Vladimír Marík - Böcker

Knowledge and Technology Integration in Production and Services presents novel application scenarios for balanced distributed and integrated systems based on knowledge and up-to-date technology and provides a great opportunity for discussion of concepts, models, methodologies, technological developments, case studies, new research ideas, and other results among specialists. It comprises the proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Technology for BALANCED AUTOMATION SYSTEMS in Manufacturing and Services (BASYS'02), which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in September 2002 in Cancun, Mexico. BASYS'02 aimed mainly at balancing knowledge and technology in manufacturing, services and the product life-cycle. Namely, a balance is considered between local knowledge-intensive solutions and global performance in highly distributed systems, based on diverse technologies (such as virtual organizations, holonic manufacturing systems or multi-agent systems for design and diagnostics).The contributions are focused on interoperability and standardization issues, open architectures as well as knowledge-based integration paradigms, with special attention being paid to product-service integration, customer-production integration, and product life-cycle stages integration. This book is essential reading for researchers, industrial managers, practitioners, developers, users or technology transfer experts -- working in quite different fields such as automatic control, systems planning and integration, enterprise architecture, planning and scheduling, flexible manufacturing, knowledge engineering, business processes management or in the field of social impact studies.

Knowledge and Technology Integration in Production and Services presents novel application scenarios for balanced distributed and integrated systems based on knowledge and up-to-date technology and provides a great opportunity for discussion of concepts, models, methodologies, technological developments, case studies, new research ideas, and other results among specialists. It comprises the proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Technology for BALANCED AUTOMATION SYSTEMS in Manufacturing and Services (BASYS'02), which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in September 2002 in Cancun, Mexico.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2019, held in Linz, Austria, in August 2019. The 14 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 15 submissions, and 2 invited papers were also included.

The authors focus on selected research challenges for intelligent digital society and state-of-the-art methods of how to face them. The book’s subtitle suggests that a core concept that the reader can study from various points of view in particular book chapters is the knowledge.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2015, held in Valencia, Spain, in September 2015.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2017, held in Lyon, France, in August 2017. The 19 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 27 submissions.

The challenge faced in today’s manufacturing and business environments is the question of how to satisfy increasingly stringent customer requirements while managing growing system complexity. For example, customers expect high-quality, customizable, low-cost products that can be delivered quickly. The systems that deliver these expectations are by nature distributed, concurrent, and stochastic, and, as a result, increasingly difficult to manage. Unfortunately, the traditional hierarchical, strictly centralized approach to control used in these domains is characteristically inflexible, fragile, and difficult to maintain. These shortcomings have led to the development of a new class of manufacturing and supply-chain decision-making approaches in recent years. Solutions based on these approaches usually explore a set of highly distributed decision-making units that are capable of autonomous operations while cooperating interactively to resolve larger problems. The units, referred to as agents in classical computer science and software engineering, or holons if physically integrated with the manufacturing hardware, interact by exchanging information. These units are motivated by arriving at local solutions as well as collaborating and sharing resources and goals in solving the overall problem in question collectively.

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.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2003, held in Prague, Czech Republic in September 2003.The 29 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 43 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on holonic manufacturing systems-device control, foundations and platforms, sheduling and resource allocation, simulation and integration, multi-agent systems, and applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applcations, DEXA 2003, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in September 2003.The 91 revised full papers presented together with an invited paper and a position paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 236 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on XML, data modeling, spatial database systems, mobile computing, transactions, bioinformatics, information retrieval, multimedia databases, Web applications, ontologies, object-oriented databases, query optimization, workflow systems, knowledge engineering, and security.

This book presents selected tutorial lectures given at the summer school on Multi-Agent Systems and Their Applications held in Prague, Czech Republic, in July 2001 under the sponsorship of ECCAI and Agent Link. The 20 lectures by leading researchers in the field presented in the book give a competent state-of-the-art account of research and development in the field of multi-agent systems and advanced applications. The book offers parts on foundations of MAS; social behaviour, meta-reasoning, and learning; and applications.

TheAdvanced Course onArti?cial IntelligenceACAI2001, with the subtitle of "Multi- Agent Systems and Their Applications", held in Prague, Czech Republic, represented a joint event of ECCAI (the European Coordinating Committee for Arti?cial Intel- gence) andAgentLink, the European Network of Excellence forAgent-Based Comp- ing. Whereas ECCAI organizes two-weekACAI courses on different topics each second year, AgentLink's European Agent Systems Summer School (EASSS) has been an - nual event since 1999. In 2001, both of these important events were merged, giving weight to the fact that multi-agent systems currently represent one of the hottest topics of AI research. The name, ACAI2001 Summer School, was intended to emphasize that this event continued the tradition of regular ECCAI activities (ACAI), as well as that of the EASSS summer schools ofAgentLink. The PragueACAI Summer School was proposed and initiated by both the Gerstner Laboratory, Czech Technical University, Prague (GL-CTU) and the Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics (CSKI), with the support of theAustrian Research Institute forArti?cial Intelligence in Vienna (OFAI).One of the most important stimulating factors behind the organization ofACAI2001 wasthesupportprovidedbytheEuropeanCommissiontotheGerstnerLaboratorywithin the frame of the MIRACLE Centre of Excellence project (No. ICA1-CT-2000-70002). Additional support was later provided by both the Commission's AgentLink II project (IST-1999-29003) and ECCAI. The combined ?nancial and conceptual participation of these important international bodies enabled the invitation of a large number of truly world-class lecturers in this ?eld, who added a unique ?avor to the event.

