When Keon Coates was a young man on the verge of entering the "real world" after high school, his plans had nothing to do with the military. With a scholarship to Georgia Southern University and plans of dorm life in his head, he visited a US Navy recruiter simply to appease his best friend's wishes--an indifferent move that ultimately changed his life's course forever.This is the wisdom-infused tale of how a young, modern American found his calling in the most unlikely of places, and in doing so, earned the respect, strength, and wizened philosophy of the few who take the sacred oath and commit "to excellence and the fair treatment of all."
Mark d'Inverno and Michael Luck present a formal approach to dealing with agents and agent systems in this second edition of Understanding Agent Systems. The Z specification language is used to establish an accessible and unified formal account of agent systems and inter-agent relationships. In particular, the framework provides precise and unambiguous meanings for common concepts and terms for agent systems, allows for the description of alternative agent models and architectures, and serves as a foundation for subsequent development of increasingly refined agent concepts. The practicability of this approach is verified by applying the formal framework to three detailed case studies. The book will appeal equally to researchers, students, and professionals in industry.
The book is concerned with the application of basic concepts of Agent-based technology for the flow of information between various components of the supply chain formed for a manufacturing organization with following objectives: • Identifying issues related to sharing information as the most critical factor in supply chain activities • Addressing problems associated with sharing information both within and between different organizations • Sharing effective information by formulating an agent-based framework for supply chain management activities • To enhance the effectiveness of Supply chain management activities
Our rapidly changing world has forced business practitioners, in corporation with academic researchers, to respond quickly and develop effective solution methodologies and techniques to handle new challenges in supply chain systems. Supply Chain Optimization, Management and Integration: Emerging Applications presents readers with a rich collection of ideas from researchers who are bridging the gap between the latest in information technology and supply chain management. This book includes theoretical, analytical, and empirical research, comprehensive reviews of relevant research, and case studies of effective applications in the field of SCM. The use of new technologies, methods, and techniques are emphasized by those who have worked with supply chain management across the world for those in the field of information systems.
In today's global business environment, the intense competition, the changing and uncertain conditions, and the increasing customer's requirements are challenges for the companies' operational efficiency and profitability. In this context, companies highlight the importance of supply chain design and its holistic understanding in order to achieve and sustain competitive strengths. This book analyses supply chains as complex systems, whose performance is characterized by their structural configuration and emergent behaviour. The author analyses the supply chain structure and behaviour within the scope of complexity science. He focuses on supply chain complexity by means of a literature review and an empirical research, which give insights into the impact of complexity on supply chain performance. Moreover, within this book the supply chain is modelled as a complex system by considering the non-linear relationships of its geo-positioned elements. Finally, an agent based model is developed for the generic supply chain simulation, which allows assessing the impact of complexity on supply chain performance and characterizing the behaviour of supply chain designs. The materials presented in this book contribute to the understanding and management of supply chain complexity. This work complements existing complexity frameworks with a holistic analysis of complexity's impact on the performance of supply chain participants and their network. The findings of this work are relevant for researchers interested in characterizing supply chain phenomena by enabling them to model supply chain structures and to simulate their emergent behaviour. Practitioners can benefit from the provided model and simulation platform by allowing them to dynamically assess the performance of their supply chain designs and strategy definitions. By these means, they improve their decision-making and business profitability. In all, this book contributes towards the development of artificial intellig
This book takes a close look at recent progress in the field of supply chain management using agent technology and more specifically multiagent systems. Sixteen chapters are organized in four main parts: Introductory Papers; Multiagent Based Supply Chain Modeling; Collaboration and Coordination Between Agents in a Supply Chain; and Multiagent Based Supply Chain Management: Applications. The result is a comprehensive review of existing literature, and ideas for future research.
In order to keep up with the constant changes in technology, business have adopted supply chain management to improve competitive strategies on a strategic and operational level. Supply Chain Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a reference collection which highlights the major concepts and issues in the application and advancement of supply chain management. Including research from leading scholars, this resource will be useful for academics, students, and practitioners interested in the continuous study of supply chain management and its influences.
This volume contains 13 thoroughly refereed and revised papers detailing recent advances in research on trading agents, negotiating agents, dynamic pricing, and auctions. They were originally presented at the 10th International Workshop on Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce (AMEC 2008) collocated with AAMAS 2008 in Estoril, Portugal, or the 6th Workshop on Trading Agent Design and Analysis (TADA 2008) collocated with AAAI 2008 in Chicago, IL, USA. The papers originating from AMEC 2008 address agent modeling and multi-agent problems in the context of e-negotiations and e-commerce. The TADA papers stem from the effort to design scenarios where trading agents and market designers can be pitched against each other in applications from supply chain management and procurement. They are all characterized by interdisciplinary research combining fields such as artificial intelligence, distributed systems, game theory, and economics.
One of the most important reasons for the current intensity of interest in agent technology is that the concept of an agent, as an autonomous system capable of interacting with other agents in order to satisfy its design objectives, is a natural one for software designers. Just as we can understand many systems as being composed of essentially passive objects, which have a state and upon which we can perform operations, so we can understand many others as being made up of interacting semi-autonomous agents. This book brings together revised versions of papers presented at the First International Workshop on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, AOSE 2000, held in Limerick, Ireland, in conjunction with ICSE 2000, and several invited papers. As a comprehensive and competent overview of agent-oriented software engineering, the book addresses software engineers interested in the new paradigm and technology as well as research and development professionals active in agent technology.
Challenges faced by supply chains appear to be growing exponentially under the demands of increasingly complex business environments confronting the decision makers. The world we live in now operates under interconnected economies that put extra pressure on supply chains to fulfil ever-demanding customer preferences. Relative attractiveness of manufacturing as well as consumption locations changes very rapidly, which in consequence alters the economies of large scale production. Coupled with the recent economic swings, supply chains in every country are obliged to survive with substantially squeezed margins. In this book, we tried to compile a selection of papers focusing on a wide range of problems in the supply chain domain. Each chapter offers important insights into understanding these problems as well as approaches to attaining effective solutions.
