Applications of Multi-Agent Systems in Social Sciences: Virtual Enterprises as an Example

Author(s):  
Anata-Flavia Ionescu ◽  
Dorin-Mircea Popovici
Author(s):  
Samuel G. Collins ◽  
Goran P. Trajkovski

Many in IT education—following on more than twenty years of multicultural critique and theory—have integrated “diversity” into their curricula. But while this is certainly laudable, there is an irony to the course “multiculturalism” has taken in the sciences in general. By submitting to a canon originating in the humanities and social sciences—no matter how progressive or well-intentioned—much of the transgressive and revolutionary character of multicultural pedagogies is lost in translation, and the insights of radical theorists become, simply, one more module to graft onto existing curricula or, at the very least, another source of authority joining or supplanting existing canons. In this essay, we feel that introducing diversity into IT means generating this body of creative critique from within IT itself, in the same way multiculturalism originated in the critical, transgressive spaces between literature, cultural studies, anthropology and pedagogy. The following traces our efforts to develop isomorphic critiques from recent insights into multi-agent systems using a JAVA-based, software agent we’ve developed called “Izbushka.”


Author(s):  
Samuel G. Collins ◽  
Goran Trajkovski

Many in IT education—following on more than twenty years of multicultural critique and theory—have integrated “diversity” into their curricula. But while this is certainly laudable, there is an irony to the course “multiculturalism” has taken in the sciences in general. By submitting to a canon originating in the humanities and social sciences—no matter how progressive or well-intentioned—much of the transgressive and revolutionary character of multicultural pedagogies is lost in translation, and the insights of radical theorists become, simply, one more module to graft onto existing curricula or, at the very least, another source of authority joining or supplanting existing canons. In this essay, we feel that introducing diversity into IT means generating this body of creative critique from within IT itself, in the same way multiculturalism originated in the critical, transgressive spaces between literature, cultural studies, anthropology and pedagogy. The following traces our efforts to develop isomorphic critiques from recent insights into multi-agent systems using a JAVA-based, software agent we’ve developed called “Izbushka.”


Author(s):  
V. I. Abramov ◽  
A. N. Kudinov ◽  
D. S. Evdokimov

Agent based models (ABM) and multiagent systems (MAS) can be used to solve problems in many fields of research - from natural and computer to economics and social sciences. Many natural and social phenomena can be represented in form of complex simulations so over time agent models and multi-agent systems have proven to be a really powerful tool in areas such as economics and trade, health, urban planning and social sciences. In addition multi-agent systems can be represented as an artificial society similar to a human one and consisting of entities with characteristics similar to human ones, for example in terms of autonomy and intelligence. ABM are based on the principle of objective orientation as well as the evolution (training) of agents in the process of modeling various variants of the proposed events. Despite the apparent simplicity of the rules of interaction between agents the results are usually non-obvious and quite meaningful. ABM can be developed both at the micro level and represent models with multiple agents at the macro level. The concept of multi-agent systems which immediately gained followers and support in both scientific circles and industrial communities, first started talking in the mid-1980s. Over the past thirty years, the methodology of IAU creation has been constantly improved: technologies and tools for its promotion and use in the management of large-scale network structures (such as defense systems, energy, health, transport, logistics, urban management, collective robotics, etc.) have been actively developed. The scope of application of MAS is very wide. The analysis of implemented MAS proves that currently the tool is the most advanced technology for managing any objects built on the principles of self-organization. However, despite all the evidence of positive prospects for the introduction of AOM technology the number of examples of its successful application to date is small. In this regard creation of new platforms for discussion of international experience and improvement of the approach to simulation modeling in general is especially important for further dissemination of AMB and MAS. Creation of an open consortium for agent-oriented modeling as well as promotion of development, communication and dissemination of research results as well as implementation of educational activities together will contribute to the development of agent based modeling. The analysis and review of existing methodology of social modeling with use of agent based approach in the application to scientific and technical development, implementation of R&D and maintenance of innovative potential showed that models characterized by complex multi-level processes and interactions of agents have more capacious software structures which depend more on the "fine" tuning of the agents themselves. Such models can contain and use a voluminous set of data, and in the field of economic research tend to focus on the analysis and forecasting of various socio-economic processes at the macro level.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Marks

AbstractAlthough they flow from a common source, the uses of multi-agent systems (or ‘agent-based computational systems’––ACE) vary between the social sciences and computer science. The distinction can be broadly summarized as analysis versus synthesis, or explanation versus design. I compare and contrast these uses, and discuss sufficiency and necessity in simulations in general and in multi-agent systems in particular, with a computer science audience in mind.


Author(s):  
MIHAELA ULIERU ◽  
RAINER UNLAND

In today's world, it is of utterly importance for enterprises to react in a timely and flexible way to upcoming complex market demands. One solution is given by the concept of virtual enterprise and enterprise alliances, respectively. In order to function efficiently and flexibly such enterprises need to be deeply integrated. Based on previous work combining the concepts of virtual enterprises, holonic organizations and multi-agent systems to support such deep integration, the paper discusses in detail how well-suiting partners and contributors for a given (bunch of) task(s) can be found using today's state-of-the-art technologies. Mapping an enterprise alliance onto a multi-agent system is enabled by a methodology equipping each agent with the ability to deal and consider its own goals (goals of the unit it represents) as well as the goals of the unit in which it is integrated (the higher level unit).


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (15) ◽  
pp. 5329
Author(s):  
Stefano Mariani ◽  
Andrea Omicini

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are built around the central notions of agents, interaction, and environment. Agents are autonomous computational entities able to pro-actively pursue goals, and re-actively adapt to environment change. In doing so, they leverage on their social and situated capabilities: interacting with peers, and perceiving/acting on the environment. The relevance of MAS is steadily growing as they are extensively and increasingly used to model, simulate, and build heterogeneous systems across many different application scenarios and business domains, ranging from logistics to social sciences, from robotics to supply chain, and more. The reason behind such a widespread and diverse adoption lies in MAS great expressive power in modeling and actually supporting operational execution of a variety of systems demanding decentralized computations, reasoning skills, and adaptiveness to change, which are a perfect fit for MAS central notions introduced above. This special issue gathers 11 contributions sampling the many diverse advancements that are currently ongoing in the MAS field.


Author(s):  
Sobah Abbas Petersen ◽  
Jinghai Rao ◽  
Mihhail Matskin

This chapter describes the use of software agents and Web Services to support the formation of Virtual Enterprises. The partners of a Virtual Enterprise are represented as software agents. The AGORA multi-agent architecture is used. The focus of this chapter is on the description of the services provided by each partner and the partner selection process. The concept of Agent Interaction Protocols is used to manage the interactions during the formation of the Virtual Enterprise. An implementation of the ideas and examples from industrial case studies are used for the validation of the approach and discussions. The use of Semantic Web technology and Web Services with multi-agent systems is discussed as the future directions for this work.


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