Agent Theory Research Articles

Research on Agent-Oriented Programming

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 面向Agent程序设计的研究 DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1001.2012.04297 作者: 作者单位: 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金(61070034, 61133001, 90818028); 教育部博士点基金(20094307110007); 新世纪优秀人才支持计划 Research on Agent-Oriented Programming Author: Affiliation: Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:面向Agent 程序设计(agent-oriented programming,简称AOP)基于多Agent 系统的抽象和思想、借助于Agent 理论和技术来支持软件系统的构造与实现,其程序设计思想、软件模型、基础理论和语言设施有别于现有主流程序设计技术,如OOP,代表了一种新颖的程序设计范型.由于多Agent 系统被视为支持开放环境下复杂软件系统开发的一种新颖、有效的技术手段,因而近年来AOP 受到人工智能、软件工程和分布计算等领域研究学者和工程实践人员的高度关注,并在过去20 年取得了重要进展.但是,无论在应对复杂多Agent 系统开发方面,还是在大规模工业化应用等方面,AOP 的研究与实践都面临着严峻的挑战.作为一种程序设计范型,AOP 研究需要在交叉其他学科知识(如人工智能)的基础上,充分借鉴软件工程以及已有程序设计范型的原理、原则和成功实践,从而推动技术走向成熟并为广大工程实践人员所接受.通过对AOP 研究历程的系统介绍,从软件工程的视点考虑MAS 程序设计的不同层次,综述AOP 在程序设计抽象与模型、机制与理论、语言与设施和支撑平台这4 个方面的研究成果,展示不同时期AOP 研究关注点的变化以及发展趋势,分析当前AOP 研究与实践存在的问题和面临的挑战,并展望进一步的研究. Abstract:Agent-Oriented programming (AOP) is inspired from the concepts and metaphors of multi-agent systems and borrows agent theory and technology to construct software systems. It represents a novel programming paradigm because its method, model, theory, and language are actually different from ones of existing mainstream programming technologies like OOP. As multi-agent system is considered as an effective technology to deal with the development of complex systems in open environment, AOP attracts many researchers and practitioners in the literatures of AI, software engineering and distributed computing. Significant progress has been made in the past twenty years. However, there are still great challenges to widely apply such a paradigm to support the development of complex systems in industry. In addition to using AI as basis, AOP should consider and borrow successful principles and practices of software engineering, especially existing programming paradigms, to promote its wide acceptance by software engineering practitioners. The aim of this paper is to give a systemic introduction of the research roadmap of AOP, investigate its state-of-the-art from a software engineering viewpoint by considering different programming levels of MAS and four research constituents of programming paradigms, including abstraction and model, mechanism and theory, language construct, and facility, supported platform. The survey intends to show the different research focuses and their changes in various stages. Moreover, the study identifies a number of issues and challenges in existing researches and prospect its future researches. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Self‐Determination: A Family Affair

Due to the advocacy of families during the 20th century, children and youth with disabilities gained access to a free, appropriate education. Although people with disabilities have made significant strides in the past quarter century, in the United States and across the world, people with significant disabilities continue to experience disproportionate levels of unemployment, have few options other than to live with their families, and experience a diminished quality of life. To address this, the educational system has focused on supports and services to ensure that young people with disabilities transition from school to adulthood more successfully. Within these efforts, the promotion of self‐determination for secondary students with disabilities has become best practice, and there exist evidence‐based methods, materials, and strategies to achieve this outcome. This article discusses the importance of self‐determination for youth with disabilities to achieve successful lives and the important role that families play in that process.

EFFECTS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE ON MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY OF LITHUANIAN STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES

Abstract. Management efficiency of state-owned enterprises (SOE) is being widely discussed not only in Lithuania, Central Eastern Europe, but also globally (mainly focusing on such countries as China, having state monopoly in most of the industries). Moreover, this topic is interesting to scholars both in the context of public governance reforms and a specific area of public administration. On the other hand, the topic of SOEs management is quite specific due to its duality: firstly, it is an area of public governance with an intensive intervention of the government, and secondly, SOEs are autonomous enterprises having dual – social (e.g., creation of work places, implementation of state-level projects, etc.) and economic (e.g., profitability, return on investment, etc.) – goals. Following the paradigms of (post) new public governance, principal agent theory, corporate governance guidelines established by such international organizations as the OECD, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and others, this paper is focusing on the management and performance of SOEs, trying to find an evidence of positive effects related to the implementation of corporate governance principles in Lithuanian SOEs. The paper seeks to identify those aspects of corporate governance which are the most relevant in terms of their potential effect on the management efficiency of Lithuanian SOEs.Key words: state-owned enterprises, corporate governance, principal agent theory, management efficiency

