Octavio Gutiérrez - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Octavio Gutiérrez

Research paper thumbnail of Energy-aware data collection from the Internet of Things for building emotional profiles

2018 Third International Conference on Fog and Mobile Edge Computing (FMEC), 2018

In the field of affective computing, a major goal has been the development of models to recognize... more In the field of affective computing, a major goal has been the development of models to recognize the affective state of individuals. Data related to people such as physiological signals, facial expressions and speech enable the analysis and recognition of affective states. Currently, sensors integrated in smart devices (e.g., smartphone and smartwatch) allow the collection of this type of data. In this work, we present a platform composed of RESTful web services to collect data related to user emotions and its context through smart devices. Due to potential energy-constrained sensors, the platform is provided with an energy-aware data collection mechanism. Four series of experiments were conducted to evaluate both the energy efficiency and the scalability of the platform. The experimental results indicate that the platform is scalable and helps to save energy of data-collection sensors compared with a system unaware of energy consumption.

Research paper thumbnail of A systematic review of intelligent assistants

Future Generation Computer Systems, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of A comparative case study of 2D, 3D and immersive-virtual-reality applications for healthcare education

International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2020

This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the ad... more This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Research paper thumbnail of An obligation-based framework for web service composition via agent conversations

Web Intelligence and Agent Systems: An International Journal, 2012

This paper presents a framework for web service composition based on social norms, particularly o... more This paper presents a framework for web service composition based on social norms, particularly obligations. Web services are implemented and orchestrated by agents. Agent interaction is defined by means of obligations. Then, obligationbased agent conversations are translated into a web service composition method. Web services' functionalities are conceived as a set of actions with preconditions and effects, both expressed in terms of obligations that are adopted by agents as goals. In addition, an agent communication language that defines how messages affect agents' states, and as a consequence, the access to the services is presented. Moreover, a method for automatically creating generic composer agents is proposed. Composer agents are capable of managing and composing web services by means of inducing obligations to agents that implement and orchestrate web services.

Research paper thumbnail of Design and evaluation of a mobile application for monitoring patients with Alzheimer's disease: A day center case study

International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2019

Background and objective: This paper presents Alzheed, a mobile application for monitoring patien... more Background and objective: This paper presents Alzheed, a mobile application for monitoring patients with Alzheimer's disease at day centers as well as a set of design recommendations for the development of healthcare mobile applications. The Alzheed project was conducted at Day Center "Dorita de Ojeda" that is focused on the care of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Materials and methods: A software design methodology based on participatory design was employed for the design of Alzheed. This methodology is both iterative and incremental and consists of two main iterative stages: evaluation of low-fidelity prototypes and evaluation of high-fidelity prototypes. Low-fidelity prototypes were evaluated by 11 day center's healthcare professionals (involved in the design of Alzheed), whereas high-fidelity prototypes were evaluated using a questionnaire based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) by the same healthcare professionals plus 30 senior psychology undergraduate students uninvolved in the design of Alzheed. Results: Healthcare professional participants perceived Alzheed as extremely likely to be useful and extremely likely to be usable, whereas senior psychology undergraduate students perceived Alzheed as quite likely to be useful and quite likely to be usable. Particularly, the median and mode of the TAM questionnaire were 7 (extremely likely) for healthcare professionals and 6 (quite likely) for psychology students (for both constructs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use). One-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were performed to confirm the significance of the median for each construct. Conclusions: From the experience of designing Alzheed, it can be concluded that co-designing with healthcare professionals leads to (i) fostering group endorsement, which prevents resistance to change and (ii) helps to meet the needs of both healthcare professionals and patients, guaranteeing the usefulness of the application. In addition, evaluation of mobile healthcare applications by users involved and uninvolved in the application's design process helps to improve the ease of use of the application. Particularly, the number of people with Alzheimer's is projected to double every 20 years [2,3]. This becomes a global issue because, among other aspects, there will be an even higher need for senior care, and in particular, for specialized care for patients with Alzheimer's disease [3]. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive deterioration of vital brain functions [5]. According to the Alzheimer's Association [6], patients with AD pass through several stages including early stage, middle stage, and late stage. In the early stage, patients may be independent and may have memory lapses, lose objects, and/or have difficulties in planning. In the middle stage, patients may be confused about time and space, may have bladder control problems, may show mood swings, and may forget

Research paper thumbnail of A mechanism for biasing the appraisal process in affective agents

