Software Engineering Venkata Susheel Aiswarya

Annotated Bibliography

A Component Based Architecture for Mutli-Agent Systems

Proceedings of the IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT'06)
. 0-7695-2748-5/06.

The aim of this paper is to define a component based architecture for Multi-agent
systems and to explicate the advantages of using rather, implementing this architecture on mutli-agent
system. In this paper they tried to explain how a group of open distributed system of agents try to solve
a specific problem. And as the group of agents which are trying to solve a problem for a specific
domain requires a set of BDI ( Belief, Desire, Intention), there can be a situation where the agents may
inherit a set of BDI which leads to heterogeneity and large overheads. So as to avoid this sort of
situation the author suggests us to minimize this issue by addressing this at the architecture level. By
doing this the expected complexity will be resolved and the complexity may not arise at the time of
implementation. In this paper they discussed about the communication, configuration of agents and
also the suggest a formal multi-layered component based architecture.

They selected components instead of objects as the components provide higher level
abstraction than objects. They considered generically classified types of agents characterized by set of
services. Those are as follows:

a) Interface agent (IA) (Reactive)

b) Middle agent (MA) (Reactive)
c) Task agent (TA) (Some are reactive and some are autonomous)and
d) Security agent(SA) (Autonomous)

In the multi-layered architecture suggested by the authors each layer is responsible for a
major task and they also propose Multi agent groups (MAG), each MAG being a composition of
three vertical layers (VLA), and one horizontal layer (HLA) in which several MAG's are composed.
For each problem domain, there exist a multiple agent group (MAG). And within each MAG they
created configuration of agents. A configuration includes the agents engaged, communication, and
Software Engineering Venkata Susheel Aiswarya

protocols. Each configuration is specific to solving a problem in one domain, and the configurations
can share knowledge. In a MAG, decision making is context dependent, and problem solving is specific
to a particular domain and hence agents require expertise in that domain. Each MAG has three layers,
informally these layers correspond to Human Interface Layer, Middle agent layer and Task agent layer.
They also reviewed the work the embeds a BDI agent architecture into a software architecture, and they
also explained how different layers of MAG architecture are embedded into software components.
They applied and tested the architecture using Travel Planning as example. By doing this multi-layered
component based architecture they were able to attain modularity and were successful in encapsulating.

Intelligent Multi-agent User Interface Design

2009 International Forum on Information Technology and Applications
978-0-7695-3600-2/09 © 2009 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/IFITA.2009.159

The aim of this paper is to explain how MVC based agent is efficient when compared to other
architecture or frameworks and also how to modularize and differentiate the essential parts of the
multi-agent system. In this paper the author describes how to apply intelligent agents to User Interface
domain and also describes the features of user interface model based on the agent and analyzes the
MVC framework and implements it to enhance the efficiency. In an application software UI is a very
important component and it also consumes lot of time to build a UI. This paper illustrates a user
interface construction method based on MVC model Agent and this paper illustrates the design pattern
and development method of the user interface based on Agent in the information retrieval system. In
the author mentioned multi-agent user interface each agent is physically or logically dispersed and their
behavior is autonomous. The author also emphasized on parallelism on data processing and the
coordination of the multi-agent systems as they can complement by themselves and they are also in
accordance. The features of the Agents model described the author are as follows:

a) The agent in the agent model defines the functional module.

b) Agent defines the processing unit of functional module and
c) Agent can associate with the thread of users manner.
Software Engineering Venkata Susheel Aiswarya

Author says, traditionally structuralized user interface design every thing is mixed which results in
defects in application system. This may also result deficiency of re-usability of the code, and if we need
to change any functionality we need to change the whole code. In order to overcome this sort of issues
he suggested us to make use of Model View Controller architecture which can separate the codes
between graphics user interface, application code and data processing. This kind of separation helps us
to enhance the flexibility and also allows multiple views to share the same data model, which makes
supporting multiple clients easier to implement, test, and maintain.

In MVC the model is used to manage information and notify observers when that information
changes. The model is the domain-specific representation of the data upon which the application
operates. When a model changes its state, it notifies its associated views so they can be refreshed.
The view renders the model into a form suitable for interaction, typically a user interface element.
Multiple views can exist for a single model for different purposes. The controller receives input and
initiates a response by making calls on model objects. A controller accepts input from the user and
instructs the model and view port to perform actions based on that input.

The author realizes the model by applying the same on a concrete software design example and
also introduces us to user interface realization based on agent and MVC framework.

A ROLE-BASED ARCHITECTURE FOR INTELLIGENT AGENT SYSTEMS

Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Distributed Intelligent Systems: Collective Intelligence and Its
Applications (DIS’06)
0-7695-2589-X/06 © 2006 IEEE

In this paper the author introduces roles into system design and also explains the
potential advantages of the role-based architecture. To express the goal of an agent the agent need to be
assigned a role, moreover, he even says the roles, role relationships, role players and role playing are all
the aspects for distributed intelligent systems. By using the suggested architecture tasks between agents
can distributed evenly, can simplify agents complexity, can be reused and ca n also be traceable. The
author defines an agent as a combination object orientation and artificial intelligence. He mentions a
Software Engineering Venkata Susheel Aiswarya

couple of researchers and how they define the agent. “Agents are computational systems that inhabit
some complex dynamic environment, sense and act autonomously in this environment, and by doing so
realize a set of goals or tasks for which they are designed.” He mentions the tasks involved in designing
an agent which is a combination of Object orientation and artificial intelligence and says by using roles
in agent design the complexity can be degraded. The roles applied in an information system should be
concerned about the two aspects of roles: responsibilities and rights, because a player (a person, an
agent, or an object) should send out messages to invoke other players’ services. To support role-based
collaboration, they developed the E-CARGO model. To develop a role-based system, the main tasks are
specifying roles and the relationships among roles, specifying role players and assign roles to role
layers. In he system design, roles are created, specified and connected into a net, called role net. A
system architecture, in fact, is an environment e of the E-CARGO model. To say, to develop a role-
based system we need to follow the following steps: architecture design, agent implementation, and
system integration.

To completely express a live agent in a role net, we need to express the agent’s past,
current, active roles and future roles. Therefore, we need to maintain a record to track the agents status,
the agent must collect credits by serving other agents in the system and we need to differentiate the
concepts of active roles and current roles. By current roles they mean the agent current playing role,
and the by active roles they mean a role which is active and reacts to any relevant message but is not
currently executing role. Finally, they say that by this role-based architecture they were able to find that
the system design and system implementation can be separated.