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Agent Technology Diffusion National Roadshow

Agent Technology Diffusion National Roadshow. Sydney May 25, 2000. Overview. Context (5 minutes) The excitement of agents (90 mins) Coffee break (30 mins) The definition of agents (45 mins) The reality of agents, including trip report (45 mins). Presenters. Professor Liz Sonenberg

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Agent Technology Diffusion National Roadshow

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  1. Agent Technology DiffusionNational Roadshow Sydney May 25, 2000

  2. Overview • Context (5 minutes) • The excitement of agents (90 mins) • Coffee break (30 mins) • The definition of agents (45 mins) • The reality of agents, including trip report (45 mins)

  3. Presenters • Professor Liz Sonenberg • University of Melbourne • Dr Andrew Lucas • Agent-Oriented Software • Dr Klaus Fischer • DFKI • Company Presenters • AOS, The Distillery, DFKI, DSTO

  4. Presenters • Professor Liz Sonenberg • University of Melbourne • Dr Klaus Fischer • DFKI • Nick Howden • Agent-Oriented Software • Company Presenters • AOS, CSIRO, DFKI, Bullant

  5. Agents in a Nutshell • An agent is a software program that operates autonomously in a (distributed) environment sensing events and interacting with other agents to perform its goals • New in its emphasis on environment and autonomy, consolidates need for communication

  6. The excitement of agents • Virtual marketplace • Virtual enterprise • Virtual knowledge store • Virtual environments • Simulations • Robocup • Believable Agents

  7. Virtual Marketplace

  8. E-Commerce ... Electronic Commerce: comprises activities of selling and purchasing products and services on line. • Business-to-Business (EDI/WebEDI Transactions) • Business-to-Consumer (Online Retailer, Auctions) • Consumer-to-Consumer (Marketplace, Auctions) • Consumer-to-Business (Reverse Auctions) Electronic Business: covers all activities devoted to electronic business processes and transactions.

  9. single double outcry SB outcry SB descending ascending FPSB, Vickrey Call Market Enlish Duch CDA Classification of Classical Auction Types

  10. Consumer Buying Behaviour (CBB) Comprises actions and decisions involved in buying and using goods and services on retail markets. Three stages of E-Commerce: • Stage 1 - Information • Need Identification • Product Brokering • Merchant Brokering What to buy? Who to buy from? • Stage 2 - Purchase • Negotiation & Order • Payment & Delivery What terms of transactions? • Stage 3 - Service • Product and Customer Service, • Evaluation of buying experience and vendor

  11. Agents in electronic commerce • software agents in helping mediate online transactions • six primary consumer buying behavior stages and where several representative agent systems fall

  12. “Tete-a-Tete helps consumers match their needs with on-line merchants' offerings via agent-mediated integrative negotiation techniques” • sales agents automate negotiation for merchants • shopping agents provide decision support to help shoppers determine the best merchant offering

  13. Virtual Enterprises (VE)

  14. Definition of a VE • [Byrne+93] VE = temporary limited union of independent enterprises which share abilities, costs, and market chances • [Arnold+95] • co-operation of legally independent enterprises • temporary limited • product and service oriented • participants offer their core competencies • VE offers a unique identity to the outside • no institutionalisation (e.g. central office) • operative work is based on IT

  15. Set-up and Management of a VE • Set-up of a Virtual Enterprise • Product or service specification • Specification of the business process • Allocation of sub-processes to partners • Synthesis of overall process • Management of a Virtual Enterprise • Marketing • Supply Chain Management • Accounting

  16. Set-up of a VE

  17. P U L L P U S H Legend: = Material and Information Flow Legend: = Information Flow Supply Chain Management (SCM) Co-ordination of material and information flow in a network of suppliers, producers, distribution centres and retailers in which raw material is acquired, transformed into products and delivered to customers. (M. S. Fox, 94)

  18. Agent based support for VE

  19. The Virtual Knowledge Space • Information agents • AiA • Gossip • Verity • JUSTICE, an example of an info agent

  20. What is an information agent? • Finding information from Internet • Automate searching task • Must cope with diversity • Beyond search engines

  21. Gossip: A mobile info. agent • Written by Tryllian http://www.tryllian.com/index3.html • Agents are sent out into the Internet on the user's behalf to collect information • Gossip agents are mobile • Agents execute on other host computers • Log off the Internet or turn off your computer, and agents will be waiting to return

  22. The Personal Picture Finder

  23. Court Jurisdiction Division CtName Registry State City Country JUSTICE An agent-based enabling technology • concept-based search (Find all negligence cases where Judge Judy awarded for the plaintiff) • summarisation • statistics collection (Which judge is most likely to award for a plaintiff in a personal injury case?) • Performs well for Australian law cases

  24. Virtual environments • Simulation for manufacturing, wargames • Robocup and Roborescue • Animated characters

  25. Flexible Manufacturing Plant Model

  26. dMARSTM SWARMM • DSTO/AOD and AAII • pilot reasoning and tactics evaluation • agent component uses