Cognitive Systems Research, 2019

In this paper we present a mechanism to model the influence of agents' internal and external fact... more In this paper we present a mechanism to model the influence of agents' internal and external factors on the emotional evaluation of stimuli in computational models of emotions. We propose the modification of configurable appraisal dimensions (such as desirability and pleasure) based on influencing factors. As part of the presented mechanism, we introduce influencing models to define the relationship between a given influencing factor and a given set of configurable appraisal dimensions utilized in the emotional evaluation phase. Influencing models translate factors' influences (on the emotional evaluation) into fuzzy logic adjustments (e.g., a shift in the limits of fuzzy membership functions), which allow biasing the emotional evaluation of stimuli. We implemented a proof-of-concept computational model of emotions based on real-world data about individuals' emotions. The obtained empirical evidence indicates that the proposed mechanism can properly affect the emotional evaluation of stimuli while preserving the overall behavior of the model of emotions.

Research paper thumbnail of Determining personality traits of racing game players using the open racing car simulator: toward believable virtual drivers

Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 2016

Believable artificial opponents, for example, believable virtual drivers, are fundamental to enga... more Believable artificial opponents, for example, believable virtual drivers, are fundamental to engage players and make (car racing) video games more entertaining. This paper lays the foundations for the design of believable virtual drivers by proposing a methodology for profiling players using the open racing car simulator. Data collected from 125 players about their driving behaviors and personality traits give insights into how personality traits should model the behavior of believable virtual drivers. The data analysis was conducted using a correlation analysis and the J48 decision tree algorithm. Empirical evidence shows that goal-oriented driving behaviors can be used to determine personality traits of players. In addition, this work also (i) gives preliminary insights into the relationship between the driving behavior and personality of racing game players and actual car drivers; and (ii) presents evidence of the relevance of gender as a predictor of personality traits of racing game players. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research paper thumbnail of Modeling Social Deviance in Artificial Agent Societies

Multi-Agent Systems and Agreement Technologies, 2016

Rule-governed artificial agent societies consisting of autonomous members are susceptible to rule... more Rule-governed artificial agent societies consisting of autonomous members are susceptible to rule violations, which can be seen as the acts of agents exercising their autonomy. As a consequence, modeling and allowing deviance is relevant, in particular, when artificial agent societies are used as the basis for agent-based social simulation. This work proposes a belief framework for modeling social deviance in artificial agent societies by taking into account both endogenous and exogenous factors contributing to rule compliance. The objective of the belief framework is to support the simulation of social environments where agents are susceptible to adopt rule-breaking behaviors. In this work, endogenous, exogenous and hybrid decision models supported by the event calculus formalism were implemented in an agent-based simulation model. Finally, a series of simulations was conducted in order to perform a sensitivity analysis of the agent-based simulation model.

Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Computing: A Brief Survey and Open Research Challenges

2015 3rd International Conference on Applied Computing and Information Technology/2nd International Conference on Computational Science and Intelligence, 2015

Cognitive computing is a multidisciplinary field of research aiming at devising computational mod... more Cognitive computing is a multidisciplinary field of research aiming at devising computational models and decisionmaking mechanisms based on the neurobiological processes of the brain, cognitive sciences, and psychology. The objective of cognitive computational models is to endow computer systems with the faculties of knowing, thinking, and feeling. The major contributions of this survey include (i) giving insights into cognitive computing by listing and describing its definitions, related fields, and terms; (ii) classifying current research on cognitive computing according to its objectives; (iii) presenting a concise review of cognitive computing approaches; and (iv) identifying the open research issues in the area of cognitive computing.

Research paper thumbnail of Event-oriented framework for smart transportation

2015 IEEE First International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), 2015

In this paper, an event-oriented modeling methodology for agent-based smart transportation system... more In this paper, an event-oriented modeling methodology for agent-based smart transportation systems supported by the n-LNS Petri net formalism is proposed. The methodology allows modeling and incorporating capabilities of smart transportation systems as well as modeling smart transportation systems as an event-oriented system of systems. The proposed framework makes use of three hierarchical levels of abstraction to describe smart transportation systems: (i) the highest level models a transportation network; (ii) the middle level models agents (e.g., cars); and (iii) the lowest level models individual agent behaviors (e.g., driving behaviors). In doing so, the components of an agent-based smart transportation system and their concurrent interrelationships are formally defined, which enables the quantitative evaluation of smart transportation systems by performing discrete-event simulations.

