Wiley Series in Agent Technology – serie

Conversational informatics investigates human behaviour with a view to designing conversational artifacts capable of interacting with humans in a conversational fashion. It spans a broad array of topics including linguistics, psychology and human-computer interaction. Until recently research in such areas has been carried out in isolation, with no attempt made to connect the various disciplines. Advancements in science and technology have changed this.Conversational Informatics provides an interdisciplinary introduction to conversational informatics and places emphasis upon the integration of scientific approaches to achieve engineering goals and to advance further understanding of conversation.It features a collection of surveys structured around four prominent research areas: conversational artifacts, conversational contents, conversation environment design and conversation measurement, analysis and modelling. Conversational artifacts shows how synthetic characters or intelligent robots use eye gaze, gestures and other non-verbal communicators to interact.Conversational contents looks at developing techniques for acquiring, editing, distributing and utilising the contents that are produced and consumed in conversation.Conversation environment design explains techniques for creating intelligent virtual environments and for representing individuals within a virtual environment by monitoring and reproducing their non-verbal conversational behaviour.Conversation measurement, analysis and modelling demonstrate how conversational behaviour can be measured and analyzed.Conversational Informatics will be an invaluable resource for postgraduate students and researchers in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering as well as engineers and developers working in the field of automation, robotics and agents technology.

This book provides an introduction, discussion, and formal-based modelling of trust theory and its applications in agent-based systems This book gives an accessible explanation of the importance of trust in human interaction and, in general, in autonomous cognitive agents including autonomous technologies. The authors explain the concepts of trust, and describe a principled, general theory of trust grounded on cognitive, cultural, institutional, technical, and normative solutions. This provides a strong base for the author’s discussion of role of trust in agent-based systems supporting human-computer interaction and distributed and virtual organizations or markets (multi-agent systems).Key Features: Provides an accessible introduction to trust, and its importance and applications in agent-based systemsProposes a principled, general theory of trust grounding on cognitive, cultural, institutional, technical, and normative solutions.Offers a clear, intuitive approach, and systematic integration of relevant issuesExplains the dynamics of trust, and the relationship between trust and securityOffers operational definitions and models directly applicable both in technical and experimental domainsIncludes a critical examination of trust models in economics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and AI  This book will be a valuable reference for researchers and advanced students focused on information and communication technologies (computer science, artificial intelligence, organizational sciences, and knowledge management etc.), as well as Web-site and robotics designers, and for scholars working on human, social, and cultural aspects of technology. Professionals of ecommerce systems and peer-to-peer systems will also find this text of interest.

Jason is an Open Source interpreter for an extended version of AgentSpeak – a logic-based agent-oriented programming language – written in Java™. It enables users to build complex multi-agent systems that are capable of operating in environments previously considered too unpredictable for computers to handle. Jason is easily customisable and is suitable for the implementation of reactive planning systems according to the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) architecture. Programming Multi-Agent Systems in AgentSpeak using Jason provides a brief introduction to multi-agent systems and the BDI agent architecture on which AgentSpeak is based. The authors explain Jason’s AgentSpeak variant and provide a comprehensive, practical guide to using Jason to program multi-agent systems. Some of the examples include diagrams generated using an agent-oriented software engineering methodology particularly suited for implementation using BDI-based programming languages. The authors also give guidance on good programming style with AgentSpeak.Programming Multi-Agent Systems in AgentSpeak using Jason Describes and explains in detail the AgentSpeak extension interpreted by Jason and shows how to create multi-agent systems using the Jason platform.Reinforces learning with examples, problems, and illustrations.Includes two case studies which demonstrate the use of Jason in practice.Features an accompanying website that provides further learning resources including sample code, exercises, and slidesThis essential guide to AgentSpeak and Jason will be invaluable to senior undergraduate and postgraduate students studying multi-agent systems. The book will also be of interest to software engineers, designers, developers, and programmers interested in multi-agent systems.

Learn how to employ JADE to build multi-agent systems! JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment framework) is a middleware for the development of applications, both in the mobile and fixed environment, based on the Peer-to-Peer intelligent autonomous agent approach. JADE enables developers to implement and deploy multi-agent systems, including agents running on wireless networks and limited-resource devices.Developing Multi-Agent Systems with JADE is a practical guide to using JADE. The text will give an introduction to agent technologies and the JADE Platform, before proceeding to give a comprehensive guide to programming with JADE. Basic features such as creating agents, agent tasks, agent communication, agent discovery and GUIs are covered, as well as more advanced features including ontologies and content languages, complex behaviours, interaction protocols, agent mobility, and the in-process interface. Issues such as JADE internals, running JADE agents on mobile devices, deploying a fault tolerant JADE platform, and main add-ons are also covered in depth.Developing Multi-Agent Systems with JADE: Comprehensive guide to using JADE to build multi-agent systems and agent orientated programming.Describes and explains ontologies and content language, interaction protocols and complex behaviour.Includes material on persistence, security and a semantics framework.Contains numerous examples, problems, and illustrations to enhance learning.Presents a case study demonstrating the use of JADE in practice.Offers an accompanying website with additional learning resources such as sample code, exercises and PPT-slides.This invaluable resource will provide multi-agent systems practitioners, programmers working in the software industry with an interest on multi-agent systems as well as final year undergraduate and postgraduate students in CS and advanced networking and telecoms courses with a comprehensive guide to using JADE to employ multi agent systems.With contributions from experts in JADE and multi agent technology.