Opposition Parties in Hybrid Regimes: Between Repression and Co-optation: The Case of Russia's Regions

In this article the author analyses the intricate combination of repression and co-optation policies conducted by Russia's ruling elites in their relations with the opposition on the regional level. As the study shows the structural features of electoral authoritarianism not only ensure the victories of ‘approved’ candidates but also make the rare oppositional winners to adapt to the existing regime and change the political affiliation. If the regime gets more authoritarian the oppositional party can still be a tool to win a local election. But after being elected, the winner finds himself in another political environment of existing patron–client relations, and has no other choice than to become a dependent member, or an agent (according to principal–agent theory) in higher-level clientele. As a result, oppositional party has become useless in the recruitment of influential executive power elite. However, while blocking unwanted ‘invasion’ of opposition into the executive power the regime allows opposition to be presented in the leadership of regional legislative power. This policy reflects the necessity to make an opposition more loyal and included into the system of power relations in most safe and efficient for the ruling elite way.

Effects of Transactional and Transformational Governance on Academic Teaching: Empirical evidence from two types of higher education institutions

The leadership literature distinguishes two modes of governance, which can also be applied to the governance of universities: transactional and transformational. Transactional governance encompasses all forms of managerial governance, including selective incentives and monitoring capacity. The theoretical underpinning of this mode can be found in principal–agent theory. Transformational governance covers the means of restructuring the roles of principals and agents or the interaction situation in the organization, and also addresses all the means of restructuring the relationship between perceived environment and motivation, as can be seen in self-determination theory. Other elements of transformational governance are social norms, such as those that inform the quality of research or approaches to teaching. The main research question is: what has more impact on professors’ perceptions of the significance attributed to academic teaching in Germany—transactional or transformational governance? Two hypothese...

Performance Management for Academic Researchers

Using performance management systems that motivate employees to high performance is central for many public leaders. Command systems, which are based on the threat of sanctions, are typically used in public organizations, but we have little knowledge about the effects of such systems. Principal agent theory expects that harder command systems improve performance, and motivation crowding theory agrees that this will be the case, if agents perceive the command system as supportive. However, motivation crowding theory expects that a command system perceived as controlling will be less effective and perhaps even harm the performance due to crowding out effects. The expectation is confirmed in this study, which builds on register and survey panel data from 101 researchers over 10 years (2000-2009) combined with 19 interviews. Although research institutions are not typical public organizations, the results imply that public leaders should take employee perceptions of command systems very seriously.

Why the traditional principal agent theory may no longer apply to concentrated ownership systems and structures

This paper not only considers why many concentrated ownership structured systems and jurisdictions are considering a shift to the Anglo American style of corporate governance, but also explores why the traditional principal agency theory model may no longer apply in many concentrated ownership structures.

Trojan Multilateralism: Global Cooperation in Health

AbstractThis article argues that recent global health cooperation has been marked by two trends. First, there has been a highly successful proliferation of vertical funds to fight specific diseases. These are characterized by narrower problem‐based mandates; multistakeholder governance; voluntary and discretionary funding; no in‐country presence for the delivery of assistance; and an output‐based legitimacy (based on effectiveness, not process). The rise of new initiatives with these characteristics has dovetailed with an increase in the funding of international organizations. However, the latter has not necessarily strengthened multilateralism. Instead, rapid increases in discretionary earmarked funding to the WHO and World Bank, which we call Trojan multilateralism, has replicated features of the vertical funds. With what consequences for international cooperation? Using principal–agent theory, we find a mixed picture. International organizations are being redirected by specific incentives. However, two constraints on bilateral control are not shifting. There is a persistent asymmetry of information between the WHO or the World Bank and individual member states, which gives the former a degree of autonomy. Equally, there are persistent obstacles to tightening bilateral monitoring of multilateral action. We conclude that the positive lessons to be drawn from vertical initiatives need to be balanced by the risks posed from a convergence of vertical initiatives and Trojan multilateralism

Why the Traditional Principal Agent Theory May No Longer Apply to Concentrated Ownership Systems and Structures

This paper not only considers why many concentrated ownership structured systems and jurisdictions are considering a shift to the Anglo American style of corporate governance, but also explores why the traditional principal agency theory model may no longer apply in many concentrated ownership structures.

