The SIKS/IKAT colloquium is organized by the Institute for Knowledge and Agent Technology in cooperation with SIKS


Participation is free for all SIKS-members
 

Title: 'Commercial applications of multi-agent systems' and 'Combined'.
 
Speakers: Chris van Aart and Patrick Storms of Acklin B.V..

Location: Kapoenstraat 23, Maastricht (map:
<http://um0023.unimaas.nl/plattegrond/>)

Date: 10/04/2003

Time: 16.00u - 17.30u
___________

Abstracts:

Commercial applications of multi-agent systems

Chris van Aart will present a selection of business cases, for which Acklin
applied intelligent agents to solve them. The business cases include
information distribution between insurance companies and the optimization of
the network of a telecom company. The advantages of applying agents in
commercial applications will be addressed. Furthermore, a view on the gap
between academic research and business will be presented.


Combined

The presentation of Patrick Storms is about the Combined project, in which
Acklin participates together with Thales (defense industry), University of
Amsterdam, Delft Technical University and two divisions of  TNO (Dutch
national research institute).


The Combined project deals with a specific class of systems, i.e. Combined
Systems. Combined is an acronym for chaotic open world multi-agent based
intelligent network for decision support systems. Combined Systems are
positioned in the context of complex distributed autonomous systems. The
project aims at exploring decision support systems in open, complex chaotic
environments (i.e. the 'real world').


Typical applications of Combined Systems are crisis management and
(military) command & control. Some of the research topics addressed within
the project are:
        o       Dynamic agent organizations / self organizing systems
        o       Distributed perception and 'smart sensing'
        o       Emergent and induced behavior of agencies
        o       "World modeling": maintaining a distributed, yet shared view on the world.
        o       A naturalistic approach to decision support and mechanisms to detect escalation      
        o       Human computer symbioses, especially mixed initiative systems

Combined is facilitated by DECIS, a new research institute for intelligent
decision support systems in Delft.