publications
In QoS routing, paths for flows are selected based on knowledge of resource availability at network nodes and the QoS requirements of flows. Several QoS routing schemes have been proposed that differ in the way they gather information about the network state and select paths based on this information. We broadly categorize these schemes into best path routing and proportional routing. The best path routing schemes gather global network state information and always select the best path for an incoming I-low,based on this global view. It has been shown that best path routing schemes require frequent exchange of network state, …
Trusted Autonomy, Michael N. Huhns, Duncan A. Buell
Trusted Autonomy, Michael N. Huhns, Duncan A. Buell
Faculty Publications
We describe how agents are the right building blocks for constructing trustworthy systems. Robust software and trusted autonomy represent the future for agent technology and software engineering.
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 …
Making Agents Secure On The Semantic Web, Csilla Farkas, Michael N. Huhns
Making Agents Secure On The Semantic Web, Csilla Farkas, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Agents were designed to collaborate and share information. While highly desirable for interoperability, this feature is scary from the security perspective. Illegal inferences, supported by semantic Web technology and ontologies, might enable users to access unauthorized information. In addition to semantic associations and replicated data with different sensitivity, malicious agents could also exploit statistical inferences. Although each agent in a system might behave in a desired and secure way, their combined knowledge could be used to disclose sensitive data. The research community must therefore develop and implement techniques that allow control over released data. To answer the questions related to …
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 …
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, …
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 …
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.
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 …
Hop Integrity In Computer Networks, Mohamed G. Gouda, E.N. Elnozahy, Chin-Tser Huang, Tommy M. Mcguire
Hop Integrity In Computer Networks, Mohamed G. Gouda, E.N. Elnozahy, Chin-Tser Huang, Tommy M. Mcguire
Faculty Publications
A computer network is said to provide hop integrity iff when any router p in the network receives a message m supposedly from an adjacent router q, then p can check that m was indeed sent by q, was not modified after it was sent, and was not a replay of an old message sent from q to p. We describe three protocols that can be added to the routers in a computer network so that the network can provide hop integrity. These three protocols are a secret exchange protocol, a weak integrity protocol, and a strong integrity protocol. All …
An Agent-Based Global Economy, Michael N. Huhns
An Agent-Based Global Economy, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Many people are buying music CDs over the Web, but with multiple retail sites offering the same CDs, how do you decide which retailer to buy from? Typically, you visit a few sites and choose the one with the lowest price. Shopbotsshopping agents that automatically search the Internet to obtain information about prices and other attributes of goods and servicesare ideal helpers for such a task.1 The better ones can visit hundreds of sites, giving price-conscious consumers a powerful tool that could work to the detriment of some retailers.
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 …
Agent Teams: Building And Implementing Software, Michael N. Huhns
Agent Teams: Building And Implementing Software, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Agents will become fundamental building blocks for general-purpose Internet-based software. The software may not display any explicitly agent-like characteristics, but it will exhibit the benefits of tolerance to errors, ease of maintenance, adaptability to change, and speed of construction that agents provide. Moreover, an agent-based approach to software development can lead to new types of software solutions that might not otherwise be obvious. The author considers how an approach based on teams of active, cooperative, and persistent software components, that is agents, shows special promise in enabling the rapid construction of robust and reusable software.
Online Auctions, Michael N. Huhns, José M. Vidal
Online Auctions, Michael N. Huhns, José M. Vidal
Faculty Publications
Auctions on the Internet can involve not only consumers, but also businesses. They can form dynamically and enable the exchange of goods much as stock exchanges manage the buying and selling of securities. But because auctions have a wide scope and a short lifetime, the opportunistic behavior needed for successful interaction requires agents to both participate in and manage auctions. The article focuses on the use of software agents in such Internet based auctions
Exploiting Expertise Through Knowledge Networks, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens
Exploiting Expertise Through Knowledge Networks, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens
Faculty Publications
The paper discusses the necessary capabilities of knowledge networks: categorizing (the ability to classify Web pages and other unstructured data automatically); hyperlinking (the ability to add to each item of information appropriate pointers to other relevant items of information); alerting (the automatic notification of users and agents to new information that might be of interest to them); and profiling (the construction of models of users and agents to describe their interests and expertise).
Personal Ontologies, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens
Personal Ontologies, Michael N. Huhns, Larry M. Stevens
Faculty Publications
Corporations can suffer from too much information, and it is often inaccessible, inconsistent, and incomprehensible. The corporate solution entails knowledge management techniques and data warehouses. The paper discusses the use of the personal ontology. The promising approach is an organization scheme based on a model of an office and its information, an ontology, coupled with the proper tools for using it.
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.
Networking Embedded Agents, Michael N. Huhns
Networking Embedded Agents, Michael N. Huhns
Faculty Publications
Most of us will soon be managing an intranet in our homes, though we might not realize it. We might also be surprised at the devices that will be networked together. Just about every electrical device now contains one or more microprocessors. Designers typically find this a cost-effective way to provide device functionality, even when much of a processor's power is unnecessary or unused. For example, my coffee maker contains a processor, even though the appliance needn't be very smart and wastes most of its CPU cycles. Nevertheless, it is cheaper to include a general-purpose microprocessor than to incorporate custom …
Negotiating For Goods And Services, Michael N. Huhns, Anuj K. Malhotra
Negotiating For Goods And Services, Michael N. Huhns, Anuj K. Malhotra
Faculty Publications
Can a negotiation protocol be both fair and “envy-free” when more than two agents are involved? The authors consider how envy-free apportioning is more difficult than fair apportioning, but both can help to manage critical resources. They discuss an envy-free protocol and agent-based Web auctions.