Research paper thumbnail of Crowdsourcing information for knowledge-based design of routes for unscheduled public transport trips

Journal of Knowledge Management, 2015

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to devise a crowdsourcing methodology for acquiring and ex... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to devise a crowdsourcing methodology for acquiring and exploiting knowledge to profile unscheduled transport networks for design of efficient routes for public transport trips. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyzes daily travel itineraries within Mexico City provided by 610 public transport users. In addition, a statistical analysis of quality-of-service parameters of the public transport systems of Mexico City was also conducted. From the statistical analysis, a knowledge base was consolidated to characterize the unscheduled public transport network of Mexico City. Then, by using a heuristic search algorithm for finding routes, public transport users are provided with efficient routes for their trips. Findings – The findings of the paper are as follows. A crowdsourcing methodology can be used to characterize complex and unscheduled transport networks. In addition, the knowledge of the crowds can be used to devise efficient routes ...

Research paper thumbnail of Agents for Cloud Resource Allocation: An Amazon EC2 Case Study

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2011

Infrastructure-as-a-service consumers are presented with numerous Cloud providers with a wide var... more Infrastructure-as-a-service consumers are presented with numerous Cloud providers with a wide variety of resources. However, consumers are faced with providers that may offer (even similar) resources at different hourly cost rates, and also that no single provider may have matching resource capabilities to fulfill a highly heterogeneous set of requirements. This work proposes an agent-based approach endowed with the well-known contract net protocol for allocating heterogeneous resources from multiple Cloud providers while selecting the most economical resources. The contributions of this paper are: (i) devising an agent-based architecture for resource allocation in multi-Cloud environments, and (ii) implementing the agent-based Cloud resource allocation mechanism in commercial Clouds using Amazon EC2 as a case study. The Amazon EC2 case study shows that agents can autonomously select and allocate heterogeneous resources from multiple Cloud providers while dynamically sampling resources' allocation cost for selecting the most economical resources.

Research paper thumbnail of A Family of Heuristics for Agent-Based Cloud Bag-of-Tasks Scheduling

2011 International Conference on Cyber-Enabled Distributed Computing and Knowledge Discovery, 2011

ABSTRACT The scheduling of bag-of-tasks applications (BoTs) in Clouds deal with fixed predefined ... more ABSTRACT The scheduling of bag-of-tasks applications (BoTs) in Clouds deal with fixed predefined allocation slots of Cloud resources, e.g., 1-hour time slots, that start being exhausted right after their allocation disregarding whether tasks are being executed or not. In addition, Cloud resources may be allocated for several hours to execute BoTs. However, some resource types (e.g., clusters) may be allocated for only a few hours, while others (e.g., CPU instances) may be allocated for several hours, so BoTs may be executed in such heterogeneous sets of Cloud resources (probably) allocated for a different number of hours. In this paper, a family of 15 scheduling heuristics consisting of two phases: (i) task ordering and (ii) task mapping (based on the remaining allocation times of Cloud resources) is proposed. The heuristics aim to maximize resource utilization while executing BoTs in heterogeneous sets of Cloud resources allocated for different numbers of hours. Cloud resources for executing BoTs are dynamically composed by adopting the contract net protocol. In addition, an agent-based testbed for Cloud BoT scheduling and execution was implemented. Simulation results show that the agents are capable of successfully and efficiently scheduling and executing BoTs in sets of Cloud resources composed from multiple Cloud environments.

Research paper thumbnail of Corruptible social agents

Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 2014

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of From Obligations to Organizational Structures in Multi-Agent Systems

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008

The achievement of common objectives in multi-agent systems is only possible through interaction ... more The achievement of common objectives in multi-agent systems is only possible through interaction and coordination; in order to implement both aspects in a effective manner, rules to direct the behavior of a group of agents are necessary, however, existing rules are usually static, inflexible, and inappropriate for large systems, where dynamic interaction takes place. We propose modeling agent behavior by

Research paper thumbnail of Obligation-Based Agent Conversations for Semantic Web Service Composition

2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, 2009

We deal with composition of semantic web services to which access is controlled by agents. We pro... more We deal with composition of semantic web services to which access is controlled by agents. We propose a conversation-based web service composition method. We conceive web services as actions with preconditions and effects, expressed in terms of social norms, particularly obligations. We argue that the inclusion of obligation-based agents' conversations aide to lead the composition of services. In order to

