Srinivasan Ramaswamy

Coordination, Cooperation and Conflict Resolution in Multi-Agent Systems

In this paper, we present a condensed survey of multi-agent systems, with special emphasis on cooperation coordination, conflict resolution and closely related issues; issues that are critical for the development of large-scale, distributed complex software systems. Then we present three different cooperative MAS architecture types, discuss their drawbacks and propose the need for a service driven framework for the development of cooperative multi-agent systems.

Time series analysis of open-source software projects

Open-source software projects are characterized by their loose management property. Most of the activities of their developers are voluntary instead of mandatory. Compared to closed-source software projects, open-source projects are less dependent on external turbulence, but more on its own structure and operation mechanism. In this paper, we assume that the activities of open-source software projects are only dependent on time. We use time series analysis techniques to study the time dependence of open-source software activities. The activities of open-source Software projects are extracted from mailing lists, bug reports, and revision history. Three mailing list (Linux, FreeBSD, and Apache HTTP), two bug archives (Eclipse and Apache Software Foundation), and one revision history (Apache Software Foundation) are mined. Various time series analysis techniques are used. We find that some activities of some open-source projects are cyclic and seasonally dependent, some are cyclic but seasonally independent, and some are acyclic. We build regression models for cyclic activities and analyzed their model accuracy.

Automation and Ethics

Should we trust automation? Can automation cause harm to individuals and to society? Can individuals apply automation to harm other individuals? The answers are yes; hence, ethical issues are deeply associated with automation. The purpose of this chapter is to provide some ethical background and guidance to automation professionals and students. Governmental action and economic factors are increasingly resulting in more global interactions and competition for jobs requiring lower-end skills as well as those that are higher-end endeavors such as research. Moreover, as the Internet continually eliminates geographic boundaries, the concept of doing business within a single country is giving way to companies and organizations focusing on serving and competing in international frameworks and a global marketplace. Coupled with the superfluous nature of an Internet-driven social culture, the globally-distributed digitalization of work, services and products, and the reorganization of work processes across many organizations have resulted in ethically challenging questions that are not just economically, or socially sensitive, but also highly culturally sensitive. Like the shifting of commodity manufacturing jobs in the late 1900s, standardization of information technology and engineering jobs have also accelerated the prospect of services and jobs more easily moved across the globe, thereby driving a need for innovation in design, and in the creation of higher-skill jobs. In this chapter, we review the fundamental concepts of ethics as it relates to automation, and then focus on the impacts of automation and their significance in both education and research.

Predicting software bugs using ARIMA model

The number of software products available in market is increasing rapidly. Many a time, multiple companies develop software products of similar functionalities. Thus the competition among those owning companies is becoming tougher every day. Moreover, there are many crucial programs whose results should be always accurate without fail. As a consequence of such challenges, tackling software bugs issues efficiently is an important and essential task for the owning software companies. Therefore, predicting bugs and finding ways to address these at the earliest has become an important factor for sustainability in the software market. This paper proposes software bug predication models using Autoregressive Moving Average Model (ARIMA) based on Box-Jenkins Methodology, which depends on Autoregressive models (AR) with Moving Average (MA). The inputs to our models are the information extracted from the past bug repositories. We have verified our models using datasets of Eclipse [16] and Mozilla [17].

Towards a cooperative model with variable scale

An agent in a cooperative system is convinced that other agents will take actions toward the same goal of maximizing the global utility. In contrast, a self interested agent needs to consider every possible course of action other agents may take. Our aim in this paper is to define a simple, extendible, and formal framework for multi agent cooperation, over which businesses may build their business frameworks for effecting cooperative business strategies using distributed multi-agent systems. Our model is a hybrid hierarchical model that is capable to response for the two extremities of multi agent systems mentioned previously.

Modelling and simulation: The basis for education enrichment and software design

As the internet continually eliminates geographic boundaries, the concept of doing business within a single country is giving way to companies focusing on competing in an international marketplace. As modelling and simulation professionals, we have the most unique opportunities to become true global visionaries and be highly effective in providing fundamental opportunities that all our employers expect from our students. The future of the various professions in the information technology (IT) business relies greatly on innovative modelling and simulation practices that not merely enhance our ability to graduate good application programmers  – these skills have now become commodities that can be either outsourced or automated. We are now more able to graduate students who are comfortable with the theory, build their higher-order thinking (HOT) skills and blend these with the necessary practice through the understanding of business and cultural issues involved; while being able to effectively share, communicate, articulate and advance their ideas for innovative products and solutions. Since good educational preparation is one of the primary means for us to prepare our future workforce; modelling and simulation as an oft-repeated, practice-driven learnt skill can help our students gain the necessary HOT skills to compete globally for highly skilled technology based jobs. We focus in this paper on the models and provide a model for educational innovation using modelling and simulation as a vehicle for software development. We illustrate this with a simple example of designing well co-ordinated software systems. Using a simple Petri net based-approach we develop a model-based, co-ordination-focused, requirements-driven guidelines for co-ordinated software design and testing.

A Cooperation Mechanism in Agent Organization

Current research in autonomous Agents and Multi-agent systems (MAS) has reached a level of maturity sufficient enough for MAS to be applied as a technology for solving problems in an increasingly wide range of complex applications. Our aim in this paper is to define a simple, extendible, and formal framework for multi-agent cooperation, over which businesses may build their business frameworks for effecting cooperative business strategies using distributed multi-agent systems. It is a simple, fair and efficient model for orchestrating effecting cooperation between multiple agents.

PHAC: an environment for distributed collaborative applications on P2P networks

Using Peer-to-Peer networks is a way to distribute large scale scientific problems. But the P2P networks are very heterogeneous, highly dynamic and volatile. The objective of our work is to offer one P2P network based on high availability. We propose our PHAC framework to improve the dependability of applications. And we present the first results with case π computing.

Towards a social responsible agents

Current research in autonomous Agents and Multi-agent systems (MAS) has reached a level of maturity sufficient enough for MAS to be applied as a technology for solving problems in an increasingly wide range of complex applications. Our aim in this paper is to define a simple, extendible, and formal framework for multi-agent cooperation, over which businesses may build their business frameworks for effecting cooperative business strategies using distributed multi-agent systems. It is a simple, fair and efficient model for orchestrating effecting cooperation between multiple agents.

Performance modeling and analysis of consumer classes in large scale systems

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks have been used efficiently as building blocks as overlay networks for large-scale distributed network applications with Internet Protocol (IP) based bottom layer networks. With large scale Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) becoming increasingly realistic, it is important to overlay networks with WSNs in the bottom layer. The suitable mathematical (stochastic) model that can model the overlay network over WSNs is Queuing Networks with Multi-Class customers. In this paper, we discuss how these mathematical network models can be simulated using the object oriented simulation package OMNeT++. We discuss the Graphical User Interface (GUI) which is developed to accept the input parameter files and execute the simulation using this interface. We compare the simulation results with analytical formulas available in the literature for these mathematical models.