Mihaela Ulieru

The state of the art in trust and reputation systems: a framework for comparison

We introduce a multidimensional framework for classifying and comparing trust and reputation (T&R) systems. The framework dimensions encompass both hard and soft features of such systems including different witness location approaches, various reputation calculation engines, variety of information sources and rating systems which are categorised as hard features, and also basic reputation measurement parameters, context diversity checking, reliability and honesty assessment and adaptability which are referred to as soft features. Specifically, the framework dimensions answer questions related to major characteristics of T&R systems including those parameters from the real world that should be imitated in a virtual environment. The proposed framework can serve as a basis to understand the current state of the art in the area of computational trust and reputation and also help in designing suitable control mechanisms for online communities. In addition, we have provided a critical analysis of some of the existing techniques in the literature compared within the context of the proposed framework dimensions.

The holonic enterprise: a model for Internet‐enabled global manufacturing supply chain and workflow management

Merges the latest results obtained by the holonic manufacturing systems (HMS) consortium with the latest developed standards for platform interoperability released by the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) to propose a novel e‐business model: the holonic e‐enterprise (HE). The HE extends both the HMS and FIPA models. On one side it extends the holonic manufacturing paradigm with one top level, the inter‐enterprise one. On the other side it extends the multi‐agent system (MAS) paradigm to the hardware (physical machine) level.

Self-organisation: paradigms and applications

A self-organising system functions without central control, and through contextual local interactions. Components achieve a simple task individually, but a complex collective behaviour emerges from their mutual interactions. Such a system modifies its structure and functionality to adapt to changes to requirements and to the environment based on previous experience. Nature provides examples of self-organisation, such as ants food foraging, molecules formation, or antibodies detection. Similarly, current software applications are driven by social interactions (negotiations, transactions), based on autonomous entities or agents, and run in highly dynamic environments. The issue of engineering applications, based on the principles of self-organisation to achieve robustness and adaptability, is gaining increasing interest in the software research community. The aim of this paper is to survey natural and artificial complex systems exhibiting emergent behaviour, and to outline the mechanisms enabling such behaviours.

A multi-resolution collaborative architecture for web-centric global manufacturing

We propose a recursive multi-resolution collaborative architecture (MRCA), based on multi-agent coordination mechanisms as a solid foundation for the development of web-centric cooperative applications in global manufacturing. The architecture consists of three layers: a low-level internetworking communication-support layer; a coordination layer ‐ managing inter-agent cooperation through intelligent conversation/communication mechanisms; and an agent layer consisting of five categories of agents: interface, collaboration, knowledge management, application and resource agents. From a functional perspective, two distinctive hierarchies shape the multi-dimensionality of this architecture: a vertical hierarchy of agents and a horizontal hierarchical communication‐coordination platform. The versatility of the proposed architecture (which supports practically any kind of collaborative application) and its recursive replication at all levels of resolution within the collaborative application are illustrated on a supply-chain example. ” 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Emergent holarchies for e-health applications: a case in glaucoma diagnosis

This paper extends the holonic enterprise paradigm to the medical domain. A medical holarchy is a system of collaborative medical entities (patients, physicians, medical devices, etc.) that work together to provide a needed medical service for the benefit of the patient. Representing holons as software agents enables the development of e-health environments as web-centric medical holarchies with a wide area of application in tele-medicine. The back up of latest wireless and advanced communication technologies enables emergence of medical holarchies for ubiquitous healthcare. A case study in glaucoma progression monitoring illustrates the benefits of our approach.

Fault recovery in distributed manufacturing systems by emergent holonic re-configuration: a fuzzy multi-agent modeling approach

Abstract This paper introduces a novel distributed fault recovery technique that could be useful in the design of re-configurable holonic manufacturing systems. The method minimizes the fuzzy entropy in the vague information spread across the multi-agent system (MAS). Minimal entropy induces optimal grouping of the agents in holonic clusters. After a brief introduction to the multi-agent modeling of holonic manufacturing systems, we present a framework for distributed control of holonic re-configurable production systems. Then our approach to fuzzy modeling of MASs is exposed as a tool enabling emergent holonic clustering of the agents. Implemented at the logical level of resource grouping in our distributed control mechanism, the proposed approach enables system re-configuration. The emerging new structures can accomplish fault-recovery by re-distribution of tasks in case a resource fails and as well can re-configure production by dynamic re-allocation of resources for newly received high-priority tasks.

Building holonic supply chain management systems: an e-logistics application for the telephone manufacturing industry

As an exercise in agent-based software engineering, this work proposes a holonic model for the domain of supply chain management. The supply chain system is a distributed infrastructure that enforces protocol rules and through which agents registered on a domain find each other, access the knowledge base, communicate (exchange messages), and negotiate with other agents, which are independent entities with specific goals and resources. It is considered that individual resources that belong to each agent are not sufficient to satisfy their goals; therefore, the agents must procure the needed resources from other agents present in the system through negotiation. Our approach is based on the holonic enterprise model with the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) Contract Net protocols applied within different levels of the supply chain holarchy. To accommodate differentiation of interests and provide an allocation of resources throughout the supply chain holarchy, we use nested protocols as interaction mechanisms among agents. Agents are interacting through a price system embedded into specific protocols. The negotiation on prices is made possible by the implementation of an XML rule-based system that is also flexible in terms of configuration and can provide portable data across networks.

Engineering Industrial Ecosystems in a Networked World

We underline the co-evolutionary progress from collaborative automation to the extended and integrated global enterprise through which Industrial Informatics evolved mirroring the paradigm shifts in networking and communications under five years of tumultuous technological transformations. Latest trends that support the dynamic interplay of distributed intelligent technologies and services in todays complex and converging interdependent ecosystem of a networked world are revealed. Our efforts in setting up a solid foundation for prototyping and experimentation with the tomorrows industrial ecosystems in preparation to meet the upcoming challenges inherent in these future developments, are detailed.

Standards-enabled Smart Grid for the future Energy Web

An intelligent control architecture for the Smart Grid is proposed which combines two recently developed industrial standards. The utility network is modelled as IEC 61850-compliant logical nodes, embedded in an IEC 61499 distributed automation framework. We make the case that an incremental approach is required for the transition to the future EnergyWeb by bringing intelligence down to the level of substation automation devices to enrich the applications that can be created using interoperable Smart Grid devices. Using Matlab-based simulation environment we demonstrate that the collaborative environment achieves self-healing through simple fault location and power restoration.

Holonic self-organization of multi-agent systems by fuzzy modeling with application to intelligent manufacturing

Holonic manufacturing aims to design standardized, modular manufacturing systems made of interchangeable parts, to enable flexibility, online reconfigurability and self-organizing capabilities for the production systems. Recent advances in distributed artificial intelligence and networking technologies have proven that theoretical multi-agent systems (MAS) concepts are very suitable for the real life implementation of holonic concepts. Building on our recent results in the design and implementation of holonic reconfigurable architectures, the paper introduces a novel approach to the online self-organization of distributed systems. By using fuzzy set and uncertainty theoretical concepts, we construct a mathematical foundation for modeling MAS, where appropriate holonic structures are identified for each particular application. This approach opens new possibilities for the design of any distributed system that needs self-organization as an intrinsic property.