Inter-agent Interactions Research Articles

Dynamic Event-Triggered Distributed Coordination Control and its Applications: A Survey of Trends and Techniques

Distributed coordination control is the current trend in networked systems and finds prosperous applications across a variety of fields, such as smart grids and intelligent transportation systems. One fundamental issue in coordinating and controlling a large group of distributed and networked agents is the influence of intermittent interagent interactions caused by constrained communication resources. Event-triggered communication scheduling stands out as a promising enabler to strike a balance between the desired control performance and the satisfactory resource efficiency. What distinguishes dynamic event-triggered scheduling from traditional static event-triggered scheduling is that the triggering mechanism can be dynamically adjusted over time in accordance with both available system information and additional dynamic variables. This article provides an up-to-date overview of dynamic event-triggered distributed coordination control. The motivation of dynamic event-triggered scheduling is first introduced in the context of distributed coordination control. Then some techniques of dynamic event-triggered distributed coordination control are discussed in detail. Implementation and design issues are well addressed. Furthermore, this article exemplifies two applications of dynamic event-triggered distributed coordination control in the fields of microgrids and automated vehicles. Several challenges are suggested to direct the future research.

Maximum Markovian order detection for collective behavior.

Many advances have been achieved in the study of collective behavior of animal groups and human beings. Markovian order is a significant property in collective behavior, which reveals the inter-agent interaction strategy of the system. In this study, we propose a method using the time-series data of collective behavior to determine the optimal maximum Markov order of time-series motion data so as to reflect the maximum memory capacity of the interacting network. Our method combines a time-delayed causal inference algorithm and a multi-order graphical model. We apply the method to the data of pigeon flocks, dogs, and a group of midges to determine their optimal maximum order for validation and construct high-order De Bruijn graphs as a stochastic model to describe their interacting relationships. Most temporal network data of animal movements can be effectively analyzed by our method, which may provide a practical and promising solution to detection of the optimal maximum Markovian order of collective behavior.

Formation of a model for the implementation of the tasks of complex development of rural areas of agriculture-oriented region

Subject. Implementation of the adopted state program for the integrated development of rural territories is fraught with difficulties such as lack of funding, lack of clear approaches to organizing and managing development processes in rural areas. In this regard, it is necessary to work out and propose an effective mechanism for implementing the proposed measures and directions to achieve the values of the target indicators of the state program at all levels of the national economic system.Goals. Under the current conditions, the formation of the modern look of rural territories should be carried out primarily through the development of new technologies, which was reflected in the tasks presented in Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated 05.05.2018 No. 204 “On national goals and strategic objectives of the development of the Russian Federation on period until 2024. " Methodology. In the process of researching the problems of creating a model for implementing the tasks of the integrated development of rural areas of an agrarian-oriented region, methods of logical, system, comparative, economic and statistical analysis are used.Results. Accelerating the country's technological development, increasing the number of organizations implementing technological innovations, ensuring the accelerated introduction of digital technologies in the economy and social sphere is the main goal of innovative development. The effective introduction of innovations in the country should contribute to the creation of an attractive lifestyle in rural areas not only for the local population, but also for the urban population, which will ensure the inclusion of rural areas in the single socio-economic space of the country. The results of the analysis and forecasting of stability parameters indicate the presence of deficiencies in the existing system of strategic planning of the region, which significantly reduce the effectiveness of program activities and expendable resources.Conclusions. To eliminate the identified shortcomings, a model of interagency and inter-territorial interaction was developed, the use of which will improve the performance of rural territorial systems and the strategic planning mechanism at the regional level.

