The first book to provide an integrative presentation of the issues, challenges and success of designing, building and using agent applications. The chapters presented are written by internationally leading authorities in the field, with a general audience in mind. The result is a unique overview of agent technology applications, ranging from an introduction to the technical foundations to reports on dealing with specific agent systems in practice.

Mark d'Inverno and Michael Luck present a formal approach to dealing with agents and agent systems in this second edition of Understanding Agent Systems. The Z specification language is used to establish an accessible and unified formal account of agent systems and inter-agent relationships. In particular, the framework provides precise and unambiguous meanings for common concepts and terms for agent systems, allows for the description of alternative agent models and architectures, and serves as a foundation for subsequent development of increasingly refined agent concepts. The practicability of this approach is verified by applying the formal framework to three detailed case studies. The book will appeal equally to researchers, students, and professionals in industry.

"This book is a catalyst for emerging research in intelligent information, specifically artificial intelligent technologies and applications to assist in improving productivity in many roles such as assistants to human operators and autonomous decision-making components of complex systems"--Provided by publisher.

Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology is written for readers who are curious about what human (social) cognition is, and whether and how advanced software programs or robots can become social agents. Topics addressed in 16 peer-reviewed chapters by researchers at the forefront of agent research include: Narrative intelligence and implementations of story-telling systems, socially situated avatars and ‘conscious’ software agents, cognitive architectures for socially intelligent agents, agents with emotions, design issues for interactive systems, artificial life agents, contributions to agent design from artistic practice, and a Cognitive Technology view on living with socially intelligent agents. The book addresses both software and robotic agents. On the one hand justice is done to the scientific and technical aspects, and on the other hand the reader will learn about pioneering technological developments which are necessary for a public discourse and critical evaluation on where social agent technology is leading us and how such a development can be shaped in order to meet the social, cultural and cognitive needs of humans. The book is suitable for students, researchers, and everyone interested in this emerging and quickly growing field, it does not require any specialist background knowledge. (Series B)

This volume contains a collection of papers that provides a unique, novel and up-to-date overview of how software agents technology is being applied in very diverse problems in health care, ranging from community care to management of organ transplants. It also provides an introductory survey that highlights the main issues to be taken into account when deploying agents in the health care area. The intended audience includes graduate and postgraduate students specializing in artificial intelligence and researchers interested in the application of new technologies.

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/prometheus This 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.

This volume is an attempt to capture the essence of the state-of-the-art of intelligent agent technology and to identify the new challenges and opportunities that it is or will be facing. The most important feature of the volume is that it emphasizes a multi-faceted, holistic view of this emerging technology, from its computational foundations OCo in terms of models, methodologies, and tools for developing a variety of embodiments of agent-based systems OCo to its practical impact on tackling real-world problems. Contents: Formal Agent Theories; Computational Architecture and Infrastructure; Learning and Adaptation; Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Agents; Distributed Intelligence; Agent Based Applications. Readership: Graduate students in computer science and engineering, academics/lecturers, researchers, software/systems engineers, IT engineers and industrialists."