Springer Agent Technology

By: Mark d'Inverno, Michael Luck

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Hardcover | 9 October 2003 | Edition Number 2

At a Glance

Hardcover
266 Pages

Edition Type
Revised

Dimensions(cm)
23.5 x 15.88 x 1.91

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This book helps to organise the diverse landscape of agent-based systems by applying formal methods to provide a defining and encompassing agent framework. The Z specification language is used to provide an accessible and unified formal account of agent systems and inter-agent relationships. In particular, the framework precisely and unambiguously provides meanings for common concepts and terms for agent systems, enables alternative agent models and architectures to be described within it, and provides a foundation for subsequent development of increasingly more refined agent concepts. It describes agents, the relationships between them and the requisite capabilities for effective functioning in multi-agent systems, and is applied in different case studies. In the second edition the authors have revised and updated the existing chapters of the book to respond to advice from readers of the first edition, to add references to recent work in agent systems, and generally to bring the content up to date. They have extended the introduction and conclusions chapters to include a better review of the field and the current state of the art.This new edition features chapters on agent interaction and norms, and outlines an implementation framework. The book will appeal equally to researchers, students and technologists interested in intelligent agents and multi-agent systems.

Industry Reviews

From the reviews of the second edition:

An excellent book that lays out a clear conceptual framework for studying and analysing agent-based systems.

Nick Jennings

Mark d'Inverno and Michael Luck have, over the last six or seven years, been at the forefront of European research in agent systems. This book poses some important foundational questions about agents and their interactions in multi-agent systems and answers them in a coherent and convincing way. It's an extremely valuable contribution to the field.

Michael Georgeff

It is undoubtedly a clear and most comprehensive attempt to describe agent-based systems in a unified manner.

Simon Parsons

"This book presents a formal approach to dealing with agents and agent systems. ... The methodology presented takes a very significant step towards organising and structuring the diverse and disparate landscape of agent-based systems by applying formal methods to develop a defining andencompassing agent framework. The book will appeal equally to researchers, students, and professionals in industry." (PHINEWS, Vol. 7, 2005)

"The book consists of twelve chapters on two-hundred forty pages and contains a representative list of nearly two hundred references. Each chapter ends with a summary briefly outlining the main ideas. The significant ideas are illustrated by well chosen examples. ... The book is useful for everybody interested in agent-based systems ... . For his/her benefit, he/she gets didactically a perfect book presenting a unified view of a heterogeneous field of agent-based systems." (Tomas Brandejsky, Neural Network World, Vol. 14 (5), 2004)

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Computing & I.T.Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Computer Architecture & Logic Design Computer Hardware Network Hardware Computer Programming & Software Development Software Engineering Mathematical Theory of Computation