Совершенствование психиатрической помощи как наиболее актуальной проблемы общественного здравоохранения

Mental disorders are an acute public health problem in the WHO European region, affecting 25% the entire population every year. WHO activities in the area of mental health promotion at the level of individuals and society as a whole are aimed at improving human mental well-being, preventing mental disorders, protecting human rights and caring for people with mental disorders. The WHO European Conference on Mental Health (2005), 66th Session of the World Health Assembly (2013), 63rd Session of the WHO European Regional Committee (2013) have focused on mental health. In the Kyrgyz Republic, the State policy to change the system of assistance to persons with mental disabilities, to establish a unified mental health service and to change the attitude of society towards mental health and the mentally ill is reflected in the National Program Mental health of the population of the Kyrgyz Republic for 2001–2010, the National Health Reform Program of the Kyrgyz Republic Den Sooluk for 2012–2018, for the Sustainable Development Goals up to 2030, adopted at the Summit by UN members, the Program for Mental Health Protection of the Population of the Kyrgyz Republic for 2018-2030. Given the negative trends in the mental health care system, an important element in addressing the shortcomings is the increased use of new institutional forms of mental health care, such as the Medical Rehabilitation Unit, Intensive Mental Health Care Unit, Psychiatric Dispensaries and Outpatient Psychiatric Rooms, in dispensary monitoring. Priority in the further development of psychiatric care should be given to the most effective and less costly forms of its provision, ahead of the development of outpatient level, inter-agency interaction and integration of psychiatric service with other levels of regional health and social protection.

The organizational clinical system of development of medical care based on electronic personified data of medical services under angina pectoris and myocardium infarction

The article presents the analysis of quality of medical care of patients with coronary heart disease at the phases of the clinic, ambulance and hospital based on the data from electronic personalized records and registry accounts of the territorial mandatory health insurance foundation. The results of implemented analysis and application of principle of inter-agency information interaction, the clinical organizational system of managing quality of outputs of medical care provision to patients with ischemic heart disease has been developed. The developed medical care quality management system based on database of personalized electronic patient records was tested in practice and demonstrated positive results.

Learning the Value of Teamwork to Form Efficient Teams

In this paper we describe a novel approach to team formation based on the value of inter-agent interactions. Specifically, we propose a model of teamwork that considers outcomes from chains of interactions between agents. Based on our model, we devise a number of network metrics to capture the contribution of interactions between agents. This is then used to learn the value of teamwork from historical team performance data. We apply our model to predict team performance and validate our approach using real-world team performance data from the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Our model is shown to better predict the real-world performance of teams by up to 46% compared to models that ignore inter-agent interactions.

Probabilistic causal inference for coordinated movement of pigeon flocks

One of the most striking examples of natural animal behavior is the highly ordered coordinated group movement, where inter-agent interaction is considered as a key factor tuning the coordination. To understand the interaction mechanism, a long-standing challenge is to reveal the causal relationship among the group individuals. In this study, we propose a causal inference method from the viewpoint of information theory. More precisely, we extend conditional information entropy of pairwise individuals with time delay, and subsequently induce causation entropy which quantifies the causal dependence of two individuals subject to a condition set consisting of other neighbors. Moreover, we analyze the high-resolution GPS data of three pigeon flocks to construct the interaction networks accordingly. We dynamically analyze the interaction characteristics and interestingly observe that the individuals closer to the mass center and the average velocity direction are more influential to the others. This study may shed some light onto the research of collective behaviors.

Institutional aspects of development of regional PPP Projects

The relevance of research into institutional aspects of public-private partnership (PPP) is evidenced by the continuously increasing role of research-and-technology, information technology, territorial and socioeconomic factors of influence on the development and implementation of regional PPP projects aimed at improving social welfare and accelerating the rate of socioeconomic development of Russia’s regions. Systemic impact of technical, technological, territorial and socioeconomic factors stipulates the need for the development of institutional environment of PPPs, which implies taking measures for protecting private investments and interests of private investors. This impact also predetermines the necessity to improve the currently existing institutional models of informational-legal base that ensure integration processes of managing PPP projects, with taking into consideration of regional differences and excess investment risks. In this regard, the present paper is aimed at detecting problems of development of PPP’s institutional environment at the regional level. The solution of these problems will allow elaborating models of institutional environment having integrated legal and regulatory framework, transparent and intelligible procedures and standing orders that are necessary when implementing complex socioeconomic projects of public importance for the development of regions. The authors of the paper have defined the role of institutional environment of public-private partnership (PPP) and municipal public-private partnership (MPPP) in the development of a region. The paper provides the results of generalized analysis of factors of development of institutional environment and regulatory-legal framework at the regional level. There were defined problems entailing the performance risks concerning the support of regional projects by public partners and risks of integrated models of interagency interaction at the stages of elaboration, selection and making decisions on implementing PPP and MPPP projects, performing measures of control, maintenance, monitoring and maintaining a register of PPP projects. The results of the research given in the paper are of applied importance for both academicians and practical workers, especially in using the assessments of a development level of institutional environment and legal framework when preparing or implementing projects on improving a region.