Decision Theory for Agents with Incomplete Preferences

Orthodox decision theory gives no advice to agents who hold two goods to be incommensurate in value because such agents will have incomplete preferences. According to standard treatments, rationality requires complete preferences, so such agents are irrational. Experience shows, however, that incomplete preferences are ubiquitous in ordinary life. In this paper, we aim to do two things: (1) show that there is a good case for revising decision theory so as to allow it to apply non-vacuously to agents with incomplete preferences, and (2) to identify one substantive criterion that any such non-standard decision theory must obey. Our criterion, Competitiveness, is a weaker version of a dominance principle. Despite its modesty, Competitiveness is incompatible with prospectism, a recently developed decision theory for agents with incomplete preferences. We spend the final part of the paper showing why Competitiveness should be retained, and prospectism rejected.

Implementation of BTOP funding for public computing centers: Goal consensus and project performance

This paper seeks to perform an assessment of the current state of implementation of BTOP-funded public computing center projects based on insights from principal–agent theory. Using newly available data on BTOP-funded PCC projects and correlating them with socioeconomic and geographic data derived from the US census and the FCC, we seek to assess whether program funds were targeted at unserved/underserved areas as required by program objectives, as well as the progress towards completion of PCC projects by type of grantee and funding amount. On the distribution of funds, we find that the PCCs supported were located in areas of high broadband availability as well as high demand: while this is contrary to the BTOP's stated purpose, we argue that it is actually more cost-effective to also target areas of high demand. It was also found that whereas a majority of PCC grants went to governmental agencies, who also received larger grants than non-governmental recipients, they were no more likely to generate a significantly higher percentage of matching funds or to move toward project completion sooner. We speculate that the intense competition for grants might have narrowed the performance gap between these categories of applicants.

Multi-task agency with unawareness

The paper introduces the problem of unawareness into multi-dimensional Principal–Agent theory. We introduce two key parameters to describe the problem, the extent and the effect of unawareness, show under what conditions it is optimal for the Principal to propose an incomplete or a complete contract, and characterize the incentive power of optimal linear contracts. If Agents differ in their unawareness, optimal incentive schemes can be distorted for both aware and unaware Agents, because, different from standard contract theory, the single-crossing property fails to hold. In this case, even aware Agents can be subject to inefficiently high or low incentives.

Study on Emergency Decision-Making of Natural Disaster Based on Collaboration of Multi-Agent

Based on the occurrence and evolution of the natural disaster is characteristic of uncertainty and complexity, in this article, Agent theory and technology is applied to emergency decision-making of natural disaster in China, built the disaster emergency collaborative decision-making framework based on multi-agent, design the collaborative decision-making model, discuss the emergency decision-making mechanism based on scenario-response, through effective collaboration based on multi-agent, achieve natural disaster dynamic emergency decision-making process.

A Persuasive Robot to Stimulate Energy Conservation: The Influence of Positive and Negative Social Feedback and Task Similarity on Energy-Consumption Behavior

This research explored the persuasive effects on behavior of social feedback by a robotic agent. In two experiments, participants could save on energy while carrying out washing tasks on a simulated washing machine. In both experiments, we tested the persuasive effects of positive and negative social feedback and we compared these effects to factual feedback, which is more widely used. Results of both studies indicated that social feedback had stronger persuasive effects than factual feedback. Furthermore, results of both studies suggested an effect of feedback valence indicated by more economic behavior following negative feedback (social or factual) as compared to positive feedback. Overall, the strongest persuasive effects were exerted by negative social feedback. In addition, results of Experiment 2 indicated that task similarity increased the persuasive effects of negative feedback. The implications for persuasive robotic agent theory and design are discussed.

信息系统功能增强的多活性代理方法研究

Based on the research achievements of the theory and method of multi-living agent (MLA) complex information systems, this paper elaborates the basic concept of the MLA theoretical system and the connotations of the MLA, and discusses the concept, property and representation of the livelihood degree of the MLA. It also explores the methods for the improvement of the livelihood degree of the information system through the maintenance, negotiation and coordination of the agent livelihood.We rstly identify the related basic concepts associated with the theoretical system of MLA complex infor-mation systems, and the relations between these concepts on the basis of the concepts of set and spaces that composite the complex information system. Secondly, the concept of the MLA livelihood degree is proposed based on the functional characteristics of the complex information system and the living self-organization mech-anism, and the detailed analysis for the property, representation and application of the MLA livelihood degree is conducted. Besides, the maintenance strategies of the livelihood degree of the complex information systems are discussed from the aspects of lose, perception, modulation of the livelihood, and judgment and decision-making. Finally, the negotiation-coordination mechanism and methods of the MLA function maintenance are investigated in detail. The above research results further improve the MLA theoretical system, and propose a quantitative represen-tation method for the livelihood degree of both the agent and the system. These results lay the foundation for further theoretical and applied research of the MLA complex information system.

