This self-contained book provides three fundamental and generic approaches (logical, probabilistic, and modal) to representing and reasoning with agent epistemic states, specifically in the context of decision making. Each of these approaches can be applied to the construction of intelligent software agents for making decisions, thereby creating computational foundations for decision-making agents. In addition, the book introduces a formal integration of the three approaches into a single unified approach that combines the advantages of all the approaches. Finally, the symbolic argumentation approach to decision making developed in this book, combining logic and probability, offers several advantages over the traditional approach to decision making which is based on simple rule-based expert systems or expected utility theory.

This self-contained book provides three fundamental and generic approaches (logical, probabilistic, and modal) to representing and reasoning with agent epistemic states, specifically in the context of decision making. Each of these approaches can be applied to the construction of intelligent software agents for making decisions, thereby creating computational foundations for decision-making agents. In addition, the book introduces a formal integration of the three approaches into a single unified approach that combines the advantages of all the approaches. Finally, the symbolic argumentation approach to decision making developed in this book, combining logic and probability, offers several advantages over the traditional approach to decision making which is based on simple rule-based expert systems or expected utility theory.

Conference proceedings - Multidisciplinary Academic Conference on Economics, Management and Marketing in Prague 2014 (MAC-EMM 2014)

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, PAAMS 2015, held in Salamanca, Spain, in June 2015. The 10 revised full papers and 9 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions are presented together with 17 demonstrations. The articles report on the application and validation of agent-based models, methods and technologies in a number of key application areas, including: agents and the energy grid, agents and the traffic grid, affective computing and agent development, ambient and contextual agents, social simulation and social networks and other agent-based applications.

With the recent proliferation of service-oriented architectures (SOA), cloud computing technologies, and distributed-interconnected systems, distributed fusion is taking on a larger role in a variety of applications—from environmental monitoring and crisis management to intelligent buildings and defense. Drawing on the work of leading experts around the world, Distributed Data Fusion for Network-Centric Operations examines the state of the art of data fusion in a distributed sensing, communications, and computing environment. Get Insight into Designing and Implementing Data Fusion in a Distributed Network Addressing the entirety of information fusion, the contributors cover everything from signal and image processing, through estimation, to situation awareness. In particular, the work offers a timely look at the issues and solutions involving fusion within a distributed network enterprise. These include critical design problems, such as how to maintain a pedigree of agents or nodes that receive information, provide their contribution to the dataset, and pass to other network components. The book also tackles dynamic data sharing within a network-centric enterprise, distributed fusion effects on state estimation, graph-theoretic methods to optimize fusion performance, human engineering factors, and computer ontologies for higher levels of situation assessment. A comprehensive introduction to this emerging field and its challenges, the book explores how data fusion can be used within grid, distributed, and cloud computing architectures. Bringing together both theoretical and applied research perspectives, this is a valuable reference for fusion researchers and practitioners. It offers guidance and insight for those working on the complex issues of designing and implementing distributed, decentralized information fusion.

The book explores object and situation fusion processes with an appropriate handling of uncertainties, and applies cutting-edge artificial intelligence and emerging technologies like particle filtering, spatiotemporal clustering, net-centricity, agent formalism, and distributed fusion together with essential Level 1 techniques and Level 1/2 interactions.

The role of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in fields as diverse as medicine, economics, linguistics, logical analysis and industry continues to grow in scope and importance. AI has become integral to the effective functioning of much of the technical infrastructure we all now take for granted as part of our daily lives. This book presents the papers from the 21st biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ECAI 2014, held in Prague, Czech Republic, in August 2014. The ECAI conference remains Europe's principal opportunity for researchers and practitioners of Artificial Intelligence to gather and to discuss the latest trends and challenges in all subfields of AI, as well as to demonstrate innovative applications and uses of advanced AI technology. Included here are the 158 long papers and 94 short papers selected for presentation at the conference. Many of the papers cover the fields of knowledge representation, reasoning and logic as well as agent-based and multi-agent systems, machine learning, and data mining. The proceedings of PAIS 2014 and the PAIS System Demonstrations are also included in this volume, which will be of interest to all those wishing to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of AI.

An introductory review of uncertainty formalisms by the volume editors begins the volume. The first main part of the book introduces some of the general problems dealt with in research. The second part is devoted to case studies; each presentation in this category has a well-delineated application problem and an analyzed solution based on an uncertainty formalism. The final part reports on developments of uncertainty formalisms and supporting technology, such as automated reasoning systems, that are vital to making these formalisms applicable. The book ends with a useful subject index. There is considerable synergy between the papers presented. The representative collection of case studies and associated techniques make the volume a particularly coherent and valuable resource. It will be indispensable reading for researchers and professionals interested in the application of uncertainty formalisms as well as for newcomers to the topic.

Abstracts of dissertations available on microfilm or as xerographic reproductions.