• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-46
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• 2012

The scheduling problem of large products like ships, airplanes, space shuttles, assembled constructions, and automobiles is very complex in nature. To reduce inherent computational complexity, we often design scheduling systems that the original problem is decomposed into small sub-problems, which are scheduled independently and integrated into the original one. Moreover, the steep growth of communication technology and logistics makes it possible to produce a lot of multi-nation corporation by which products are produced across more than one plant. Therefore vertical and lateral coordination among decomposed scheduling systems is necessary. In this research, we suggest an agent-based coordinating mechanism for multi-level scheduling systems in supply chain. For design of a general coordination mechanism, at first, we propose a grammar to define individual scheduling agents which are responsible to their own plants, and a meta-level coordination agent which is engaged to supervise individual scheduling agents. Second, we suggest scheduling agent communication protocols for each scheduling agent topology which is classified according to the system architecture, existence of coordinator, and direction of coordination. We also suggest a scheduling agent communication language which consists of three layers : Agent Communication Layer, Scheduling Coordination Layer, Industry-specific Layer. Finally, in order to improve the efficiency of communication among scheduling agents we suggest a rough capacity coordination model which supports to monitor participating agents and analyze the status of them. With this coordination mechanism, we can easily model coordination processes of multiple scheduling systems. In the future, we will apply this mechanism to shipbuilding domain and develop a prototype system which consists of a dock-scheduling agent, four assembly-plant-scheduling agents, and a meta-level coordination agent. A series of experiment using the real-world data will be performed to examine this mechanism.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.47-66
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• 2008

This study is aimed at proposing a new type of ubiquitous decision support system (u-DSS) portal which is embedded with two important mechanisms like an intelligent ontology management module (i-OMM) and multi-agent coordination mechanism (MACM). The proposed portal provides timely decision support to the involved decision entities (represented as agents) by taking advantage of the two mechanisms embedded on the portal. The most important virtue of the proposed portal is that it can resolve two problems such as semantic discordance and data confliction which are occurring very often in an ubiquitous computing environment. Frequent requests of revising the already established decision information due to the rapid changes in decision entities' requirements require the extremely flexible and intelligent u-DSS vehicle like theproposed mechanism. In this sense, the i-OMM is designed to provide support to solving the semantic discordance in the way that the i-OMM virtually integrates ontology view (IOV) to integrate heterogeneous ontology among the agents engaged inubiquitous commerce situations. Then the i-OMM sends the IOV to the MACM to resolve the conflicts among the involved agents. The proposed u-DSS portal was applied to the u-fulfillment problem in which all the involved decisionagents need their own requirements to be satisfied seamlessly and timely. The experimental results show that the proposed u-DSS portal is very robust and promising in the field of u-DSS and context modeling.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.213-226
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• 2011

In global supply chain, the scheduling problems of large products such as ships, airplanes, space shuttles, assembled constructions, and/or automobiles are complicated by nature. New scheduling systems are often developed in order to reduce inherent computational complexity. As a result, a problem can be decomposed into small sub-problems, problems that contain independently small scheduling systems integrating into the initial problem. As one of the authors experienced, DAS (Daewoo Shipbuilding Scheduling System) has adopted a two-layered hierarchical architecture. In the hierarchical architecture, individual scheduling systems composed of a high-level dock scheduler, DAS-ERECT and low-level assembly plant schedulers, DAS-PBS, DAS-3DS, DAS-NPS, and DAS-A7 try to search the best schedules under their own constraints. Moreover, the steep growth of communication technology and logistics enables it to introduce distributed multi-nation production plants by which different parts are produced by designated plants. Therefore vertical and lateral coordination among decomposed scheduling systems is necessary. No standard coordination mechanism of multiple scheduling systems exists, even though there are various scheduling systems existing in the area of scheduling research. Previous research regarding the coordination mechanism has mainly focused on external conversation without capacity model. Prior research has heavily focuses on agent-based coordination in the area of agent research. Yet, no scheduling domain has been developed. Previous research regarding the agent-based scheduling has paid its ample attention to internal coordination of scheduling process, a process that has not been efficient. In this study, we suggest a general framework for agent-based coordination of multiple scheduling systems in global supply chain. The purpose of this study was to design a standard coordination mechanism. To do so, we first define an individual scheduling agent responsible for their own plants and a meta-level coordination agent involved with each individual scheduling agent. We then suggest variables and values describing the individual scheduling agent and meta-level coordination agent. These variables and values are represented by Backus-Naur Form. Second, we suggest scheduling agent communication protocols for each scheduling agent topology classified into the system architectures, existence or nonexistence of coordinator, and directions of coordination. If there was a coordinating agent, an individual scheduling agent could communicate with another individual agent indirectly through the coordinator. On the other hand, if there was not any coordinating agent existing, an individual scheduling agent should communicate with another individual agent directly. To apply agent communication language specifically to the scheduling coordination domain, we had to additionally define an inner language, a language that suitably expresses scheduling coordination. A scheduling agent communication language is devised for the communication among agents independent of domain. We adopt three message layers which are ACL layer, scheduling coordination layer, and industry-specific layer. The ACL layer is a domain independent outer language layer. The scheduling coordination layer has terms necessary for scheduling coordination. The industry-specific layer expresses the industry specification. Third, in order to improve the efficiency of communication among scheduling agents and avoid possible infinite loops, we suggest a look-ahead load balancing model which supports to monitor participating agents and to analyze the status of the agents. To build the look-ahead load balancing model, the status of participating agents should be monitored. Most of all, the amount of sharing information should be considered. If complete information is collected, updating and maintenance cost of sharing information will be increasing although the frequency of communication will be decreasing. Therefore the level of detail and updating period of sharing information should be decided contingently. By means of this standard coordination mechanism, we can easily model coordination processes of multiple scheduling systems into supply chain. Finally, we apply this mechanism to shipbuilding domain and develop a prototype system which consists of a dock-scheduling agent, four assembly- plant-scheduling agents, and a meta-level coordination agent. A series of experiments using the real world data are used to empirically examine this mechanism. The results of this study show that the effect of agent-based platform on coordinated scheduling is evident in terms of the number of tardy jobs, tardiness, and makespan.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.73-94
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• 2010

