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With the advancement of artificial intelligence technologies, mobile agents are becoming more commonly used in a variety of industries that require high reliability from their control systems. In an uncertain environment, if the mobile agent control system's state transition includes only one plan, the system will enter the fault state immediately after the plan fails. Therefore, multiple alternative plans can be provided during the system design process to improve system reliability. First, this paper studies and describes the factors associated with the proposed multiple alternative plans, namely the success rate and plan implementation cost. Second, a Policy Generation Algorithm for identifying an appropriate execution sequence of those alternative plans is proposed. Furthermore, we propose a formal method-based pipeline framework for verifying the reliability of a mobile agent control system equipped with multiple alternative plans: we invoke the probabilistic model checking technique to create a Discrete-Time Markov Chain formal model of the mobile agent control system, convert the required properties into Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic formulae, and verify the model using the advanced probabilistic model checker PRISM. A case study is provided to demonstrate the applicability of the suggested methodological framework. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed mobile agent control system with multiple alternative plans can improve system reliability while also meeting the least expected operational cost under the alternative plan set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coordinating multiple agents to optimize an objective has several real-world applications. In areas such as disaster rescue, environment monitoring and the like, mobile agents may be deployed to work as a team to achieve a joint goal. Recently, multi-agent problems involving mobile sensor teams have been formalized in the literature as DCOP_MSTs. Under this class of problems, DCOP algorithms are applied to enable agents to coordinate the assignment of their physical locations as they jointly optimize the team objective. In DCOP_MSTs, the environment is dynamic, and agents may leave or join the environment at random times. As a result, a predefined interaction topology or graph may not be useful over the problem horizon. Therefore, there is a need to study methods that could facilitate agent-to-agent interaction in such open and dynamic environments. Existing methods require reconstructing the entire graph upon detecting changes in the environment or assume a predefined interaction graph. In this study, we propose a dynamic multi-agent hierarchy construction algorithm that can be used by DCOP_MST algorithms that require a pseudo-tree for execution. We evaluate our proposed method in a simulated target detection case study to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach in large agent teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computation offloading technology in an FEC (Fog/Edge Computing) environment requires the process of transmitting code/data and execution results from a mobile device (MD) to an edge server (ES). In this case, a mobile agent may be used for efficient transmission of code/data. However, the mobile agent migrates with task processing commands and execution results at the time of migration, which can cause time delays and reliability degradation problems due to increased size. This paper proposes a method of securing the applicability and reliability of the mobile agent system by implementing migration algorithm and a method of reducing the weight of the mobile agent for computation offloading. In addition, we demonstrate the legitimacy of the proposed method based on the results of the migration and mounting module execution experiment of the mobile agent equipped with code/data in the FEC environment and the comparative analysis experiment of the migration time according to the size of the mobile agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the rapid advancement of wireless sensor and location technologies, a large amount of mobile agent trajectory data has become available. Intelligent city systems and video surveillance all benefit from trajectory anomaly detection. The authors propose an unsupervised reconstruction error-based trajectory anomaly detection (RETAD) method for vehicles to address the issues of conventional anomaly detection, which include difficulty extracting features, are susceptible to overfitting, and have a poor anomaly detection effect. RETAD reconstructs the original vehicle trajectories through an autoencoder based on recurrent neural networks. The model obtains moving patterns of normal trajectories by eliminating the gap between the reconstruction results and the initial inputs. Anomalous trajectories are defined as those with a reconstruction error larger than anomaly threshold. Experimental results demonstrate that the effectiveness of RETAD in detecting anomalies is superior to traditional distance-based, density-based, and machine learning classification algorithms on multiple metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile Agent has many benefits over traditional distributed systems such as reducing latency, bandwidth, and costs. Mobile Agent Systems are not fully utilized due to security problems. This paper focuses on mobile agent protection against malicious hosts. A new security mechanism called Checkpoints has been proposed. Checkpoint Mechanism (CPM) aims to protect Mobile Agent against malicious hosts in case of Capturing and Integrity attacks. CPM assumes using a free-roaming mobility mechanism by Mobile agent systems. The main idea behind CPM is to generate multiple versions of Mobile Agent. The multiple version is used to recover Mobile Agent from Capturing and Integrity attacks by untrusted hosts.MA versions are kept in Recovery