Soft Computing Agents: A New Perspective for Dynamic Information Systems (Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications)

In the last thirty years the researchers involved in the design of smart systems have continuously provided methodologies and technologies to deal with human and artificial behaviours. The study of intelligent machines is attested by an immense and growing literature and by a remarkable spin-off in a wide range of innovative projects. Despite these efforts, intelligent-based systems design still remains a problem, especially from a performance as well as a complexity viewpoint. Recent advances in networking technology and the ubiquity of the Internet have opened new perspectives in software application improvement. This new scenario demands new paradigms to cope with computational models characterized by an unceasing dynamism, strong decentralization, and high unpredictability. The exciting potential of agent technology has deeply marked these last years as a winning strategy to address the issues cited before. The book intends to divide the contributions into three basic directions: to present the state-of-the-art developments of soft computing -based agents; to examine the role of soft computing-based technology in various facets of agent design (problem-solving, autonomy, adaptivity, reactivity, communication, interaction); to cross-fertilize ideas on the soft computing perspective and the development of agent-based intelligent information systems.