The attending system is a medical system that allows doctors in clinics to use the extra equipment in hospitals-beds, laboratory, operating room, etc-for their patient's care under a contract between the doctors and hospitals. Therefore, the system is very beneficial in terms of the efficiency of the usage of medical resources. However, it is necessary to develop a strong support system to strengthen its weaknesses and supplement its merits. If doctors use hospital beds under the attending system of hospitals, they would be able to check a patient's condition often and provide them with nursing care services. However, the current attending system lacks delivery and assistance support. Thus, for the successful performance of the attending system, a networking system should be developed to facilitate communication between the doctors and nurses. In particular, the nursing records in the attending system could help doctors monitor the patient's condition and provision of nursing care services. A nursing record is the formal documentation associated with nursing care. It is merely a data repository that helps nurses to track their activities; nursing records thus represent a resource of primary information that can be reused. In order to maximize their usefulness, nursing records have been introduced as part of computerized patient records. However, nursing records are internal data that are not disclosed by hospitals. Moreover, the lack of standardization of the record list makes it difficult to share nursing records. Under the attending system, nurses would want to minimize the amount of effort they have to put in for the maintenance of additional records. Hence, they would try to maintain the current level of nursing records in the form of record lists and record attributes, while doctors would require more detailed and real-time information about their patients in order to monitor their condition. Therefore, this study developed a system for assisting in the maintenance and sharing of the nursing records under the attending system. In contrast to previous research on the functionality of computer-based nursing records, we have emphasized the practical usefulness of nursing records from the viewpoint of the actual implementation of the attending system. We suggested that nurses could design a nursing record dictionary for their convenience, and that doctors and nurses could confirm the definitions that they looked up in the dictionary through negotiations with intelligent agents. Such an agent-based system could facilitate networking among medical institutes. Multi-agent systems are a widely accepted paradigm for the distribution and sharing of computation workloads in the scientific community. Agent-based systems have been developed with differences in functional cooperation, coordination, and negotiation. To increase such communication, a framework for a multi-agent based system is proposed in this study. The agent-based approach is useful for developing a system that promotes trade-offs between transactions involving multiple attributes. A brief summary of our contributions follows. First, we propose an efficient and accurate utility representation and acquisition mechanism based on a preference scale while minimizing user interactions with the agent. Trade-offs between various transaction attributes can also be easily computed. Second, by providing a multi-attribute negotiation framework based on the attribute utility evaluation mechanism, we allow both the doctors in charge and nurses to negotiate over various transaction attributes in the nursing record lists that are defined by the latter. Third, we have designed the architecture of the nursing record management server and a system of agents that provides support to the doctors and nurses with regard to the framework and mechanisms proposed above. A formal protocol has also been developed to create and control the communication required for negotiations. We verified the realization of the system by developing a web-based prototype. The system was implemented using ASP and IIS5.1.