Research paper thumbnail of An Obligation Approach for Exception Handling in Interaction Protocols

2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, 2009

Given the dynamic interaction presented in multiagent systems, the occurrence of exceptions in in... more Given the dynamic interaction presented in multiagent systems, the occurrence of exceptions in interaction protocols is frequent, and therefore a critical issue. However, current approaches for designing interaction protocols lack semantics to direct the exchange of messages, when exceptions are raised. Here, we propose modeling exception handlers by means of obligations, which are social norms that provide a semantic layer

Research paper thumbnail of Multi-agent simulation of perception of safety from crime

Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, 2014

ABSTRACT Public perception of safety from crime and actual crime statistics are often mismatched.... more ABSTRACT Public perception of safety from crime and actual crime statistics are often mismatched. Perception of safety from crime is a social phenomenon determined and affected by (i) the mass media broadcasting news dominated by violent content, and (ii) the structural composition of the society, e.g., its socioeconomic characteristics. This paper proposes an agent-based simulation framework to analyze and study public perception of safety from crime and the effects of the mass media on safety perception. Agent-based models for (i) information sources, i.e., mass media outlets, and (ii) citizens are proposed. In addition, social interaction (and its influence on the perception of safety) is modeled by providing citizen agents with a network of acquaintances to/from which citizen agents may transmit/receive crime-related news. Experimental results show the feasibility of simulating perception of safety from crime by obtaining simulation results consistent with generally known and accepted macro-level patterns of safety perception.

Research paper thumbnail of GA-based cloud resource estimation for agent-based execution of bag-of-tasks applications

Information Systems Frontiers, 2011

... execution of bag-of-tasks applications ... Abstract Executing bag-of-tasks applications in mu... more ... execution of bag-of-tasks applications ... Abstract Executing bag-of-tasks applications in multiple Cloud environments while satisfying both consumers' budgets and deadlines poses the following challenges: How many resources and how many hours should be allocated? ...

Research paper thumbnail of A family of heuristics for agent-based elastic Cloud bag-of-tasks concurrent scheduling

Future Generation Computer Systems, 2013

The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.

Research paper thumbnail of Energy-aware data collection from the Internet of Things for building emotional profiles

2018 Third International Conference on Fog and Mobile Edge Computing (FMEC), 2018

In the field of affective computing, a major goal has been the development of models to recognize... more In the field of affective computing, a major goal has been the development of models to recognize the affective state of individuals. Data related to people such as physiological signals, facial expressions and speech enable the analysis and recognition of affective states. Currently, sensors integrated in smart devices (e.g., smartphone and smartwatch) allow the collection of this type of data. In this work, we present a platform composed of RESTful web services to collect data related to user emotions and its context through smart devices. Due to potential energy-constrained sensors, the platform is provided with an energy-aware data collection mechanism. Four series of experiments were conducted to evaluate both the energy efficiency and the scalability of the platform. The experimental results indicate that the platform is scalable and helps to save energy of data-collection sensors compared with a system unaware of energy consumption.

Research paper thumbnail of A systematic review of intelligent assistants

Future Generation Computer Systems, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of A comparative case study of 2D, 3D and immersive-virtual-reality applications for healthcare education

International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2020

This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the ad... more This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Research paper thumbnail of An obligation-based framework for web service composition via agent conversations

Web Intelligence and Agent Systems: An International Journal, 2012

This paper presents a framework for web service composition based on social norms, particularly o... more This paper presents a framework for web service composition based on social norms, particularly obligations. Web services are implemented and orchestrated by agents. Agent interaction is defined by means of obligations. Then, obligationbased agent conversations are translated into a web service composition method. Web services' functionalities are conceived as a set of actions with preconditions and effects, both expressed in terms of obligations that are adopted by agents as goals. In addition, an agent communication language that defines how messages affect agents' states, and as a consequence, the access to the services is presented. Moreover, a method for automatically creating generic composer agents is proposed. Composer agents are capable of managing and composing web services by means of inducing obligations to agents that implement and orchestrate web services.

