Agent Technology

2019 onwards
New syllabus
Advanced Level
Sri Lankan
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Agent Technology

Software Agent

Software agent is a computer program which works autonomously

towards goals in a dynamic environment on behalf of another
entity(user) over extended period of time.
EG:
1. Buyer or shopping agents
2. e-commerce agents
3. user or personal agents
4. Monitoring and surveillance agents Eg: company inventory
level
5. Data monitoring agent
6. Learning agent

E-Commerce
agent
• Can help customers to determine what to buy to satisfy a specific
need.
• Once the customer has decided what to buy, it will help in doing
comparisons, usually of prices from different vendors.
• Can notify the customers and even provide assistance.
Profiling customers using shopping agents
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Learning Agent

1. Learner support agent

2. Assessment agent
3. collaboration support agent
4. Material preparation agent
5. Learning Process management agent

More Examples of Agent Technology

technology
1. e-commerce agents
2. Shopping agents
3. Recommender systems
4. Brokering
5. Auction agents
6. Defuse
7. Robot agents
8. Transportation agents
9. Learning agent

Basic Attributes of Software Agent

• active themselves
• do not require interaction of user
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❖ General characteristics

1. Autonomous
2. Goal-oriented
3. Flexible
4. Adaptive
5. Communicative
6. Self-starting

Properties of an agent

1. Autonomy: agents operate without the direct intervention of

humans.
2. Pro-activeness: able to exhibit goal-directed behavior by taking
the initiative.
3. Reactivity: agents perceive their environment and respond to it
in timely fashion to changes that occur in it.
4. Social ability: agents interact with other agents.

❖ Single-agent VS Multi-agent environments

• single-agent environment: there is one agent operating
• Multi-agent environment: there are many agents that
interact with each other.
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❖ Multi-agent system
• A multi-agent system is one that consists of a number of
agents, which interact with one other.
• IN the most general case, agents will be acting on behalf of
users with different goals and motivations.
• To successfully interact, they will require the ability to
corporate, co-ordinate and negotiate with each other.
• A multi-agent system is a network of problem-solving
entities called agents that work together to find answers to
problems that are beyond the individual abilities of each
agent.
• In a multi-agent system, individual agents may compete or
cooperate to achieve the system goals.

Buyer agent
Online shopping agent Multi agent environment
Mail gent

Intelligent Agent

• Intelligent agent (IA) is an autonomous entity which

observes through sensors and acts upon an environment
and directs its activity towards achieving goals.

• Intelligent agents may also learn or use knowledge to

achieve their goals
Eg:-Robots, soft-bots, Know-bots, Task-bots, User-bots.
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Distinguishing agents from expert systems

• Expert systems
• are not coupled to their environment
• are not designed for reactive /proactive behavior
• do not consider social ability

Categories of an agents

Autonomous Agents

Biological agents Computational agent Robotics agent

agagents agAgents

Software agent Artificial life Agents

aagentAgents

Task- -specific agent Entertainment agent Virus

aaAgents aaaaaAgents
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Personal/User agent

• Checks e-mail, sorts it according to the user’s order of

preference, and alerts when important emails arrive.
• Plays computer games as your opponent game areas for
you
• Assembles customized news reports for you.
• Finds information for you on the subject of choice.
• Fills out forms on the web automatically for you,storing
your information for future reference.

Mobile agent

• They reduce the network load

• They overcome network delay
• They execute autonomously
• They perform parallel processing
• They adapt Dynamically
• They are robust and fault-tolerant

•
Applications of mobile agents in health care

• Medical data Management

• Patient Management
• Planning and Resource Allocation
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• Remote care or telemedicine

• Medical training and education
• Securing medical information

Data Mining Agent

• This agent uses information technology to find trends and

patterns in an abundance of information from many
different sources.

Monitoring –and-surveillance (predictive) agents

• Monitoring and surveillance Agents are used to observe

and report on equipment, usually computer systems the
agents may keep track of company inventory levels,
observe competitors’ prices.