Understanding Public Sector Ethics: Beyond Agency Theory in Canada's Sponsorship Scandal

ABSTRACT Public sector ethics is a topic of ongoing concern in developed democracies. The most popular theoretical approach to this issue is found in principal–agent theory literature. This approach assumes that public sector organizations are populated by principals and agents, each of whom pursue their own self-interest, with agents having a persistent informational advantage. A second approach to ethical conflicts focuses on cognitive processes. According to cognitive theory, all decision makers are vulnerable to “ethical numbing,” particularly in organizational settings that condone the substitution of personal agendas for organizational goals. We argue that Canada's sponsorship scandal has been interpreted almost exclusively from a principal–agent perspective, with subsequent reforms firmly based on introducing new rules to oblige agents to advance the interests of principals. While more faithful adherence to established rules by agents would have avoided a scandal, such adherence is unlikely to be achieved through incentives, monitoring, and penalties as suggested by principal–agent theory. The policy message contained in and implied by the cognitive framework suggests that the focus must be on creating an organizational learning environment that discourages responsible public officials from reframing decision situations in a manner that allows them to become morally disengaged.

Controlling Capital: The International Monetary Fund and Transformative Incremental Change from Within International Organisations

As a result of a long-running internal debate there have been notable incremental changes to how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) treats capital controls, particularly those directed at inflows. These changes combine new acceptance of these policy instruments with an older emphasis on their negative consequences and on the desirability of free movement of capital. Policy change of this sort is puzzling from the standpoint of the existing literature on international organisations (IOs), which has thus far paid little attention to transformative incremental change associated with long-term contestation. This article departs from this tendency by drawing on insights from principal–agent theory, constructivism and historical institutionalism to identify the conditions under which such change may originate. I argue that actors within IOs are likely to pursue incremental change by layering new policies on to old ones as a way to build coalitions and to respond to external organisational insecurity imperatives and diverse member state preferences and to internal path-dependent organisational cultural features. Over time the incremental shifts brought by layering can induce transformative rather than reproductive change because they fit with consequentialist and appropriateness behavioural logics. I illustrate this argument by investigating recent changes in IMF policy on capital controls.

How much does it help to know what she knows you know? An agent-based simulation study

In everyday life, people make use of theory of mind by explicitly attributing unobservable mental content such as beliefs, desires, and intentions to others. Humans are known to be able to use this ability recursively. That is, they engage in higher-order theory of mind, and consider what others believe about their own beliefs. In this paper, we use agent-based computational models to investigate the evolution of higher-order theory of mind. We consider higher-order theory of mind across four different competitive games, including repeated single-shot and repeated extensive form games, and determine the advantage of higher-order theory of mind agents over their lower-order theory of mind opponents. Across these four games, we find a common pattern in which first-order and second-order theory of mind agents clearly outperform opponents that are more limited in their ability to make use of theory of mind, while the advantage for deeper recursion to third-order theory of mind is limited in comparison.

Relationships in Technological Processes

The process model and theory of Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) and the new idea of how technology spreads in an organization are discussed. A comparison between DOI and the Relationship Marketing (RM) theory is examined. Managers who desire innovation or utilize RM theory for third-party change agents are explored. Request for Information (RFI), and Request for Proposal (RFP) utilized by managers that desire technological innovation in the procurement process is discussed. A case study of the commercialization, innovation, feedback-assessment procurement processes of the DOI is conducted in a large public-sector university that procured and implemented an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The study revealed that the innovation process was inadequate to explain the outcome. The conclusion reveals that an opportunity or a threat is co-dependent on how each party perceives on or the other’s premise; either premise is irrelevant if one side or the other refuses to foster the relationship.

How natural selection can create both self- and other-regarding preferences, and networked minds.

Biological competition is widely believed to result in the evolution of selfish preferences. The related concept of the ‘homo economicus’ is at the core of mainstream economics. However, there is also experimental and empirical evidence for other-regarding preferences. Here we present a theory that explains both, self-regarding and other-regarding preferences. Assuming conditions promoting non-cooperative behaviour, we demonstrate that intergenerational migration determines whether evolutionary competition results in a ‘homo economicus’ (showing self-regarding preferences) or a ‘homo socialis’ (having other-regarding preferences). Our model assumes spatially interacting agents playing prisoner's dilemmas, who inherit a trait determining ‘friendliness’, but mutations tend to undermine it. Reproduction is ruled by fitness-based selection without a cultural modification of reproduction rates. Our model calls for a complementary economic theory for ‘networked minds’ (the ‘homo socialis’) and lays the foundations for an evolutionarily grounded theory of other-regarding agents, explaining individually different utility functions as well as conditional cooperation.