Characterization of Fairness of Information Distribution in a Mobile Agent Based Adaptive Information System

Abstract

The information age is now passing through an evolutionary phase. As the capacity of networks is increasing to handle and process huge volume of information traffic, the management of such information systems is becoming a trivial issue. The Internet being the largest source of information provision is heterogeneous in nature with constantly evolving environment. New information services are added whereas some are modified or removed. User’s demands and interests also change constantly. In such a dynamic environment it is very difficult to maintain a coherent picture of the information services. A novel technique proposed recently employs autonomous mobile agents in faded information field architecture to facilitate information provision and servicing in this new era of information age. The architecture is decentralized in nature whereby both the service provider and information seeker communicate through mobile agents. However, the degree of fairness of information distribution and access is still a problem to be addressed. This paper investigates the issue of fairness among information users for access to information in a networked environment that uses mobile agent technology and faded information field architecture to service the system. A number of algorithms were simulated and their effectiveness is discussed in the paper. Simulation results are presented that show a lot of potential to address the issue of fairness in information systems. Keywords: Mobile agents, information systems, intelligent systems.