Agents
Outcome Matrix Based Phrase Selection
Wagner, Alan Richard (Georgia Institute of Technology)
This article presents a method for using outcome matrices for social phrase selection. An outcome matrix is a computational representation of interaction often used to represent a social decision problem. Typically an outcome matrix lists the potential actions that a robot or agent might select and how the selection of each possible action will impact both the agent and their interactive partner. Here we examine the possibility of replacing the social actions listed in a matrix with phrases that could be spoken by the robot. We show that doing so allows one to utilize several tools from interdependence theory and game theory.
Effective and Efficient Management of Soar's Working Memory via Base-Level Activation
Derbinsky, Nate (University of Michigan) | Laird, John E. (University of Michigan)
This paper documents a functionality-driven exploration of automatic working-memory management in Soar. We first derive and discuss desiderata that arise from the need to embed a mechanism for managing working memory within a general cognitive architecture that is used to develop real-time agents. We provide details of our mechanism, including the decay model and architecture-independent data structures and algorithms that are computationally efficient. Finally, we present empirical results, which demonstrate both that our mechanism performs with little computational overhead and that it helps maintain the reactivity of a Soar agent contending with long-term, autonomous simulated robotic exploration as it reasons using large amounts of acquired information.
A Complex Adaptive Systems Investigation of the Social-Ecological Dynamics of Three Fisheries
Hayes, Peter S. (University of Maine) | Wilson, James (University of Maine) | Congdon, Clare Bates (University of Southern Maine) | Yan, Liying (University of Maine ) | Hill, Jack (University of Maine) | Acheson, James (University of Maine) | Chen, Yong ( University of Maine ) | Cleaver, Caitlin (University of Maine) | Hayden, Anne (University of Maine) | Johnson, Teresa (University of Maine) | Kersula, Michael (University of Maine) | Morehead, Graham (University of Maine) | Steneck, Robert (University of Maine)
In this paper we describe a complex adaptive systems model of interactions between coupled human and natural system. We use learning classifier systems to create adaptive agents in a simulation of the Maine lobster fishery to explore the relationships among ecological, economic, and social characteristics. Our hypothesis is that the cost of information and learning drives agents' decisions to compete or co-operate and, consequently, the emergence of long-term relationships. Initial results provide tentative support for the hypothesis and the ability of this model to provide insight into the dynamics of individual interactions and the social relationships that emerge from those interactions.
AAAI News
Hamilton, Carol M. (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence)
The 2011 AAAI Classic Paper Award was given to the authors of the most influential papers from the Tenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, held in 1992 in San Jose, California. The award was presented to Mitchell received his BSc in cognitive process. The winning papers were selected Hector Levesque, David Mitchell, and science and artificial intelligence at by the program chairs with the Bart Selman for their two papers, Hard the University of Toronto, his MSc in help of area chairs and members of the and Easy Distribution of SAT Problems computing science from Simon Fraser senior program committee. Honors and A New Method for Solving Hard University, and his PhD in computer went to Jessica Davies (University of Satisfiability Problems. Paris Sud 11), Nina Narodytska to the area of automated Bart Selman is a professor of computer (NICTA and University of New South reasoning via methods and analyses science at Cornell University.
Reports of the AAAI 2011 Spring Symposia
Buller, Mark (Brown University) | Cuddihy, Paul (General Electric Research) | Davis, Ernest (New York University) | Doherty, Patrick (Linkoping University) | Doshi-Velez, Finale (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) | Erdem, Esra (Sabanci University) | Fisher, Douglas (Vanderbilt University) | Green, Nancy (University of North Carolina, Greensboro) | Hinkelmann, Knut (University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland FHNW) | Maher, Mary Lou (University of Maryland) | McLurkin, James (Rice University) | Maheswaran, Rajiv (University of Southern California) | Rubinelli, Sara (University of Lucerne) | Schurr, Nathan (Aptima, Inc.) | Scott, Donia (University of Sussex) | Shell, Dylan (Texas A&M University) | Szekely, Pedro (University of Southern California) | Thönssen, Barbara (University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland FHNW) | Urken, Arnold B. (University of Arizona)
The titles of the eight symposia were Artificial Intelligence and Health Communication, Artificial Intelligence and Sustainable Design, Artificial Intelligence for Business Agility, Computational Physiology, Help Me Help You: Bridging the Gaps in Human-Agent Collaboration, Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning, Multirobot Systems and Physical Data Structures, and Modeling Complex Adaptive Systems As If They Were Voting Processes. The goal of the Artificial Intelligence and Health Communication symposium was to advance the conceptual design of automated systems that provide health services to patients and consumers through interdisciplinary insight from artificial intelligence, health communication and related areas of communication studies, discourse studies, public health, and psychology. There is a large and growing interest in the development of automated systems to provide health services to patients and consumers. In the last two decades, applications informed by research in health communication have been developed, for example, for promoting healthy behavior and for managing chronic diseases. While the value that these types of applications can offer to the community in terms of cost, access, and convenience is clear, there are still major challenges facing design of effective health communication systems. Overall, the participants found the format of the symposium engaging and constructive, and they The symposium was organized around five main expressed the desire to continue this initiative in concepts: (1) Patient empowerment and education further events.