The role of visual angle in pattern phase transition of collective motions

Abundant collective motion patterns of animal groups have different kinds of functions like migration, predator avoidance and foraging. To explore the phase transition mechanism behind such charming collective behaviors, some self-propelled particle models have been proposed, most of which however have isotropic inter-particle interactions and hence could not reproduce sophisticated natural collective patterns. As a remedy, this letter develops an anisotropic self-propelled particle model. By slightly tweaking the vision range and inter-particle attraction, the proposed model demonstrate transitions between four distinct collective motion patterns, i.e., torus, dumbbell, twist, and worm. To investigate more insightfully into the phase transition nature, quantitative analysis is carried out, revealing the relationship of visual angle-based inter-agent interactions and abundant pattern transitions existing in large numbers of natural, social and artificial grouping behaviors. From the industrial application point of view, the present study can help adjust the formation of multiple unmanned systems by simply tweaking a couple of vision-related parameters in their models.

Inferring causal relationship in coordinated flight of pigeon flocks.

Collective phenomenon of natural animal groups will be attributed to individual intelligence and interagent interactions, where a long-standing challenge is to reveal the causal relationship among individuals. In this study, we propose a causal inference method based on information theory. More precisely, we calculate mutual information by using a data mining algorithm named "k-nearest neighbor" and subsequently induce the transfer entropy to obtain the causality entropy quantifying the causal dependence of one individual on another subject to a condition set consisting of other neighboring ones. Accordingly, we analyze the high-resolution GPS data of three pigeon flocks to extract the hidden interaction mechanism governing the coordinated free flight. The comparison of spatial distribution between causal neighbors and all other remainders validates that no bias exists for the causal inference. We identify the causal relationships to establish the interaction network and observe that the revealed causal relationship follows a local interaction mode. Interestingly, the individuals closer to the mass center and the average velocity direction are more influential than others.

Emergent preeminence of selfishness: an anomalous Parrondo perspective

A minimalistic multi-agent Parrondo’s game structure with branching dependent on local capital spread was previously introduced, indicating that stochastically mixing two losing games can produce winning outcomes with bounded capital variance among players. Using a similar game structure, we unveil further intriguing behavior that a bias toward selfish exploitative behavior, involving redistribution of capital from the poor to the rich, leads to counterintuitive superior capital gains than cooperative behaviors. Inter-agent interactions of exploitative nature not only maximizes capital growth in winning scenarios, but also expands the parameter space over which the Parrondo effect may manifest. These novel findings suggest a link between growth maximization and inequality that could be relevant to socioeconomic, ecological, and population dynamics modeling. We also present a theoretical framework for enhanced accuracy in the prediction of ensemble capital statistics.

Confined System Analysis of a Predator-Prey Minimalistic Model

In nature exists a properly defined food chain- an order of hunting and getting hunted. One such hunter-hunted pair is considered in this context and coordinated escape manoeuvres in response to predation is studied in case of a rarely examined confined system. Both the predator agent and prey agents are considered to be self-propelled particles moving in a viscous fluid. The state of motility when alive and passivity on death has been accounted for. A novel individual-based combination of Vicsek model and Boids flocking model is used for defining the self-propelling action and inter-agent interactions. The regimes observed at differing levels of co-ordination segregated by quantification of global order parameter are found to be in agreement with the extant literature. This study strives to understand the penalty on the collective motion due to the restraints employed by the rigid walls of the confinement and the predator’s hunting tactics. The success of any escape manoeuvre is dependent on the rate of information transfer and the strength of the agitation at the source of the manoeuvre. The rate of information transfer is studied as a function of co-ordination and the size of the influence zone and the source strength is studied as a function of escape acceleration activated on the agitated prey. The role of these factors in affecting survival rate of prey is given due coverage.