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Paperback

Published: 5th December 2010

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The Agent Landscape	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
Agents	p. 3
Terminology	p. 3
Problems with Definition	p. 5
Multi-Agent Systems	p. 6
Desiderata for a Conceptual View of Agents	p. 7
A Formal Framework for Agent Definition and Development	p. 8
Formal Frameworks	p. 8
Notation	p. 9
Specification Structure Diagrams	p. 10
The SMART Agent Framework	p. 15
Introduction	p. 15
Initial Concepts	p. 15
Entities	p. 19
Entity State	p. 20
Entity Operations	p. 21
Objects	p. 21
Object Behaviour	p. 22
Object State	p. 22
Object Operations	p. 23
Agents	p. 24
Introduction	p. 24
Agent Specification	p. 24
Agent Perception	p. 26
Agent Action	p. 27
Agent State	p. 27
Agent Operations	p. 28
Autonomy	p. 29
Introduction	p. 29
Autonomous Agent Specification	p. 30
Autonomous Agent Perception	p. 31
Autonomous Agent Action	p. 31
Autonomous Agent State	p. 32
Autonomous Agent Operations	p. 32
Applying SMART: Tropistic Agents	p. 33
Tropistic Agents	p. 33
Reformulating Perception	p. 33
Reformulating Action	p. 34
Discussion	p. 35
Specification Structure of SMART	p. 35
Related Work	p. 38
Summary	p. 39
Agent Relationships	p. 41
Introduction	p. 41
Multi-Agent Systems	p. 42
Multi-Agent System Definition	p. 42
Server-Agents and Neutral-Objects	p. 42
Multi-Agent System Specification	p. 43
Goal Generation	p. 44
Discussion	p. 44
Goal Generation Specification	p. 45
Goal Adoption	p. 47
Goal Adoption by Neutral-Objects	p. 48
Goal Adoption by Server-Agents	p. 50
Autonomous Goal Adoption	p. 51
Autonomous Goal Destruction	p. 52
Engagement	p. 53
Direct Engagement	p. 53
Direct Engagements in a Multi-Agent System	p. 55
Engagement Chains	p. 55
Engagement Chains in a Multi-Agent System	p. 57
Cooperation	p. 58
Cooperations in a Multi-Agent System	p. 59
Discussion and Example	p. 60
The Agent Society	p. 61
Agent Relationships Taxonomy	p. 63
Direct Engagement Relation	p. 63
Generic Engagement Relation	p. 63
Indirect Engagement Relation	p. 64
Generic Ownership Relation	p. 65
Direct Ownership Relation	p. 65
Unique Ownership Relation	p. 66
Specific Ownership Relation	p. 66
Generic Cooperation Relation	p. 67
Summary	p. 68
An Operational Analysis of Agent Relationships	p. 71
Introduction	p. 71
Initial Concepts	p. 72
Making Engagements	p. 74
Breaking Engagements	p. 79
Joining Cooperations	p. 81
Leaving Cooperations	p. 83
An Illustrative Example	p. 86
Summary	p. 91
Sociological Agents	p. 93
Introduction	p. 93
Agent Store	p. 94
Applying Smart: Hysteretic Agents	p. 98
Applying Smart: Knowledge-Based Agents	p. 99
Agent Models	p. 101
Entity Models	p. 101
Sociological Agents	p. 102
Modelling the Motivations of Others	p. 106
Modelling the Models of Others	p. 108
Agent Plans	p. 110
Introduction	p. 110
Plan-Agents	p. 110
Multi-Agent Plans	p. 112
Multi-Agent Plan-Agents	p. 116
Sociological Plan-Agents	p. 117
An Illustrative Example	p. 120
Modelling the Plans of Others	p. 124
Summary	p. 124
Autonomous Interaction	p. 127
Introduction	p. 127
Speech Acts	p. 127
Problems with Autonomous Interaction	p. 128
Pre-determined Agenda	p. 128
Benevolence	p. 129
Guaranteed Effects	p. 129
Automatic Intention Recognition	p. 129
Multi-Agent Modelling	p. 129
Summary	p. 130
A Model of Autonomous Interaction	p. 130
Sociological Goal Generation	p. 131
Agent Interaction	p. 131
Prediction	p. 133
Experimentation	p. 133
Observation and Evaluation	p. 134
Revision	p. 136
Summary	p. 136
The Contract Net as a Goal Directed System	p. 139
Introduction	p. 139
Contract Net Protocol	p. 139
Contract Net Components	p. 141
Nodes	p. 141
Agents	p. 141
Monitor Agents	p. 142
Idle Nodes	p. 142
Server-Agents	p. 142
Contract Net Relationships	p. 143
Contract Net State	p. 146
Task Announcements	p. 146
Bids	p. 146
System State	p. 147
Contract Net Protocol	p. 147
Axiomatic Definitions	p. 147
Making Task Announcements	p. 148
Making Bids	p. 149
Awarding Contracts	p. 150
Terminating Contracts	p. 151
Summary	p. 152
Computational Architecture for BDI Agents	p. 155
Introduction	p. 155
AgentSpeak(L)	p. 155
Types	p. 156
Beliefs	p. 157
Events	p. 157
Plans	p. 158
Intentions	p. 159
AgentSpeak(L) Agents	p. 159
AgentSpeak(L) Agent Operation	p. 160
Summary	p. 165
Evaluating Social Dependence Networks	p. 167
Introduction	p. 167
Social Dependence Networks	p. 167
Action and Resource Autonomy	p. 169
Dependence Relations	p. 169
Dependence Situations	p. 169
External Descriptions	p. 169
Introduction	p. 169
SDN in SMART	p. 170
Formalising External Descriptions	p. 172
Action and Resource Autonomy	p. 173
Dependence Relations	p. 175
Dependence Situations	p. 178
Summary	p. 180
Normative Agents	p. 183
Introduction	p. 183
Norms	p. 184
Obligations and Prohibitions	p. 185
Social Commitments	p. 186
Social Codes	p. 186
Chains of Norms	p. 187
Norm Instances	p. 187
Interlocking Norms	p. 188
Normative Agents	p. 189
Normative Multi-Agent Systems	p. 190
Normative Roles	p. 191
Norm Dynamics	p. 192
Changing Norms	p. 192
Norm States	p. 193
Norm Compliance	p. 195
Enforcement Mechanisms	p. 195
Normative Agent State	p. 196
The Norm Compliance Process	p. 197
Conclusions	p. 198
actSMART: Building a SMART System	p. 201
Introduction	p. 201
An Example	p. 202
actSMART Agent Implementation	p. 203
Design Principles	p. 203
Java for Agent Systems	p. 204
Jini	p. 204
eXtensible Markup Language	p. 205
Agent construction model for actSMART	p. 206
Object and Agent Creation in actSMART	p. 207
Neutral-Object	p. 207
Autonomous Agents	p. 208
Example architecture	p. 209
Engaging Neutral-Objects	p. 210
Conclusions	p. 211
Conclusions	p. 213
Summary	p. 213
The SMART Framework	p. 213
Agent Relationships	p. 213
Agent Architectures	p. 214
Evaluation	p. 214
Generality	p. 215
Application	p. 215
Concluding Remarks	p. 216
The Z Specification Language	p. 219
Introduction to Z	p. 219
Generic Z Definitions	p. 222
Sets	p. 222
Relations	p. 223
Functions	p. 224
Sequences	p. 225
References	p. 227
Index	p. 237
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Springer Agent Technology

At a Glance

Hardcover

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

Other Editions and Formats

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