Agent Technology, or Agent-Based Approaches, is a new paradigm for developing software applications. It has been hailed as 'the next significant breakthrough in software development', and 'the new revolution in software' after object technology or object-oriented programming. In this context, an agent is a computer system which is capable of act

Agent Technology, or Agent-Based Approaches, is a new paradigm for developing software applications. It has been hailed as 'the next significant breakthrough in software development', and 'the new revolution in software' after object technology or object-oriented programming. In this context, an agent is a computer system which is capable of act

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2009, held in Linz, Austria, August 31 - September 2, 2009. The 31 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 47 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on introduction & motivation, knowledge-centered approaches, selected theoretical aspects, MAS scheduling & simulation, holonic systems for manufacturing, and MAS & holonic applications.

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems held in September 2007. The 39 full papers were selected from among 63 submissions. They are organized into topical sections covering theoretical and methodological issues, algorithms and technologies, implementation and validation, applications, and supply chain management.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2005, held in Copenhagen, Denmark in August 2005. The 23 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on theoretical and methodological issues, algorithms and technologies, implementation and validation aspects, applications, and supply chain management.

This book is about synergy in computational intelligence (CI). It is a c- lection of chapters that covers a rich and diverse variety of computer-based techniques, all involving some aspect of computational intelligence, but each one taking a somewhat pragmatic view. Many complex problems in the real world require the application of some form of what we loosely call “intel- gence”fortheirsolution. Fewcanbesolvedbythenaiveapplicationofasingle technique, however good it is. Authors in this collection recognize the li- tations of individual paradigms, and propose some practical and novel ways in which di?erent CI techniques can be combined with each other, or with more traditional computational techniques, to produce powerful probl- solving environments which exhibit synergy, i. e. , systems in which the whole 1 is greater than the sum of the parts . Computational intelligence is a relatively new term, and there is some d- agreement as to its precise de?nition. Some practitioners limit its scope to schemes involving evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, fuzzy logic, or hybrids of these. For others, the de?nition is a little more ?exible, and will include paradigms such as Bayesian belief networks, multi-agent systems, case-based reasoning and so on. Generally, the term has a similar meaning to the well-known phrase “Arti?cial Intelligence” (AI), although CI is p- ceived moreas a “bottom up” approachfrom which intelligent behaviour can emerge,whereasAItendstobestudiedfromthe“topdown”,andderivefrom pondering upon the “meaning of intelligence”. (These and other key issues will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 1.

BASYS conferences were initially organized to promote the development of balanced automation systems. The first BASYS conference was successfully launched in Victoria, Brazil, in 1995. BASYS'06 is the 7th edition in this series. This book comprises three invited keynote papers and forty-nine regular papers accepted for presentation at the conference. All together, these papers will make significant contributions to the literature of Intelligent Technology for Balanced Manufacturing Systems.

This book describes current advances and future directions in the theory and application of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector. It is the product of an international effort involving a network of construction IT and computing researchers, investigating different aspects of agent theory and applications. The contributed chapters cover different perspectives and application areas, and represent significant efforts to harness emerging technologies such as intelligent agents and multi-agent systems for improved business processes in the AEC sector. The first four chapters cover the theoretical foundations of agent technology whilst the remaining chapters deal with the application of agent-based systems in solving problems in the construction domain.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Central and European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems, CEEMAS 2003, held in Prague, Czech Republic in June 2003. The 58 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 109 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on formal methods, social knowledge and meta-reasoning, negotiation, and policies, ontologies and languages, planning, coalitions, evolution and emergent behaviour, platforms, protocols, security, real-time and synchronization, industrial applications, e-business and virtual enterprises, and Web and mobile agents.

The Industrial Information Technology Handbook focuses on existing and emerging industrial applications of IT, and on evolving trends that are driven by the needs of companies and by industry-led consortia and organizations. Emphasizing fast growing areas that have major impacts on industrial automation and enterprise integration, the Handbook covers topics such as industrial communication technology, sensors, and embedded systems. The book is organized into two parts. Part 1 presents material covering new and quickly evolving aspects of IT. Part 2 introduces cutting-edge areas of industrial IT. The Handbook presents material in the form of tutorials, surveys, and technology overviews, combining fundamentals and advanced issues, with articles grouped into sections for a cohesive and comprehensive presentation. The text contains 112 contributed reports by industry experts from government, companies at the forefront of development, and some of the most renowned academic and research institutions worldwide. Several of the reports on recent developments, actual deployments, and trends cover subject matter presented to the public for the first time.