This volume constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the 4th Australian Workshop on distributed Artificial Intelligence held in Brisbane, QLD, Australia in July 1998. The 13 revised full selected and invited papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The book is devoted to theoretical aspects, languages, and applications of various types of multi-agent systems. Among the topics covered are self-interested mobile agents, formal specification of MAS, coordination, reinforcement learning, self organization, agent negotiation, agent-based intelligent systems, Internet-based DAI applications, agent-based scheduling, Internet agent trading.

The study of multi-agent systems (MAS) focuses on systems in which many intelligent agents interact with each other. These agents are considered to be autonomous entities such as software programs or robots. Their interactions can either be cooperative (for example as in an ant colony) or selfish (as in a free market economy). This book assumes only basic knowledge of algorithms and discrete maths, both of which are taught as standard in the first or second year of computer science degree programmes. A basic knowledge of artificial intelligence would useful to help understand some of the issues, but is not essential. The book’s main aims are: To introduce the student to the concept of agents and multi-agent systems, and the main applications for which they are appropriate To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of intelligent agents To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of a multi-agent society To introduce a number of typical applications for agent technology After reading the book the student should understand: The notion of an agent, how agents are distinct from other software paradigms (e.g. objects) and the characteristics of applications that lend themselves to agent-oriented software The key issues associated with constructing agents capable of intelligent autonomous action and the main approaches taken to developing such agents The key issues in designing societies of agents that can effectively cooperate in order to solve problems, including an understanding of the key types of multi-agent interactions possible in such systems The main application areas of agent-based systems

Methodological Guidelines for Modeling and Developing MAS-Based Simulations The intersection of agents, modeling, simulation, and application domains has been the subject of active research for over two decades. Although agents and simulation have been used effectively in a variety of application domains, much of the supporting research remains scattered in the literature, too often leaving scientists to develop multi-agent system (MAS) models and simulations from scratch. Multi-Agent Systems: Simulation and Applications provides an overdue review of the wide ranging facets of MAS simulation, including methodological and application-oriented guidelines. This comprehensive resource reviews two decades of research in the intersection of MAS, simulation, and different application domains. It provides scientists and developers with disciplined engineering approaches to modeling and developing MAS-based simulations. After providing an overview of the field’s history and its basic principles, as well as cataloging the various simulation engines for MAS, the book devotes three sections to current and emerging approaches and applications. Simulation for MAS — explains simulation support for agent decision making, the use of simulation for the design of self-organizing systems, the role of software architecture in simulating MAS, and the use of simulation for studying learning and stigmergic interaction. MAS for Simulation — discusses an agent-based framework for symbiotic simulation, the use of country databases and expert systems for agent-based modeling of social systems, crowd-behavior modeling, agent-based modeling and simulation of adult stem cells, and agents for traffic simulation. Tools — presents a number of representative platforms and tools for MAS and simulation, including Jason, James II, SeSAm, and RoboCup Rescue. Complete with over 200 figures and formulas, this reference book provides the necessary overview of experiences with MAS simulation and the tools needed to exploit simulation in MAS for future research in a vast array of applications including home security, computational systems biology, and traffic management.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Central and Eastern European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems, CEEMAS 2007, held in Leipzig, Germany, September 25-27, 2007. The 29 revised full papers and 17 revised short papers presented together with an invited paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 84 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of areas.

Multi-agent systems are claimed to be especially suited to the development of software systems that are decentralized, can deal flexibly with dynamic conditions, and are open to system components that come and go. This is why they are used in domains such as manufacturing control, automated vehicles, and e-commerce markets. Danny Weyns' book is organized according to the postulate that "developing multi-agent systems is 95% software engineering and 5% multi-agent systems theory." He presents a software engineering approach for multi-agent systems that is heavily based on software architecture - with, for example, tailored patterns such as "situated agent", "virtual environment", and "selective perception" - and on middleware for distributed coordination – with programming abstractions such as "views" and "roles." Next he shows the feasibility and applicability of this approach with the development of an automated transportation system consisting of a number of automatic guided vehicles transporting loads in an industrial setting. Weyns puts the development of multi-agent systems into a larger perspective with traditional software engineering approaches. With this, he opens up opportunities to exploit the body of knowledge developed in the multi-agent systems community to tackle some of the difficult challenges of modern-day software systems, such as decentralized control, location-awareness, self-adaption, and large-scale. Thus his book is of interest for both researchers and industrial software engineers who develop applications in areas such as distributed control systems and mobile applications where such requirements are of crucial importance.

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.

PAAMS, the International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems is an international yearly forum to present, to discuss, and to disseminate the latest developments and the most important outcomes related to real-world applications. It provides a unique opportunity to bring multi-disciplinary experts, academics and practitioners together to exchange their ex-perience in the development of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. This volume presents the papers that have been accepted for the 2010 edition in the Special Sessions and Workshops. PAAMS'10 Special Sessions and Workshops are a very useful tool in order to complement the regular program with new or emerging topics of particular interest to the participating community. Special Sessions and Workshops that emphasize on multi-disciplinary and transversal aspects, as well as cutting-edge topics were especially encouraged and welcomed.