In order of presentation:
Engineering Emergence through Gossip by Márk Jelasity
Gossip is one of the most usual social
activities. The result of gossip is that new and interesting
information spreads over a social network not unlike diseases during an
epidemic, or computer worms over the Internet. We will argue here that
the core .idea. of gossip, that is, periodic information exchange among
members of a group over a network that connects them, and a subsequent
update of the knowledge of the group members based on the information
they exchange, is a powerful abstraction that can be applied for
solving a wide range of problems in distributed computing. The
applications include.apart from the most natural one: information
dissemination.gathering global knowledge about distributed systems and
organizing the group members into several structures, such as ordering,
clustering or other arbitrary topologies.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (pdf)
Using Localised 'Gossip' to Structure
Distributed Learning by Bruce Edmonds
The idea of a "memetic" spread of
solutions through a human culture in parallel to their development is
applied as a distributed approach to learning. Local parts of a problem
are associated with a set of overlapping localities in a space and
solutions are then evolved in those localities. Good solutions are not
only crossed with others to search for better solutions but also they
propagate across the areas of the problem space where they are
relatively successful. Thus the whole population coevolves solutions
with the domains in which they are found to work. This approach is
compared to the equivalent global evolutionary computation approach
with respect to predicting the occurrence of heart disease in the
Cleveland data set. It outperforms a global approach, but the space of
attributes within which this evolutionary process occurs can greatly
effect the efficiency of the technique.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (ppt)
Comparison of
Reproduction Schemes in an Artificial Society for Cooperative Gathering
by Gusz Eiben, G.S.
Nitschke, and
Martijn
Schut
This paper compares reproduction
schemes for adaptive behavior in an artificial society, where the
collective task of the society is the gathering of resources in an
artificial environment. The environment is randomly distributed with
varying quantities of different resource types, where different
resource types yield different fitness rewards for agents that
successfully gather them. Gathering of the more valuable resource types
(those yielding higher fitness rewards) requires cooperative behavior
of varying degrees (a certain number of agents working collectively).
We compared reproduction schemes over three dimensions. The first was a
comparison of agents that could reproduce only at the end of their
lifetimes (single reproduction at the end of the agent’s lifetime) and
agents that could reproduce several times during their lifetime
(multiple reproduction during lifetime). The second was a comparison of
agents that could reproduce only with agents in adjacent positions and
agents that could reproduce with agents at any position in the
environment. The third compared different methods for deriving the
number of offspring produced and the fitness share given to each
offspring, as well as stochastic variants of these methods. Results
indicate that the single reproduction at the end of the agent’s
lifetime scheme afforded the artificial society a higher level of
performance in its collective task, according to the evaluation
criterion, comparative to artificial societies utilizing the multiple
reproductions during lifetime reproduction scheme.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (ppt)
A Social
Semantic
Infrastructure for Decentralised Systems Based on
Specification-Carrying Code and Trust by Giovanna Di Marzo
Serugendo,
and Michel Deriaz
Decentralised systems made of
autonomous devices and software are gaining more and more interest.
These autonomous elements usually do not know each other in advance and
act without any central control. They thus form a society of devices
and software, and as such need: basic interaction mechanisms for
understanding each other, and a social infrastructure supporting
interactions taking place in an uncertain environment. In an effort to
go beyond pre-established communication schema and to cope with
uncertainty, this paper proposes an interaction mechanism based
exclusively: on semantic information expressed using specifications,
and on a social infrastructure relying on trust and reputation.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (ppt)
Towards a Simulation Tool for Evaluating Dynamic
Reorganization of
Agent Societies by Virginia Dignum,
Frank Dignum,
Liz Sonenberg, Vasco
Furtado, and
Adriano
Melo
Reorganization of the structure of an
organization is a crucial issue in multi-agent systems that operate in
an open, dynamic environment. Currently, most coordination mechanisms
are imposed upon the system at design time, and their modification
implies the redesign of the system. However, autonomous agents must be
able to evaluate and decide the most appropriate organization given the
environment conditions. That is, there is a need for dynamic
reorganization of coordination structures. In this paper, we propose a
classification of reorganization types which considers two layers of
reorganization: behavioral and structural. We further describe how
simulations can help to determine whether and how reorganization should
take place. Finally we present a simulation scenario that is used to
evaluate the different reorganization forms.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (ppt)
Two-Sides of Emergence in
Participatory Simulations by Paul Guyot, and Alexis Drogoul
Starting from an agent-based model of
the coffee market in the state of Veracruz, we conducted participatory
simulation experiments where human players were given the roles of
reactive agents. The simulations were tuned to favor the apparition of
coalitions among coffee producers. In addition to the expected
coalitions, we witnessed another kind of emergence: roles were
specialized with the apparition of traders among the coffee producers.
Drawing from this first-hand experience, we came to consider
participatory simulations as a way to create multi-agent systems where
humans improve problem solving capabilities of the system.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (pdf)
Agent-based
participatory
simulation activities for the emergence of complex social behaviours by Stefano Cacciaguerra,
and Matteo
Roffilli
Nowadays, social organizations (at
macro-level) can be represented as complex self-organizing sys-tems
that emerge from the interaction of complicated social behaviours (at
micro-level). Modern multi-agent systems can be employed to explore
“artificial societies” by reproducing complicated social behaviours.
Unfortunately, promoting interactions only among pre-set behavioural
models may limit the capability to explore all possible evolution
patterns. To tackle this issue, we aim at discovering emergent social
behaviours through simulation, allowing human people to participate in
the simulation environment, so that the range of possible behaviours is
not pre-determined. In order to support this new approach, we propose a
system architecture that is able to support an endless session level
between a software agent and a human player (called participatory
framework). In par-ticular, while network faults or human low
reactivity do not allow the human being to control his agent, this
system architecture adopts a virtual player mechanism (called ghost
player) that takes control of the agent driven by the user. The
advanced version of such a ghost player relies on sub-symbolic Machine
Learning techniques for mimicking the strategy of the off-line human
being.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (pdf)
Engineering with Sociological Metaphors:
Examples and Prospects by David Hales
One way of approaching the engineering
of systems with desirable properties is to examine naturally occurring
systems that appear to have such properties. One line of work examines
biological theories and phenomena. Ideas from the social sciences are
less well explored as a possible source of so-called ‘self-*’
(self-organisation, self-repair, self-management) engineering
techniques. We briefly overview some recent work that follows this
latter approach and consider some specific prospects for future work.
Available: Full Paper (pdf); Slides (ppt)