Communication-Based Decomposition Mechanisms for Decentralized MDPs
Goldman, Claudia V., Zilberstein, Shlomo
Multi-agent planning in stochastic environments can be framed formally as a decentralized Markov decision problem. Many real-life distributed problems that arise in manufacturing, multi-robot coordination and information gathering scenarios can be formalized using this framework. However, finding the optimal solution in the general case is hard, limiting the applicability of recently developed algorithms. This paper provides a practical approach for solving decentralized control problems when communication among the decision makers is possible, but costly. We develop the notion of communication-based mechanism that allows us to decompose a decentralized MDP into multiple single-agent problems. In this framework, referred to as decentralized semi-Markov decision process with direct communication (Dec-SMDP-Com), agents operate separately between communications. We show that finding an optimal mechanism is equivalent to solving optimally a Dec-SMDP-Com. We also provide a heuristic search algorithm that converges on the optimal decomposition. Restricting the decomposition to some specific types of local behaviors reduces significantly the complexity of planning. In particular, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for the case in which individual agents perform goal-oriented behaviors between communications. The paper concludes with an additional tractable algorithm that enables the introduction of human knowledge, thereby reducing the overall problem to finding the best time to communicate. Empirical results show that these approaches provide good approximate solutions.
On the Formal Semantics of Speech-Act Based Communication in an Agent-Oriented Programming Language
Bordini, R. H., Moreira, A. F., Vieira, R., Wooldridge, M.
Research on agent communication languages has typically taken the speech acts paradigm as its starting point. Despite their manifest attractions, speech-act models of communication have several serious disadvantages as a foundation for communication in artificial agent systems. In particular, it has proved to be extremely difficult to give a satisfactory semantics to speech-act based agent communication languages. In part, the problem is that speech-act semantics typically make reference to the "mental states" of agents (their beliefs, desires, and intentions), and there is in general no way to attribute such attitudes to arbitrary computational agents. In addition, agent programming languages have only had their semantics formalised for abstract, stand-alone versions, neglecting aspects such as communication primitives. With respect to communication, implemented agent programming languages have tended to be rather ad hoc. This paper addresses both of these problems, by giving semantics to speech-act based messages received by an AgentSpeak agent. AgentSpeak is a logic-based agent programming language which incorporates the main features of the PRS model of reactive planning systems. The paper builds upon a structural operational semantics to AgentSpeak that we developed in previous work. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: an extension of our earlier work on the theoretical foundations of AgentSpeak interpreters; a computationally grounded semantics for (the core) performatives used in speech-act based agent communication languages; and a well-defined extension of AgentSpeak that supports agent communication.
Computational Aspects of Cooperative Game Theory
Chalkiadakis, Georgios, Elkind, Edith, Wooldridge, Michael
Cooperative game theory is a branch of (micro-)economics that studies the behavior of self-interested agents in strategic settings where binding agreements among agents are possible. Our aim in this book is to present a survey of work on the computational aspects of cooperative game theory. We begin by formally defining transferable utility games in characteristic function form, and introducing key solution concepts such as the core and the Shapley value. We then discuss two major issues that arise when considering such games from a computational perspective: identifying compact representations for games, and the closely related problem of efficiently computing solution concepts for games. We survey several formalisms for cooperative games that have been proposed in the literature, including, for example, cooperative games defined on networks, as well as general compact representation schemes such as MC-nets and skill games.
Multiple ant-bee colony optimization for load balancing in packet-switched networks
Kashefikia, Mehdi, Nematbakhsh, Nasser, Moghadam, Reza Askari
One of the important issues in computer networks is "Load Balancing" which leads to efficient use of the network resources. To achieve a balanced network it is necessary to find different routes between the source and destination. In the current paper we propose a new approach to find different routes using swarm intelligence techniques and multi colony algorithms. In the proposed algorithm that is an improved version of MACO algorithm, we use different colonies of ants and bees and appoint these colony members as intelligent agents to monitor the network and update the routing information. The survey includes comparison and critiques of MACO. The simulation results show a tangible improvement in the aforementioned approach.
The Complexification of Engineering
Maldonado, Carlos Eduardo, Gómez-Cruz, Nelson Alfonso
This paper deals with the arrow of complexification of engineering. We claim that the complexification of engineering consists in (a) that shift throughout which engineering becomes a science; thus it ceases to be a (mere) praxis or profession; (b) becoming a science, engineering can be considered as one of the sciences of complexity. In reality, the complexification of engineering is the process by which engineering can be studied, achieved and understood in terms of knowledge, and not of goods and services any longer. Complex engineered systems and bio-inspired engineering are so far the two expressions of a complex engineering.