ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR MULTI-AGENT ARCHITECTURES by Chris Van Aart ( 9783764372132 )

Item Details

Title:

ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR MULTI-AGENT ARCHITECTURES

By:

Format:

Paperback

List price:	£44.99
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ISBN 10:

3764372133

ISBN 13:

9783764372132

Publisher:

BIRKHAUSER VERLAG AG

Pub. date:

15 December, 2004

Series:

Whitestein Series in Software Agent Technologies and Autonomic Computing

Pages:

204

Description:

Addresses "How can human organizational principles be used for multi-agent architectures?" by an exploration of the possibilities to design multi-agent systems as artificial organizations.

Synopsis:

1. 1 Background In this work, we develop a framework for the design of multi-agent systems inspired by (human) organizational principles. Organizations are complex entities formed to ov- come various limitations of individual agencies, such as cognitive, physical, temporal and institutional limitations. There is a parallel between the complexity of organizations and multi-agent systems. Therefore, we explore the use of concepts, methods and techniques from human organizational design as architectural principles for multi-agent systems. Three research lines are presented: organizational modeling and coordination, interop- ability and agent models. Organizational modeling and coordination are concerned with how resources (i. e. agents) can be identi?ed and related to each other. In order to have agents cooperate, several issues of interoperability have to be addressed. Agent models deal with the design of individual intelligent software agents, taking into account typical features of agent intelligence. Every (human) activity raises two challenges: division of labor and coordi- tion [Mintzberg, 1993].Division of labor is the decomposition of work (or goals) into various distinct tasks. Coordination refers to managing relations between these tasks to carry out the work. The patterns of division of labor, responsibilities (people who do the work), clustering of responsibilities into units and coordination between units can be de?ned by organizational structures [Galbraith, 1973]. The design of an organization should cover how one or more actors are engaged in one or more tasks, where knowledge, capabilities and resources are distributed.

Illustrations:

25 black & white tables, biography

Publication:

Switzerland

Imprint:

Birkhauser Verlag AG

Returns:

Returnable