Agent ART Group
Research Interests of the Agent ART Group
Work in the agent systems field is highly interdisciplinary, and the research of Agent ART group members reflects this. Work carried out under the Agent ART banner includes research that is exclusively in the agent area (such as agent communication, cooperation, and negotiation, the design of rational agents), as well as work in more ``traditional'' areas of computer science or even economics (in particular, game theory). The main areas of research activity are as follows.
Theoretical Foundations of Multi-Agent Systems
Research is concerned primarily with understanding the logical and complexity-theoretic foundations of multi-agent systems. Examples of areas and results:
- Use of strategic cooperation logics like Alternating-time Temporal Logic (ATL) for reasoning about game-like multi-agent systems.
- Logics for reasoning about social norms in multi-agent systems
- Logics for reasoning about cooperative control
- Complexity of ATL satisfiability and model checking
- Epistemic extentions of ATL
- Specification and synthesis of coordination mechanisms based on ATL model checking
- knowledge representation for social choice/voting procedures
- Dynamic Epistemic Logic
- Representation and Complexity of cooperative games
- Equilibria for multi-attribute negotiation, and agenda-setting in sequential auctions.
Argumentation and Dialogue
Work in this area is concerned with inter-agent dialogues, and particularly with the problem of how self-interested autonomous agents can interact with one another. Two main lines of research are being followed. The first involves using techniques from argumentation theory. Argumentation is a process by which one agent attempts to convince another of the truth or falsity of some state of affairs by generating a correct argument that the other cannot object to. An argument-based dialogue then involves agents putting forward arguments, according to some set of dialogue rules, until they agree, and is particularly appropriate in negotiation dialogues.
- Complexity of solution concepts in Dung's argument framework
- Representation of different audiences in argument frameworks
- Argument schemes for action selection
- e-democracy
- Protocol semantics for deliberation, negotiation and information exchanging dialogues
Ontologies and the Semantic Web
This work focuses on the creation and use of explicit specifications of shared conceptualizations (ontologies) in oipen, decentralised, heterogeneous environments.
- Semantic P2P-based techniques for indexing and searching digital documents
- Specification of a reference `Semantic Grid' architecture, with ontology-based coordination mechanisms
- Run-time agreement mechanisms for ontology alignment
Data Mining
Data mining research area is currently focused on an industry-funded research project. This work has produced a number of novel data structures applicable to association rule generation.
- Association and Classification Association Rule Mining
- Novel efficient algorithms for Association Rule Mining