  27. STOW-97/ TacAirSoar • Soar • based on production rules • TacAirSoar • modelled fixed wing aircraft (over 5000 rules) • 15 different types of aircraft • flew 722 missions over 48 hours • median mission time 3 hrs • typically 30 to 80 aircraft airborne • only 5% of missions had hardware or software problems • ran on 25 Pentiums

  28. RoboCup (small robot league) • a complex task in an adversarial environment • multiple agents need to collaborate to achieve specific objectives • a challenging research domain

  29. Victim agents Robot agents Holonic s upport i nfra - structure Rescuer agents The RoboCup Rescue Scenario Extension of the RoboCup Soccer idea: • Practical use in disaster operations • Cooperative research – many models • Variety of planning problems Research Interests of COGs: • Rescue crews must share limited resources • Agents make decisions under time pressure and uncertain knowledge of the environment • Rescue agents must co-operate with one another - building holonic structures

  30. Animated characters • Ananova • Extempo • Persona

  31. Ananova Automated newsreader

  32. www.extempo.com InteractiveCharacters differentiate Each character's Persona comprises appearance, manner of moving, gesturing, speaking, and social and emotional dynamics natural language conversation animation and voice interfaces, characters use meaningful gestures and facial expressions believable and engaging behavior

  33. Other Extempo charactersCartoon (Flash) or “Agent” animation Jack Jennifer Cupid Mr Clean Santa Merlin

  34. Persona as a Personal Travel Consultant

  35. The Persona Editor

  36. Overview • Context (5 minutes) • The excitement of agents (90 mins) • Coffee break (30 mins) • Agents: what, why, how (45 mins) • The reality of agents, including trip report (45 mins)

  37. The Adequacy Hypothesis Agent-oriented approaches can significantly enhance our ability to model, design and build complex (distributed) software systems

  38. Why agents? • the agent paradigm offers a high level, behaviour driven, perspective on software design - another approach for “managing complexity” • objects as abstractions that describe attributes and methods of a software component • agents as a higher level abstraction defining components in terms of their behaviour • a way of integrating event-driven and goal-driven behaviours • a natural metaphor

  39. Agent Advantages • ‘Natural’ Abstraction level • Easy to specify knowledge (for analysts) • Useful breakdown of problems • Modularity • Coping with legacy systems

  40. What is an Agent? “encapsulated computer system, situated in some environment, and capable of flexible autonomous action in that environment in order to meet its design objectives” (Wooldridge) • control over internal state and over own behavior • experiences environment through sensors and acts through effectors • reactive: respond in timely fashion to environmental change • proactive: act in anticipation of future goals

  41. ORB From Objects to Agents autonomous interacting reactive pro-active

  42. Properties of Agents (Jennings/Wooldridge) Weak Notion Stronger Notion Other of Agency of Agency Properties Autonomy Knowledge/Beliefs Rational Social Ability Intentions Truthful Reactivity Desires/Goals Benevolent Pro-Activeness Obligations Mobile Timeliness CapabilitiesEmotional Persistence

  43. What agents are not • Wizards • Scripting languages • Programming languages • Neural Networks • Pure rule-based systems • Objects

  44. Agent oriented software abstraction level distribution complexityof domain Agent Oriented Programming (BDI systems) Distributed Control - Multi-agent frameworks Object Oriented programming (C++, Java, Delphi) Client / Server - Remote Procedure Call (CORBA) Structured programming, 3GL (FORTRAN, C) Monolithic systems - Communication API (sockets)

  45. Current State of Agent Development • Active Research Area • Over 50 research labs worldwide • Over 20 companies supplying tools and services • Momentum • Successful applications • Australia a world leader • Standards are emerging

  46. Companies • Reticular Systems (AgentBuilder) • Agent Oriented Software (JACK Intelligent Agents) • AgentSoft • Genesys Telecommunications • Agentis • Autonomy • Gensym Corp. (G2) • Grasshopper • Hewlett-Packard • IBM (Aglets) • Intelligent Reasoning Systems (JAM) ….. • Toshiba Corp. (Beegent) • Verity • British Telecom (ZEUS)

  47. Agents in Melbourne • Strong research history - BDI focus • Support through CRC Intelligent Decision Systems • Two agent suppliers • Agent-Oriented Software, Agentis • Several consulting startups • Companies leveraging off the expertise • Niksar, eSec

  48. Is my problem/application suitable? • inherently distributed data, control, expertise and/or resources • perhaps operating across networks • open system perspective • heterogeneous components • agents offer a unifying view • conceptualise as a single virtual platform • potential benefits of modularity and scalability • autonomous, trusted and cooperative entities that work across the boundaries that currently separate software systems

  49. How to build anagent-based system? • architectures • choice of component modules and how they interact • design methodologies • JSD - for “conventional” structured design • Booch-Rumbaugh - for OOD • ??? - for Agent Oriented Design • development environments, e.g. • AgentBuilder - IRS: JAM • AAII: dMARS - Toshiba: Bee-GENT • AOS: JACK - OMG: Grasshopper • IBM: ABE and Aglets - Java, Jini, Oz, ….

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