In multi-agent problem-solving systems in which agents work asynchronously and in parallel on parts of a problem distributed among them, subproblem communication and integration protocols can have a major impact on problem solving efficiency. Transmitting too soon can necessitate having to “take back” transmitted partial solutions, wasting communication and processing time. Transmitting too lat...

Although it is widely acknowledged that multi-way dataaow constraints make it easier to specify certain relationships in interactive applications, concerns about their eeciency have impeded their acceptance. Some of the local propagation algorithms that solve these constraints are polynomial, others (such as SkyBlue) are exponential. In fact, every system handles a speciic problem and the innue...

Conflict resolution is a critical problem in distributed and collaborative multi-agent systems. Negotiation via argumentation (NVA), where agents provide explicit arguments or justifications for their proposals for resolving conflicts, is an effective approach to resolve conflicts. Indeed, we are applying argumentation in some realworld multi-agent applications. However, a key problem in such a...

Many problems in multi-agent systems can be described as a distributed CSP. However, some real-life problem can be over-constrained and without a set of consistent variable values when described as a distributed CSP. We have presented a distributed partial CSP for handling such an over-constrained situation and a distributed maximal CSP as a subclass of distributed partial CSP. In this paper, w...

This study presents a multimodal hub location problem which has the capability to split commodities by limited-capacity hubs and transportation systems, based on the assumption that demands are stochastic for multi-commodity network flows. In the real world cases, demands are random over the planning horizon and those which are partially fulfilled, are lost. Thus, the present study handles dema...

Conflict resolution is a critical problem in distributed and collaborative multi-agent systems. Argumentation-based negotiation, where agents provide explicit arguments or justifications for their proposals for resolving conflicts, is an effective approach to resolve conflicts. However, while small-scale argumentation systems have been developed, a well-understood computational model of argumen...

As the order fulfillment process (OFP) in supply chains shifts to outsourcing paradigm, the OFP performance relies on the coordination among supply chain partners to reach executable and effective plans. The coordination of OFP among supply chain partners can be viewed as a distributed constraint satisfaction problem (DCSP). This paper enhances the existing methods to solve the DCSP by adding t...

A potential weakness of any research is its applicability to real problems, and it is often difficult to determine whether a particular application needs a particular technology. Space missions offer a wide variety of multiagent problem domains, but the technology needs of these missions vary. Techniques developed by research in Distributed Constraint Reasoning (DCR) employ representations that...

This paper sets out to describe a multi-constrained approach to topology optimization of structures. In the optimization, a constant criterion surface algorithm and the multi-constraint procedure is used. The multi-constraint procedure consists of constraints normalization and equivalent design space assembling. The work is illustrated by an example of the L-shaped domain optimization with the ...

AbstrAct Many real-world problems can be viewed and represented as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). In addition, many of these problems are distributed in nature. To this end, we combine agents with a special type of CSP called an Interval Algebra network (IA network). An IA network is a graph where each node represents an interval. Directed edges in the network are labelled with tempor...