Host(RH). RH plays a key role in CPM by controlling and monitoring MAs' recovery processes. A prototype method has been used to prove the feasibility of CPM. The p https://dsr.kau.edu.sa/Default-305-ARrototype was implemented by using the .Net framework and C#. full discussion for several scenarios has been done to analyze the feasibility and performance for CPM. As found from this research, CPM has a strong ability to protect Mobile Agents from Capturing and Integrity attacks completely. In addition, there is no negative impact on the overall performance of the mobile agent system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The mobile agent system offers a promising solution for distributed systems applications that require fault tolerance, performance, and reliability. When it comes to issues like security and network management, mobile agents' inherent intelligence and autonomy come in handy. It is usually possible to add new systems to mobile agent technology because of its interoperability and adaptability. In spite of the benefits of self-reliance and intelligence, mobile agents are vulnerable to security breaches. Security mechanisms are provided to ensure the mobile agent's data is secure. Chaos-based cryptography is a highly secure method of encrypting data. The mobile agent environment has not yet seen any testing of this technique. Mobile agents are being used to test a chaotic cryptography based on Chebyshev polynomials and ElGamal. Hybridization resembles the data encryption method known as "signcryption" in many ways. Theory shows that chaotic cryptography is impenetrable to most threats. Chaos-based cryptography ensures a high level of data security throughout the system's architecture. Using a new measure called "trust scoring," it helps mobile agents decide on an itinerary based on the platform's trustworthiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread multiple mobile agents (MAs) algorithms for wireless sensor networks use MAs itineraries starting and returning back to the sink node. Furthermore, each MA must carry the processing code to collect the sensory data and go back to the sink with the accumulated data. However, these assumptions increase the number of MA's migration hops, which consequently consumes more energy and time. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a Cooperative and Hybrid Energy Efficient SchemE for wireless sensor networks (CHEESE) that aims to soften the substantial increase in energy and time cost, used in the data transporting process. To do this, the sink node of the proposed approach 'CHEESE' sends only one main MA to the target area in the network. Then this main MA, will be hosted by a virtual sink in the target area, which will generate multiple MAs to collect and aggregate data. By the end of all MAs processes, the virtual sink gathers all the MAs data, aggregates and fuses them to send only the pertinent information to the sink. Moreover, CHEESE uses light MAs itineraries by browsing only a part of source nodes. CHEESE simulation results have effectively confirmed its efficiency in many scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mobile agent is an autonomous executing small piece of program that can relocate from one host to another in a non-homogeneous network under its own control. Mobile agents are designed to execute certain assigned tasks by the owner. In the life cycle of mobile agents, these pass over many hosts for the execution of tasks. Mobile agent's scheme is widely used in distributed computing because of its dynamic nature, less bandwidth and less computation power. Execution of mobile agents exploits codes; data and state upraise the security issues. Malicious agents can attack mobile agents during the transmission and at the time of execution on the host because mobile agents carry delicate information of owners. The protection of mobile agents and platforms is a sensitive issue. This article focuses on the security issue of mobile agents and platforms. Provide the anonymous secure framework for mobile agent and platform security by using optimize secret key management based on Mignotte's sequence and artificial neural network. In an anonymous secret sharing technique, secret keys regenerated without knowledge of which mobile agents hold which share. That is, in such a technique the secret can be reconstructed from the shares without the identities of mobile agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The routing performance of the In Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) depends on the individual nodes that represent the network. In this paper, a new protocol based on self-monitoring (agent-based) and following the Ad Hoc on Demand Distance Vector (AODV) Routing Algorithm is presented. This protocol may be called Agent-Based Ad Hoc on Demand Distance Vector Routing Algorithm (AB-AODV) Protocol for MANETs. The main objective of the proposed method is to manage trusted information locally with minimal overhead in terms of extra messages and time delay. This objective is achieved through installing in each participating node in the network a multi-agent system. Multi-agent system consists of two types of agents: monitoring agent and routing agent. A new mathematical and more practical objective model for measuring the trust value is introduced. This model is weighted by both the number and size of routed packets to react to the selective forwarding behavior of a node. The performance evaluation via simulation using NS-3 shows that the proposed protocol is better than standard AODV. The simulation is done under a variety of environmental conditions such as the number of malicious nodes, host density, and movement rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In networked mobile commerce network transactions, trust is the prerequisite and key to a smooth transaction. The measurement of trust between entities involves factors such as transaction amount, transaction time, personal