Dialogue management technology has developed rapidly over the years resulting in real-time applications like telephony directories, timetable enquiries, and in-car applications. However, the current technology is still largely based on models that use rigid command language type interactions, and the users need to adapt their human communication strategies to the needs of the technology. As an increasing number of interactive ubiquitous applications will appear, challenges for interaction technology concern especially natural, more human-friendly communication. Recent research has focused on developing speech-based interactive systems that aim to increase the system’s communicative competence. By including aspects of interaction beyond simple speech recognition and question-answer based interaction, applications with more conversational interfaces have become possible. New dialogue management technology needs to address the challenges in human-technology interaction, so that smart environments should not only enable user-controlled command interfaces but equip applications with a capability that affords easy and friendly interactions with the user. Dialogue Modelling: Speech Interaction and Rational Agents provides an overview of the current dialogue technology and research trends in spoken dialogue systems, presenting a coherent perspective of AI-based cooperative interaction management. The book complements existing research regarding human-computer interfaces, speech and language technology, and communication studies in general, bringing different view-points together and integrating them into a single point of reference.Constructive Dialogue Modelling: Presents a guide to spoken dialogue technology and current research trends.Provides an overview of human factors in dialogue systems and delivers a new metaphor for human-computer interaction and computer as agent.Explains the architecture of dialogue systems using examples from systems such as Interact and DUMASOffers a comprehensive overview of original research into the new trends in speech dialogue technology in light of innovations such as ubiquitous computing.This book will provide essential reading for industrial designers and interface engineers, university researchers and teachers, computer scientists, human communication researchers, speech and language technologists, cognitive engineers/cognitive scientists, as well as social and media researchers, and psychologists. Advanced students and researchers in computer science, speech and language technologies, psychology and communication research will find this text of interest.

What makes teamwork tick? Cooperation matters, in daily life and in complex applications. After all, many tasks need more than a single agent to be effectively performed. Therefore, teamwork rules!Teams are social groups of agents dedicated to the fulfilment of particular persistent tasks. In modern multiagent environments, heterogeneous teams often consist of autonomous software agents, various types of robots and human beings.Teamwork in Multi-agent Systems: A Formal Approach explains teamwork rules in terms of agents' attitudes and their complex interplay. It provides the first comprehensive logical theory, TeamLog, underpinning teamwork in dynamic environments. The authors justify design choices by showing TeamLog in action.The book guides the reader through a fascinating discussion of issues essential for teamwork to be successful: What is teamwork, and how can a logical view of it help in designing teams of agents?What is the role of agents' awareness in an uncertain, dynamic environment?How does collective intention constitute a team?How are plan-based collective commitments related to team action?How can one tune collective commitment to the team's organizational structure and its communication abilities?What are the methodological underpinnings for teamwork in a dynamic environment?How does a team and its attitudes adjust to changing circumstances?How do collective intentions and collective commitments arise through dialogue?What is the computational complexity of TeamLog?How can one make TeamLog efficient in applications?This book is an invaluable resource for researchers and graduate students in computer science and artificial intelligence as well as for developers of multi-agent systems. Students and researchers in organizational science, in particular those investigating teamwork, will also find this book insightful.  Since the authors made an effort to introduce TeamLog as a conceptual model of teamwork, understanding most of the book requires solely a basic logical background.

Build your own intelligent agent system… Intelligent agent technology is a tool of modern computer science that can be used to engineer complex computer programmes that behave rationally in dynamic and changing environments. Applications range from small programmes that intelligently search the Web buying and selling goods via electronic commerce, to autonomous space probes. This powerful technology is not widely used, however, as developing intelligent agent software requires high levels of training and skill. The authors of this book have developed and tested a methodology and tools for developing intelligent agent systems. With this methodology (Prometheus) developers can start agent-oriented designs and implementations easily from scratch saving valuable time and resources.Developing Intelligent Agent Systems not only answers the questions “what are agents?” and “why are they useful?” but also the crucial question: “how do I design and build intelligent agent systems?” The book covers everything a practitioner needs to know to begin to effectively use this technology - including an introduction to the notion of agents, a description of the concepts involved, and a software engineering methodology.Read on for: a practical step-by-step introduction to designing and building intelligent agent systems.a full life-cycle methodology for developing intelligent agent systems covering specification, analysis, design and implementation of agents.PDT: Prometheus Design Tool – software support for the Prometheus design process.the example of an electronic bookstore to illustrate the design process throughout the book.Electronic resources including the Prometheus Design Tool (PDT), can be found at: http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/agents/prometheusThis book is aimed at industrial software developers, software engineers and at advanced undergraduate students.  It assumes knowledge of basic software engineering but does not require knowledge of Artificial Intelligence or of mathematics. Familiarity with Java will help in reading the examples in chapter 10.