DIBRIS


Daniela Briola

Contact details

DISI - Dipartimento di Informatica e Scienze dell'Informazione
Via Dodecaneso, 35
16146 Genova - ITALY
Phone: +39 (010) 353 6310
Mail: briola.daniela@disi.unige.it

Curriculum

Research interests

My main research interests are Multi Agent Systems (MAS), Negotiation in MAS, Knowledge representation using Ontologies, Logic languages (Prolog). I apply my research on real case studies, so I often collaborate with companies, in particular with Ansaldo STS genova. Further interests cover the DB area.

Ph.D. Thesis (2011)

Negotiation in Multiagent Systems: Protocols, Ontologies and Applications

Abstract

This thesis has its roots in the domain of the “Multi Agent Resource Allocation (MARA)” research field. Its contribution to advancing the research in this field consists in the design of a new and general purpose negotiation protocol, in the definition of the mathematical model upon which it is based, in the implementation of a system called “FYPA (Find Your Path, Agent)”, based on this protocol and integrated in a real application of the Ansaldo STS company, and in a detailed comparison of similar protocols, along many different dimensions. The FYPA system is implemented in JADE and also exploits NetLogo to allow users follow the simulation by means of an intuitive graphical interface that we developed. Another system, that we named “MAD MAS” (MAS stands for multiagent system) and that we developed for Ansaldo STS as well, is also described in the thesis. The “MAD MAS” is simpler than FYPA but it shows interesting features since agents are organized in a hierarchical way and have been implemented in a declarative language.
The problem of integrating ontologies into MASs following the FIPA (Foundations of Intelligent Physical Agents) standard is also addressed.
The main research area of the presented work is the one of “resources sharing and their dynamic allocation”, that is, we face a set of similar problems where a group of entities dynamically needs to use some resources to achieve one, or more, tasks. In our scope these entities are autonomous agents but the underlying problems are common to very different areas, such as sensors management or autonomous robots coordination.
The first part of the thesis focuses on the general introduction to the research area and to the tools we have used in the thesis.
The second part describes “MAD MAS” and “FYPA”, their development, the results of experiments that we carried out and some already existing solutions similar to ours. The last part presents a detailed survey on how integrating ontologies in MASs and reports our own proposal to achieve this integration.

Publications and other documents

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Teaching