This volume presents the written versions of talks delivered at the symposium "The advent of AI in Higher Education" held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, October 23-25, 1989. Contributions review the current impact of AI on the educational process, stressing the problems and needs of universities. Particular systems, projects and methodologies are de scribed with the aim of gathering and generalizing the experience obtained. The latest developments prove that AI offers interesting methods which could be used with success across a wider range in the domain of education. The nature and spirit of AI forms a new phenomenon which necessitates reconsidering the whole educational process. Papers in this volume describe sophisticated tutoring systems as well as suggestions for new curricula.

This volume contains the texts of 26 lectures and contributions to the program of the International Summer School on Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, July 6-17, 1992. The summer school was intended for (postgraduate) students, researchers and all those who want to learn about recent progress in both theoretical and applied AI. The papers in the volume are organized into nine parts: Introduction - Logic and logic programming - Machine learning - Planning and scheduling - uncertainty - Second generation expert systems and knowledge engineering - Qualitative resoning - Neurocomputing - Natural language and interfaces.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 4thInternational Conference on Database and Expert SystemsApplications (DEXA), held in Prague, Czech Republic, inSeptember 1993. Traditionally the objective of the DEXA conferences is toserve as an international forum for the discussion andexchange of research results and practical experinece amongtheoreticians and professionals working in the field ofdatabase and artificial intelligence technologies. Despitethe fact that in the conference title the applicationsaspect is mentioned explicitly, the theoretical and thepractical points of view in the field are well-balanced inthe program of DEXA'93. The growing importance of theconference series is outlined by the remarkably high numberof 269 submissions and by the support given by renownorganizations. DEXA'93 is held for the first time outsidethe former GDR in an East-European country, and isessentially contributing to the advancement of the East-Westscientific cooperation in the field of database and AIsystems. This proceedings contains the 78 contributed paperscarefully selected by an international program committeewith thesupport of a high number of subreferees.The volumeis organized in sectionson data models, distributeddatabases, advanced database aspects, database optimizationand performance evaluation, spatial and geographicdatabases, expert systems and knowledge engineering, legalsystems, other database and artificial intelligenceapplications, software engineering, and hypertext/hypermediaand user interfaces.

This book presents a modern and attractive approach to computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) by stressing the crucial role of information management aspects. The 31 contributions contained constitute the final report on the EC Project TEMPUS No. 2609 aimed at establishing a new curriculum and regular education in the new field of information management in CIM at European universities.Much attention was paid to the style of writing and coverage of the important issues. Thus the book is particularly suited as a text for students and young scientists approaching CIM from different directions; at the same time, it is a comprehensive guide for industrial engineers in machine engineering, computer science, control engineering, artificial intelligence, production management, etc.

The research of holonic and agent-based systems is developing rapidly, as is the community around this R&D topic. Despite the fact that real-life practical implementations of such systems remain surprisingly rare, the leaders in different branches of industry feel that the holonic and agent-based systems represent the only way to manage and control very complex, highly distributed systems in the future. The relevant R&D gains more and more support from both industry as well as academic sources. Quite naturally, the number of scientific events aimed at the subject field is also growing rapidly. We can see new lines of conferences like INDIN, while we can observe a strong focus of the already well-established conferences, like INCOM or ETFA, being shifted toward holonic and agent-based manufacturing systems. This is a good sign of the increasing recognition and importance of the field. We are convinced of the worth and importance of the continuation of the HoloMAS events, which have served as pioneering melting pots for ideas connected with distributed decision making and control in industry and which have already gained international reputation.

The research of holonic and agent-based systems is developing very rapidly. The community around this R&D topic is also growing fast - despite the fact that the real-life practical implementations of such systems are still surprisingly rare. H- ever, the managers in different branches of industry feel that the holonic and agent-based systems represent the only way of managing and controlling very c- plex, highly distributed systems exploring vast volumes of accumulated knowledge. The relevant research and development activities gain more and more visible support from both industry as well as public sectors. Quite naturally, the number of scientific events aimed at the subject field is also growing rapidly. We see new lines of conf- ences like INDIN, we observe a strong focus of the already well-established conferences, e. g. , INCOM or ETFA, being shifted toward holonic and agent-based manufacturing systems. We see an increased interest of the IEEE System, Man and Cybernetics Society, especially its Technical Committee on Distributed Intelligent Systems which leverages the experience gathered by the members of the former Ho- nic Manufacuting Systems (HMS) consortium. We see a clear orientation of the IEEE SMC Transactions, part C, toward applications of agent-oriented solutions. The same is true of the International Journal on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (JAAMAS). This is a really good sign of the increasing importance of the field.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Industrial Applications of Holonic and Multi-Agent Systems, HoloMAS 2011, held in Toulouse, France, August 29-31, 2011. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 36 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on industrial agents, simulation and modelling, planning and scheduling, smart technical systems, and MAS for unmanned aerial vehicles.