Fall 2007 Agent-based Systems Instructor: Henry Hexmoor Time: MW 4:00-5:15 pm Place: Faner 1006

Course Description: Agent-based systems are commonplace in environments characterized by distributed, collaborative, and autonomous units. The techniques and algorithms of agent-based systems and multiagent systems are presented. Real world applications are explored. A group project is an integral part of this course.

Objectives:

• To have a rich understanding of multiagent systems and their limitations
• skills to design automation solutions using multiagent system techniques

Lectures in this calss will not cover internet programming, setting up ecommerce sites, or developing web pages. The term projects could include these activities. The lectures will focus on enabling concepts, models and theories.


Course administration and grading. The course will be run as a regular lectrure class. A single term project will worth 40/100 points. See project. A midterm exam and a final exam will count as 20% each. Exams will be either take home or in class. Ten homewords at 2 points each make up the remaining 20/100 points.

Read papers Autonomy and Trust. Two homeworks will worth 5 points each. Attendance and active participation will worth 10 points.


Important Dates:

Important Dates

September 18, 2006	Project quadcharts	One page
October 2, 2006	HW 1- Trust paper	3000 words (APA style)
October 4, 2006,	Project report part I	1500 words (APA style)
October 18, 2006	Take-home (week-long) midterm	1000 words (APA style). Explain two sociological theories as foundations of models of "crowd" in multiagent systems
November 6, 2006	HW 2 - Autonomy paper, Project report part II	3000+1500 words respectively (APA style)
December 1, 2006	Project report part III	1500 words (APA style)
December 6, 2006	In-class Final Exam, project report part in whole.	6000 words (APA style)

Who should attend and prerequisites. We welcome CS graduate students with some background in AI and a strong interest in multiagent systems research. Graduate students in all other closely related sciences who are interested in projects or independent studies are also encouraged to participate. Graduate students may select thesis topics. Senior undergraduate CS students who have taken CS330 with a grade of C or better are also welcome. A group project is an integral part of this course for undergraduate srtudents.

Required Textbooks:

Michael J. Wooldridge, 2000. Introduction to MultiAgent Systems, John Wiley & Sons; 1st edition, 047149691X (June 12, 2002)
APA: The Easy Way!
by Peggy M. Houghton, Timothy J. Houghton, Michael F. Peters, ISBN: 0923568557
My KIMAS 2003 slides


Online APA Manual
Online MLA Guide
Recommended textbooks:
Multiagent Systems: A Modern Approach to Distributed Artificial Intelligence, MIT press, SBN: 047149691X.
Sabine Payr, Robert Trappl (Editors), Agent Culture: Human-Agent Interaction in a Multicultural World, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
ISBN: 0805848088 Gerhard Weiss, 2000.

Useful Links:
To find research papers, citeseer and Multiagent.com

Email: Henry Hexmoor