Research paper thumbnail of Design and evaluation of a mobile application for monitoring patients with Alzheimer's disease: A day center case study

International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2019

Background and objective: This paper presents Alzheed, a mobile application for monitoring patien... more Background and objective: This paper presents Alzheed, a mobile application for monitoring patients with Alzheimer's disease at day centers as well as a set of design recommendations for the development of healthcare mobile applications. The Alzheed project was conducted at Day Center "Dorita de Ojeda" that is focused on the care of patients with Alzheimer's disease. Materials and methods: A software design methodology based on participatory design was employed for the design of Alzheed. This methodology is both iterative and incremental and consists of two main iterative stages: evaluation of low-fidelity prototypes and evaluation of high-fidelity prototypes. Low-fidelity prototypes were evaluated by 11 day center's healthcare professionals (involved in the design of Alzheed), whereas high-fidelity prototypes were evaluated using a questionnaire based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) by the same healthcare professionals plus 30 senior psychology undergraduate students uninvolved in the design of Alzheed. Results: Healthcare professional participants perceived Alzheed as extremely likely to be useful and extremely likely to be usable, whereas senior psychology undergraduate students perceived Alzheed as quite likely to be useful and quite likely to be usable. Particularly, the median and mode of the TAM questionnaire were 7 (extremely likely) for healthcare professionals and 6 (quite likely) for psychology students (for both constructs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use). One-sample Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were performed to confirm the significance of the median for each construct. Conclusions: From the experience of designing Alzheed, it can be concluded that co-designing with healthcare professionals leads to (i) fostering group endorsement, which prevents resistance to change and (ii) helps to meet the needs of both healthcare professionals and patients, guaranteeing the usefulness of the application. In addition, evaluation of mobile healthcare applications by users involved and uninvolved in the application's design process helps to improve the ease of use of the application. Particularly, the number of people with Alzheimer's is projected to double every 20 years [2,3]. This becomes a global issue because, among other aspects, there will be an even higher need for senior care, and in particular, for specialized care for patients with Alzheimer's disease [3]. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive deterioration of vital brain functions [5]. According to the Alzheimer's Association [6], patients with AD pass through several stages including early stage, middle stage, and late stage. In the early stage, patients may be independent and may have memory lapses, lose objects, and/or have difficulties in planning. In the middle stage, patients may be confused about time and space, may have bladder control problems, may show mood swings, and may forget

Research paper thumbnail of A mechanism for biasing the appraisal process in affective agents

Cognitive Systems Research, 2019

In this paper we present a mechanism to model the influence of agents' internal and external fact... more In this paper we present a mechanism to model the influence of agents' internal and external factors on the emotional evaluation of stimuli in computational models of emotions. We propose the modification of configurable appraisal dimensions (such as desirability and pleasure) based on influencing factors. As part of the presented mechanism, we introduce influencing models to define the relationship between a given influencing factor and a given set of configurable appraisal dimensions utilized in the emotional evaluation phase. Influencing models translate factors' influences (on the emotional evaluation) into fuzzy logic adjustments (e.g., a shift in the limits of fuzzy membership functions), which allow biasing the emotional evaluation of stimuli. We implemented a proof-of-concept computational model of emotions based on real-world data about individuals' emotions. The obtained empirical evidence indicates that the proposed mechanism can properly affect the emotional evaluation of stimuli while preserving the overall behavior of the model of emotions.

Research paper thumbnail of Determining personality traits of racing game players using the open racing car simulator: toward believable virtual drivers

Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 2016

Believable artificial opponents, for example, believable virtual drivers, are fundamental to enga... more Believable artificial opponents, for example, believable virtual drivers, are fundamental to engage players and make (car racing) video games more entertaining. This paper lays the foundations for the design of believable virtual drivers by proposing a methodology for profiling players using the open racing car simulator. Data collected from 125 players about their driving behaviors and personality traits give insights into how personality traits should model the behavior of believable virtual drivers. The data analysis was conducted using a correlation analysis and the J48 decision tree algorithm. Empirical evidence shows that goal-oriented driving behaviors can be used to determine personality traits of players. In addition, this work also (i) gives preliminary insights into the relationship between the driving behavior and personality of racing game players and actual car drivers; and (ii) presents evidence of the relevance of gender as a predictor of personality traits of racing game players. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research paper thumbnail of Modeling Social Deviance in Artificial Agent Societies

Multi-Agent Systems and Agreement Technologies, 2016

Rule-governed artificial agent societies consisting of autonomous members are susceptible to rule... more Rule-governed artificial agent societies consisting of autonomous members are susceptible to rule violations, which can be seen as the acts of agents exercising their autonomy. As a consequence, modeling and allowing deviance is relevant, in particular, when artificial agent societies are used as the basis for agent-based social simulation. This work proposes a belief framework for modeling social deviance in artificial agent societies by taking into account both endogenous and exogenous factors contributing to rule compliance. The objective of the belief framework is to support the simulation of social environments where agents are susceptible to adopt rule-breaking behaviors. In this work, endogenous, exogenous and hybrid decision models supported by the event calculus formalism were implemented in an agent-based simulation model. Finally, a series of simulations was conducted in order to perform a sensitivity analysis of the agent-based simulation model.

