A Coordination and Cooperation Model for Internet-based Multi-agent Systems

Rainer Unland
Mathematics and Computer Science
University of Essen, Germany

Friday, 9th April 1999
1100 - 1200

Conference Room
CSIRO Mathematical & Information Sciences
Ground Floor, 723 Swanston Street, Melbourne.

Abstract:

The popularity of the Internet has caused a tremendous increase both in participants and in accessible information, data, and services.  Rapid dissemination of information has gained significant economic importance, as recognized (for example) in the Bangemann Report of the European Commission and in the Information Technology area report of the British Government's Foresight initiative.  Nevertheless negative consequences are beginning to be experienced that could ultimately lead to "a deficit of information within an abundance of information".  The use of collaborating software agents that are in charge of both the supply of information and the demand for information is increasingly canvassed as a way to deal with these problems.

However, comparatively little is known of the implications which the exigencies of wide-area networking will have for the models and strategies of collaboration and cooperation that agents require.  Experience to date with respect to cooperation between agents within multi-agent systems (MAS) is almost exclusively restricted to relatively stable environments.  In such environments the designer can assume that the system comprises only a restricted number of agents, that their fluctuation is limited and that they can rely on a secure means for communication.  Since the Internet's characteristics are in a way opposite to these, there is a need to develop and experimentally validate design principles that take into account the peculiarities of a highly flexible and open MAS distributed over the Internet.  This talk will present first results on these topics gained within a common project between two universities in Glasgow and two in Germany.

Biosketch:

Rainer Unland is a full professor in computer science at University of Essen (chair: data management systems and knowledge representation).  His current research interests include distributed artificial intelligence, advanced/object-oriented database management systems, object-oriented software development, computer supported cooperative work, and advanced transaction management.

He graduated in Computer Science at University of Dortmund in 1980 and received his Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) in Computer Science from University of Hagen in 1985.  In 1992 he got the formal qualification as university lecturer (Habilitation) from University of Hagen.  Before moving to University of Essen he was a visiting professor at the universities of Passau (1991) and Ilmenau (1995) and an associate professor at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (1991-1995) at the institute of business informatics.  He has authored and co-authored numerous publications and textbooks in the areas of transaction management, database management systems, workflow management, computer supported cooperative work, and (distributed) artificial intelligence.