Visara Urovi

Playing with agent coordination patterns in MAGE

MAGE (Multi-Agent Game Environment) is a logic-based framework that uses games as a metaphor for representing complex agent activities within an artificial society. More specifically, MAGE seeks to (a) reuse existing computational techniques for norm-based interactions and (b) complement these techniques with a coordination component to support complex interactions. The reuse part of MAGE relates physical actions that happen in an agent environment to count as valid moves of a game representing the social environment of an application. The coordination part of MAGE supports the construction of composite games built from component sub-games and corresponds to coordination patterns that support complex activities built from sub-activities. To illustrate the MAGE approach, we discuss how to use the framework to specify the coordination patterns required to form a virtual organisation in the context of a service-oriented scenario.

Initial steps towards run-time support for norm-governed systems

We present a knowledge representation framework with an associated run-time support infrastructure that is able to compute, for the benefit of the members of a norm-governed multi-agent system, the physically possible and permitted actions at each time, as well as sanctions that should be applied to violations of prohibitions. To offer the envisioned run-time support we use an Event Calculus dialect for efficient temporal reasoning. Both the knowledge representation framework and its associated infrastructure are highly configurable in the sense that they can be appropriately distributed in order to support real-time responses to agent requests. To exemplify the ideas, we apply the infrastructure on a benchmark scenario for multi-agent systems. Through experimental evaluation we also show how distributing our infrastructure can provide run-time support to large-scale multi-agent systems regulated by norms.

A Cloud-Based eHealth Architecture for Privacy Preserving Data Integration

In this paper, we address the problem of building an anonymized medical database from multiple sources. Our proposed solution defines how to achieve data integration in a heterogeneous network of many clinical institutions, while preserving data utility and patients’ privacy. The contribution of the paper is twofold: Firstly, we propose a secure and scalable cloud eHealth architecture to store and exchange patients’ data for the treatment. Secondly, we present an algorithm for efficient aggregation of the health data for the research purposes from multiple sources independently.

Secure P2P Cross-Community Health Record Exchange in IHE Compatible Systems

This paper investigates a secure mechanism for Electronic Health Records (EHR) exchange over a Peer to Peer (P2P) agent based coordination framework. Our study is based on the SemHealthCoord framework, a platform for the exchange of EHR between autonomous health organisations that extends the existing interoperability standards as proposed by the Integrating Healthcare Enterprise (IHE). Every health organisation in SemHealthCoord represents a community within a P2P network. Communities use a set of autonomous agents and a set of distributed coordination rules to coordinate the agents in the search of specific health records. To enable secure interactions among communities, we propose the use of asymmetric keys and digital certificates. We specify the interaction protocols to provide integrity and authenticity between the communities, and, to illustrate the scalability of our approach, we evaluate the proposed solution in distributed settings by comparing the performance between secured and unsecured data ...

A Multiagent System for Dynamic Data Aggregation in Medical Research

The collection of medical data for research purposes is a challenging and long-lasting process. In an effort to accelerate and facilitate this process we propose a new framework for dynamic aggregation of medical data from distributed sources. We use agent-based coordination between medical and research institutions. Our system employs principles of peer-to-peer network organization and coordination models to search over already constructed distributed databases and to identify the potential contributors when a new database has to be built. Our framework takes into account both the requirements of a research study and current data availability. This leads to better definition of database characteristics such as schema, content, and privacy parameters. We show that this approach enables a more efficient way to collect data for medical research.

Fast track article: Game-based e-retailing in GOLEM agent environments

We present a prototype multi-agent system whose goal is to support a 3D application for e-retailing. The prototype demonstrates how the use of agent environments can be amongst the most promising and flexible approaches to engineer e-retailing applications. We illustrate this point by showing how the agent environment GOLEM supports social interactions and how it combines them with semantic-web technologies to develop the e-retailing application. We also describe the features of GOLEM that allow a user to engage in e-retailing activities in order to explore the virtual social environment by searching and dynamically discovering new agents, products and services.

COMPOSE: Using temporal patterns for interpreting wearable sensor data with computer interpretable guidelines

This paper describes a novel temporal logic-based framework for reasoning with continuous data collected from wearable sensors. The work is motivated by the Metabolic Syndrome, a cluster of conditions which are linked to obesity and unhealthy lifestyle. We assume that, by interpreting the physiological parameters of continuous monitoring, we can identify which patients have a higher risk of Metabolic Syndrome. We define temporal patterns for reasoning with continuous data and specify the coordination mechanisms for combining different sets of clinical guidelines that relate to this condition. The proposed solution is tested with data provided by twenty subjects, which used sensors for four days of continuous monitoring. The results are compared to the gold standard. The novelty of the framework stands in extending a temporal logic formalism, namely the Event Calculus, with temporal patterns. These patterns are helpful to specify the rules for reasoning with continuous data and in combining new knowledge into one consistent outcome that is tailored to the patients profile. The overall approach opens new possibilities for delivering patient-tailored interventions and educational material before the patients present the symptoms of the disease.

A peer to peer agent coordination framework for IHE based cross-community health record exchange

This paper presents a Peer to Peer (P2P) agent coordination framework for the exchange of Electronic Health Records (EHR) between health organisations that comply with the existing interoperability standards as proposed by the Integrating Healthcare Enterprise (IHE). Every health organisation represents a community in a P2P network and uses a set of autonomous agents and a set of distributed coordination rules to coordinate the agents in the search of specific health records. To model the interactions among communities, the framework uses the tuple centre agent communication model and semantic web technologies. In order to illustrate the scalability of our approach, we evaluate the proposed solution in distributed settings.

iCampus: A Connected Campus in the

iCampus is a prototype multi-agent system whose goal is to provide the ambient intelligence required to connect people in a university campus and make that campus inclusive and accessible. Software agents called guides run on mobile phones to help students with information about people, places, and events, thus providing people real-time, location-based advice that makes them more aware of what is going on in the campus. The work outlines how to specify iCampus in the Ambient Event Calculus and implement it using the agent environment GOLEM to deploy guide agents over a campus network. The work is illustrated by showing how iCampus improves the mobility of blind or partially sighted students within a campus, which has been the main motivation behind the work.

The Present and Future of Dynamic e-Health Interoperability in Switzerland

The research in the medical health care systems is shifting towards solutions that enable dynamic data exchange. To achieve this shift, interoperable solutions have been proposed by initiatives such as the integrating Healthcare Enterprise (IHE). IHE focuses on defining interoperable solution by specifying recommendations that foster standard based integration between healthcare systems. Using the results of an online questionnaire, in this work we study the current use of standards in the health care systems of Switzerland. The questionnaire identifies four dynamic data exchange scenarios that enhance the interoperability and the integration between different healthcare systems. The novelty of this work is that the identified scenarios are currently not addressed by the IHE recommendations and, they can improve the current interoperability solutions. The questionnaire confirms that those scenarios are useful and we suggest some technical solutions that may help to achieve them.