Research paper thumbnail of Cognitive Computing: A Brief Survey and Open Research Challenges

2015 3rd International Conference on Applied Computing and Information Technology/2nd International Conference on Computational Science and Intelligence, 2015

Cognitive computing is a multidisciplinary field of research aiming at devising computational mod... more Cognitive computing is a multidisciplinary field of research aiming at devising computational models and decisionmaking mechanisms based on the neurobiological processes of the brain, cognitive sciences, and psychology. The objective of cognitive computational models is to endow computer systems with the faculties of knowing, thinking, and feeling. The major contributions of this survey include (i) giving insights into cognitive computing by listing and describing its definitions, related fields, and terms; (ii) classifying current research on cognitive computing according to its objectives; (iii) presenting a concise review of cognitive computing approaches; and (iv) identifying the open research issues in the area of cognitive computing.

Research paper thumbnail of Event-oriented framework for smart transportation

2015 IEEE First International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), 2015

In this paper, an event-oriented modeling methodology for agent-based smart transportation system... more In this paper, an event-oriented modeling methodology for agent-based smart transportation systems supported by the n-LNS Petri net formalism is proposed. The methodology allows modeling and incorporating capabilities of smart transportation systems as well as modeling smart transportation systems as an event-oriented system of systems. The proposed framework makes use of three hierarchical levels of abstraction to describe smart transportation systems: (i) the highest level models a transportation network; (ii) the middle level models agents (e.g., cars); and (iii) the lowest level models individual agent behaviors (e.g., driving behaviors). In doing so, the components of an agent-based smart transportation system and their concurrent interrelationships are formally defined, which enables the quantitative evaluation of smart transportation systems by performing discrete-event simulations.

Research paper thumbnail of Crowdsourcing information for knowledge-based design of routes for unscheduled public transport trips

Journal of Knowledge Management, 2015

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to devise a crowdsourcing methodology for acquiring and ex... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to devise a crowdsourcing methodology for acquiring and exploiting knowledge to profile unscheduled transport networks for design of efficient routes for public transport trips. Design/methodology/approach – This paper analyzes daily travel itineraries within Mexico City provided by 610 public transport users. In addition, a statistical analysis of quality-of-service parameters of the public transport systems of Mexico City was also conducted. From the statistical analysis, a knowledge base was consolidated to characterize the unscheduled public transport network of Mexico City. Then, by using a heuristic search algorithm for finding routes, public transport users are provided with efficient routes for their trips. Findings – The findings of the paper are as follows. A crowdsourcing methodology can be used to characterize complex and unscheduled transport networks. In addition, the knowledge of the crowds can be used to devise efficient routes ...

Research paper thumbnail of Agents for Cloud Resource Allocation: An Amazon EC2 Case Study

Communications in Computer and Information Science, 2011

Infrastructure-as-a-service consumers are presented with numerous Cloud providers with a wide var... more Infrastructure-as-a-service consumers are presented with numerous Cloud providers with a wide variety of resources. However, consumers are faced with providers that may offer (even similar) resources at different hourly cost rates, and also that no single provider may have matching resource capabilities to fulfill a highly heterogeneous set of requirements. This work proposes an agent-based approach endowed with the well-known contract net protocol for allocating heterogeneous resources from multiple Cloud providers while selecting the most economical resources. The contributions of this paper are: (i) devising an agent-based architecture for resource allocation in multi-Cloud environments, and (ii) implementing the agent-based Cloud resource allocation mechanism in commercial Clouds using Amazon EC2 as a case study. The Amazon EC2 case study shows that agents can autonomously select and allocate heterogeneous resources from multiple Cloud providers while dynamically sampling resources' allocation cost for selecting the most economical resources.