Interaction between company Manager's and Driver's decisions on expressway routes for truck transport

It is essential to better understand the opinions and behaviors of various stakeholders (e.g., persons in companies, customers, government, and local community) when taking effective traffic management and operation measures. Existing studies have examined the interactions between companies and customers in the context of distribution chains; however, even though the importance of other inter-agent interactions is recognized, no efforts have been made, at least in the context of inter-city truck transport routes on expressways. To fill this research gap, this study implemented a stated preference (SP) survey to managers and drivers of transport companies along the expressways in the western part of Japan in 2014–2015, where some new traffic management measures encouraging behavioral changes are investigated. As a result, we obtained 525 valid SP responses from 52 companies (one manager and several drivers from each company). Our survey results first revealed that about 60% of truck transport routes were decided by company managers, and decisions by drivers are minor. A modeling analysis based on a path-size bivariate probit model is further conducted to explicitly represent the interaction between company managers and drivers. The existence of the interaction is statistically supported. We further revealed the similarities and dissimilarities of factors affecting managers' and drivers' decisions, together with the relative importance of measures encouraging behavioral changes. Finally, we made extensive discussions about the implications of analysis results.

An Investigation of Interaction Patterns in Emergency Management: A Case Study of The Crash of Continental Flight 3407

The nature of emergency response operations varies based on agency, county, population, leadership, etc., which leads to serious challenges to interactions between emergency responders during routine emergencies. There have been very few studies that have provided direct insights into the emergency interactions from an information processing view based on real experience from the field. With the help of a case study, this paper aims to explore inter-agency interactions by addressing two research questions: (a) how do emergency agencies interact? (b) what characterizes interactions in the different stages of an emergency? This paper develops a framework for identifying emergency interactions that illustrate the templatic and dynamic styles as well as the active and passive patterns of interactions by examining data from the emergency reports. To summarize, this paper contributes to research in areas of inter-agency cooperation and emergency management.

Проблемы подготовки педагогов-психологов образовательных организаций в области превенции суицидального поведения подростков и молодежи

The article presents the results of a study of the training problems of educational psychologists aimed to prevent suicidal behavior of adolescents and youths. The data were obtained on the basis of a survey of psychologists and experts. The areas of activity with the greatest difficulties are: first of all, crisis counseling for adolescentsnts and yourth at risk, seocndly, the delivery of emergency psychological assistance to subjects of the educational environment in a risk of suicide. It is demonstrated that psychologists are interested in systemic professional support; the presence of well-developed algorithms of interagency interaction; standards governing the content of activities; increasing the responsibility level (including legal) of parents to follow the recommendations of the educational psychologist. Based on the data received, the requirements for the organization and content of continuing education programs for educational psychologists on the prevention of suicidal behavior of adolescents and youth are formulated.

INTERDEPARTMENTAL BARRIERS IN SOCIAL ORPHANHOOD PROBLEM SOLVING AND WAYS OF COPING WITH IT INSIDE OF A TERRITORIAL COMMUNITY OF A CITY

The author considers the problem of interdepartmental interaction of governmental social organisations in a territorial community of a city. The purpose of the article: to identify the main barriers of interagency interaction in the process of prevention of social orphanhood. Methods of research used: theoretical knowledge − analysis, synthesis, systematization, classification, generalization to find out the content of the basic concepts of research, substantiation of the essence of interagency interaction in the process of prevention of social orphanhood; empirical: diagnostic (survey methods − questionnaires, focus groups), socio-pedagogical experiment and monitoring to study the state of the problem under study; statistical (quantitative and qualitative data processing with the help of mathematical statistics for comparison and confirmation of the obtained results of research). Main principles of interdepartmental interaction and interdepartmental barriers have been defined, which may complicate such interaction. The author proposes ways of coping with interdepartmental barriers on the basis of social partnership and involving non-governmental organisations into coworking with territorial governmental agencies. The model of interdepartmental interaction of territorial community subjects as a practical mechanism of realisation of social orphanhood prevention on the basis of systematical approach has been proposed. Also the author justifies the importance of interdepartmental partnership of governmental and non-governmental social institutions concerning social orphanhood prevention at the stage of coping with family discomfort in terms of a territorial community of a city. Ways, forms and methods of involving and activation of territorial community subjects into preventional work with vulnerable families for prevention of social orphanhood have been provided.

