Intelligent Agents and Multi-agent Systems

SPONSORSHIP

NIST/ATP, DARA

BREIF DESCRIPTION

Intelligent agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) are a new paradigm outgrown from distributed AI and object oriented programming for building large, complex intelligent system. They have also been shown to be a powerful technology for modeling, and integration in software engineering. Our research activities in this area are along the following directions:

Application of MAS to enterprise software integration. This effort was sponsored by two NIST/APT grants. The first, Integrated Intelligent Planning-Execution (IIPE), aimed at developing MAS based framework and technologies for integrating manufacturing execution systems toward agile amnufacturing. The second, Extended Enterprise Coalition for Integrated Collaborative Manufactuirng Systems (EECOMS), extended the framework to the integration of manufacturing applications in a multi-company supply chain planning and execution environment.
Infrastructure for agent systems. We have investigated issues involving agent communication languages, distributed trust, intelligent broker agent, and developed a Java-based agent development toolkit Jackal.
Semantic Web meets agents. Semantic Web and its ontology language OWL provide the needed mechanism for agents to share meanings in exchanging messages, on the other hand, intelligent agents are potentially capable of explore semantically marked up web pages with their reasoning and learning abilities. We have experimented in our ITTALK project ideas how these two important technologies can be best incorporated. Various DAML/OWL ontologies have also been developed in our other agent related systems (e.g., distributed trust model, intelligent broker, agent system for E-Commerce).

RELATED PAPERS

Luan, X., Peng, Y., and Finin, T: “Quantitative Agent Service Matching”, To appear in the Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence(WI'04), 20-24 September, 2004, Beijing, China.
Chen, Y. and Peng Y.: “An Extended Bayesian Belief Network Model of Multi-agent Systems for Supply Chain Management”, in Innovative Concepts for Agent-Based Systems, Springer-Verlag, 2003, 335-346.
Kunjithapatham, A., Sheshagiri, M., Finin, T., Joshi, A. and Peng, Y: “Personal Agents on the Semantic Web”, the Second International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2003), Oct. 20 – 23, 2003.
Zou, Y., Finin, T., Peng, Y., Joshi, A., and Cost, R.S: “Agent Communication in DAML World”, in Innovative Concepts for Agent-Based Systems, Springer-Verlag, 2003, 347-354.
Cost, R.S., Finin, T., Joshi, A., Peng, Y., Nicholas, C., Soboroff, I., Chen, H., Kagal, L., Perich, F., Zou, Y., Tolia S.: “ITTALKS: A Case Study in the Semantic Web and DAML”, IEEE Intelligent Systems, 17(1), 40-47, 2002.
Kagal, L., Finin, T. and Peng, Y: “A Delegation Based Model for Distributed Trust Management”, in Proceedings of IJCAI-01 Workshop on Autonomy, Delegation, and Control, August 2001.
Luan, X., Peng, Y. and Finin, T.: “Agent Consumer Reports: Of the Agents, By the Agents, and For the agents”, in Proceedings of the Second Asia-Pacific Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'01). Maebashi City, Japan, October 23-26, 2001.
Cost, R. S., Chen, Y., Finin, T., Labrou, Y, and Peng, Y: “Using Colored Petri Nets for Conversation Modeling”, in Agent Communication Languages, F. Dignum and M. Greaves (editors), Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in AI, 2000, 178-192.
Fong, E., Ivezic, N., Rhodes, T., and Y. Peng, "Agent-based Services for B2B Electronic Commerce," in Network Intelligence: Internet-based Manufacturing, Nina M. Berry (d.), July 30 – August 4, 2000, San Diego, CA. Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 4208, 106-113, 2000.
Peng, Y., Finin, T., Labrou, Y., Chu, B., Long, J., Tolone, W.J., Boughannam, A: “Agent-Based Approach for Manufacturing Integration: the CIIMPLEX Experience”, Applied Artificial Intelligence, 13(1-2), 39-64, 1999.
Labrou, Y., Finin, T., and Peng, Y: “Agent Communication Languages: The current landscape”, IEEE Intelligent Systems, 14(2), 1999, 45-52.
Cost, R.S., Finin, T., Labrou, Y., Luan, X., Peng, Y., Soboroff, I., Mayfield, J., and Boughannam, A: “An Agent-Based Infrastructure for Enterprise Integration”, First International Symposium on Agent Systems and Applications (ASA'99) & Third International Symposium on Mobile Agents (MA'99), 1999.
Chen, Y., Peng, Y., Finin, T., Labrou, Y., and Cost, R.S: “Negotiating agents for Supply Chain Management,” in Work Note of AAAI Workshop of Electronic Commerce, Orlando Florida, U.S., July 31 - August 4, 1999.
Peng, Y., Finin, T., Labrou, Y., Chu, B., Long, J., Tolone, W.J., Boughanam, A: “A Multi-Agent System for Enterprise Integration”, International Journal of Agile Manufacturing, 1(2), 201-212, 1998.
Tolone, W.J., Chu, B., Long, J., Wilhelm, R., Finin, T., Peng, Y: “Supporting Human Interactions within Integrated Manufacturing Systems”, International Journal of Agile Manufacturing, 1(2), 221-234, 1998.
Finin T, Labrou Y. and Peng Y: “Mobile Agents Can Benefit from Standard Efforts on Inter-Agent Communication”, IEEE Communications Magazine, 36(7), 50-56, 1998.
Chu, B., Long, J., Tolone, W.J., Wilhelm, R., Peng, Y., Finin, T., Mathews, M.: “Towards Intelligent Integrated Manufacturing Planning-Execution”, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Systems, 1(1), 77-83, 1997.
Chu, B., Tolone, W. J., Wilhelm, R., Hegedus, M., Fesko, J., Finin, T., Peng, Y., Jones, C. Long, J., Matthews, M., Mayfied, J., Shimp, J., and Su, S: “Integrating Manufacturing Softwares for Intelligent Planning-Execution: A CIIMPLEX Perspective”, in Plug and Play Software for Agile Manufacturing, Proceedings of SPIE, 2913, Boston, MA, 1996, 96-108.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Contact Yun Peng, ypeng@umbc.edu .