Research paper thumbnail of A Family of Heuristics for Agent-Based Cloud Bag-of-Tasks Scheduling

2011 International Conference on Cyber-Enabled Distributed Computing and Knowledge Discovery, 2011

ABSTRACT The scheduling of bag-of-tasks applications (BoTs) in Clouds deal with fixed predefined ... more ABSTRACT The scheduling of bag-of-tasks applications (BoTs) in Clouds deal with fixed predefined allocation slots of Cloud resources, e.g., 1-hour time slots, that start being exhausted right after their allocation disregarding whether tasks are being executed or not. In addition, Cloud resources may be allocated for several hours to execute BoTs. However, some resource types (e.g., clusters) may be allocated for only a few hours, while others (e.g., CPU instances) may be allocated for several hours, so BoTs may be executed in such heterogeneous sets of Cloud resources (probably) allocated for a different number of hours. In this paper, a family of 15 scheduling heuristics consisting of two phases: (i) task ordering and (ii) task mapping (based on the remaining allocation times of Cloud resources) is proposed. The heuristics aim to maximize resource utilization while executing BoTs in heterogeneous sets of Cloud resources allocated for different numbers of hours. Cloud resources for executing BoTs are dynamically composed by adopting the contract net protocol. In addition, an agent-based testbed for Cloud BoT scheduling and execution was implemented. Simulation results show that the agents are capable of successfully and efficiently scheduling and executing BoTs in sets of Cloud resources composed from multiple Cloud environments.

Research paper thumbnail of Corruptible social agents

Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 2014

ABSTRACT

Research paper thumbnail of From Obligations to Organizational Structures in Multi-Agent Systems

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008

The achievement of common objectives in multi-agent systems is only possible through interaction ... more The achievement of common objectives in multi-agent systems is only possible through interaction and coordination; in order to implement both aspects in a effective manner, rules to direct the behavior of a group of agents are necessary, however, existing rules are usually static, inflexible, and inappropriate for large systems, where dynamic interaction takes place. We propose modeling agent behavior by

Research paper thumbnail of Obligation-Based Agent Conversations for Semantic Web Service Composition

2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, 2009

We deal with composition of semantic web services to which access is controlled by agents. We pro... more We deal with composition of semantic web services to which access is controlled by agents. We propose a conversation-based web service composition method. We conceive web services as actions with preconditions and effects, expressed in terms of social norms, particularly obligations. We argue that the inclusion of obligation-based agents' conversations aide to lead the composition of services. In order to

Research paper thumbnail of An Obligation Approach for Exception Handling in Interaction Protocols

2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, 2009

Given the dynamic interaction presented in multiagent systems, the occurrence of exceptions in in... more Given the dynamic interaction presented in multiagent systems, the occurrence of exceptions in interaction protocols is frequent, and therefore a critical issue. However, current approaches for designing interaction protocols lack semantics to direct the exchange of messages, when exceptions are raised. Here, we propose modeling exception handlers by means of obligations, which are social norms that provide a semantic layer

Research paper thumbnail of Multi-agent simulation of perception of safety from crime

Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, 2014

ABSTRACT Public perception of safety from crime and actual crime statistics are often mismatched.... more ABSTRACT Public perception of safety from crime and actual crime statistics are often mismatched. Perception of safety from crime is a social phenomenon determined and affected by (i) the mass media broadcasting news dominated by violent content, and (ii) the structural composition of the society, e.g., its socioeconomic characteristics. This paper proposes an agent-based simulation framework to analyze and study public perception of safety from crime and the effects of the mass media on safety perception. Agent-based models for (i) information sources, i.e., mass media outlets, and (ii) citizens are proposed. In addition, social interaction (and its influence on the perception of safety) is modeled by providing citizen agents with a network of acquaintances to/from which citizen agents may transmit/receive crime-related news. Experimental results show the feasibility of simulating perception of safety from crime by obtaining simulation results consistent with generally known and accepted macro-level patterns of safety perception.

Research paper thumbnail of GA-based cloud resource estimation for agent-based execution of bag-of-tasks applications

Information Systems Frontiers, 2011

... execution of bag-of-tasks applications ... Abstract Executing bag-of-tasks applications in mu... more ... execution of bag-of-tasks applications ... Abstract Executing bag-of-tasks applications in multiple Cloud environments while satisfying both consumers' budgets and deadlines poses the following challenges: How many resources and how many hours should be allocated? ...

Research paper thumbnail of A family of heuristics for agent-based elastic Cloud bag-of-tasks concurrent scheduling

Future Generation Computer Systems, 2013

The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.