Scalable simulation of a Disaster Response Agent-based network Management and Adaptation System (DRAMAS)

The objective of this paper is to advance the study of disaster response and recovery (generally, disaster relief) by providing tools and insights to agencies that work in disaster relief. This paper is built on extensive research of disaster relief literature and practice, and provides a comprehensive analysis of agency posturing following an extreme event. We present the Disaster Response Agent-based network Management and Adaptation System (DRAMAS) model, which uses stochastic processes to model the complex interactions between relief agencies of different sizes and capabilities. The DRAMAS simulation environment provide an excellent testing ground for hypotheses regarding relief agency partnerships, goals, roles, and prior involvement, by providing a depiction of the change in agency partnerships and resource investments following a disaster. The goal of this research is to expand the current body of knowledge and examine the fundamental principles of agency success during relief operations. We find that (a) larger relief networks tended to be less efficient at meeting the typical needs of the community, (b) having a relief network with more agents appeared to increase the time it took for a typical need, (c) having a high percentage of local agents resulted in an increased time for typical services, (d) a more dense network resulted in more effective identification of long-term needs and also improved services time, etc. Results from this work provide a path for improving our understanding of interagency partnerships and interaction, and could provide new insights into the behavior of agency networks in response to a disaster.

Effect of Correlations in Swarms on Collective Response

Social interaction increases significantly the performance of a wide range of cooperative systems. However, evidence that natural swarms limit the number of interactions suggests potentially detrimental consequences of excessive interaction. Using a canonical model of collective motion, we find that the collective response to a dynamic localized perturbation–emulating a predator attack–is hindered when the number of interacting neighbors exceeds a certain threshold. Specifically, the effectiveness in avoiding the predator is enhanced by large integrated correlations, which are known to peak at a given level of interagent interaction. From the network-theoretic perspective, we uncover the same interplay between number of connections and effectiveness in group-level response for two distinct decision-making models of distributed consensus operating over a range of static networks. The effect of the number of connections on the collective response critically depends on the dynamics of the perturbation. While adding more connections improves the response to slow perturbations, the opposite is true for fast ones. These results have far-reaching implications for the design of artificial swarms or interaction networks.

Implicit crowds

Large multi-agent systems such as crowds involve inter-agent interactions that are typically anticipatory in nature, depending strongly on both the positions and the velocities of agents. We show how the nonlinear, anticipatory forces seen in multi-agent systems can be made compatible with recent work on energy-based formulations in physics-based animation, and propose a simple and effective optimization-based integration scheme for implicit integration of such systems. We apply this approach to crowd simulation by using a state-of-the-art model derived from a recent analysis of human crowd data, and adapting it to our framework. Our approach provides, for the first time, guaranteed collision-free motion while simultaneously maintaining high-quality collective behavior in a way that is insensitive to simulation parameters such as time step size and crowd density. These benefits are demonstrated through simulation results on various challenging scenarios and validation against real-world crowd data.

Bringing the transgovernmental in: the public service in the Canada-United States relationship

This article examines an often-overlooked dimension of Canada-United States relations : relations between Canadian and American public servants. Meetings between political leaders of Canada and the US may make front-page headlines, but it is the myriad of networks and interconnections between Canadian and American public servants that constitute the lion’s share of bilateral activity. Notwithstanding the multitude of daily cross-border, inter-departmental, and inter-agency interactions, there has been relatively little systematic theoretical or empirical attention to the public sector dimension of Canada-US relations. Public administration scholars tend to train their sights on the domestic level and pay little or no attention to the public management dimension of international affairs. A recently edited volume studying contemporary Canadian public administration does not examine these relations. International relations scholars, for their part, tend to oversimplify domestic politics and policy institutions. This text contributes to bridging this gap in the literature. It builds on the concept of transgovernmentalism, relations between legislative, executive, regulatory, and judicial players with their international counterparts. It examines the mechanisms and processes by which public sector players interact across borders (e.g., informal relations, formal agreements, joint organizations, etc.). The article explores the relationship between the degree of bilateral policy coordination in a policy field or issue area and the mechanisms of transgovernmental activity characterizing cross-border relations in that policy domain.