income of consumer entities and their risk attitude towards trust, etc., so it is difficult to accurately calculate quantitatively. In order to find out the essential characteristics of this trust relationship, based on the research background of mobile commerce in the mobile network environment, a dynamic trust mechanism is proposed through the research of trust in the mobile network environment, trust influencing factors and trust mechanism. The calculation model of mobile interactive services based on mobile service business transactions. The model calculates feedback credibility through feedback deviation and feedback robustness, and combines transaction context factors and trust mapping mechanism to judge the seller's credibility. This model better reflects the degree of influence of subjective factors such as personal preferences and risk attitudes on trust calculations, And the sensitivity of trust algorithms and transaction attributes has been greatly improved. After a large number of experiments and theoretical analysis, this mechanism provides an effective explanation for solving the problem of network trust computing. and provides valuable new ideas for the study of secure transactions in the mobile Internet environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In mobile cloud computing, trust is a very important parameter in mobile cloud computing security because data storage and data processing are performed remotely in the cloud. Aiming at the security and trust management of mobile agent system in mobile cloud computing environment, the Human Trust Mechanism (HTM) is used to study the subjective trust formation, trust propagation and trust evolution law, and the subjective trust dynamic management algorithm (MASTM) is proposed. Based on the interaction experience between the mobile agent and the execution host and the third-party recommendation information to collect the basic trust data, the public trust host selection algorithm is given. The isolated malicious host algorithm and the integrated trust degree calculation algorithm realize the function of selecting the trusted cluster and isolating the malicious host, so as to enhance the security interaction between the mobile agent and the host. Given algorithm simulation and verification were carried out to prove its feasibility and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the classic Symmetric Rendezvous problem on a Line (SR-Line), two robots at known distance 2 but unknown direction execute the same randomized algorithm trying to minimize the expected rendezvous time. A long standing conjecture is that the best possible rendezvous time is 4.25 with known upper and lower bounds being very close to that value. We introduce and study a geometric variation of SR-Line that we call Symmetric Rendezvous in a Disk (SR-Disk) where two robots at distance 2 have a common reference point at distance ρ. We show that even when ρ is not too small, the two robots can meet in expected time that is less than 4.25. Part of our contribution is that we demonstrate how to adjust known, even simple and provably non-optimal, algorithms for SR-Line , effectively improving their performance in the presence of a reference point. Special to our algorithms for SR-Disk is that, unlike in SR-Line , for every fixed ρ the worst case distance traveled in our algorithms is finite. In particular, we show that the worst case distance of our algorithms is O ρ 2 , while we also explore average–worst case tradeoffs, concluding that one may be efficient both with respect to average and worst case, with only a minor compromise on the optimal termination time. • Introduction of a variant of a rendezvous problem on mobile agent computing. • First paper to consider worst-case/average-case efficiency trade-offs. • Algorithmic reduction designs for the new rendezvous problem. • Worst-case analysis of algorithmic families with optimal average-case performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within a supply chain network, it is common for companies to engage in negotiations to resolve conflicts in task allocation and order fulfilment problems. This kind of supply chain negotiation is usually regarded as buyer-seller negotiation. In recent years, multi-agent systems have been established to automate buyer-seller negotiations. However, most have limitations in handling complex negotiation scenarios such as multilateral negotiations and multi-issue negotiations. This paper presents ECNPro (the Extended Contract-Net-like multilateral Protocol), which is a new multi-agent protocol for handling buyer-seller negotiations in supply chain management. ECNPro is designed to handle agent bargaining and interactions in complex multilateral and multi-issue negotiations in which the buyer has to negotiate with many suppliers. The multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) approach is adopted to establish the utility functions for a set of negotiation issues in the bargaining process. It adopts a multi-threaded approach to allow the buyer to bargain concurrently with multiple suppliers. ECNPro is able to split an order to more than one supplier to achieve a better negotiation payoff. In addition, mobile agents are employed in ECNPro, the buyer sends mobile agents to sites of the sellers to conduct bargaining locally. This approach improves the negotiation efficiency significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the ratio of transport costs to total product cost increases, manufacturers try to fulfil the demands of each geographical region with products manufactured within the same region. Since the manufacturing resources available at each venue can be varied, it is necessary to adapt the manufacturing process plan for each production facility. Traditionally, this process is carried out manually by engineers utilizing computer-aided design (CAD) files. With the advances in artificial intelligence technology and emergence of integration standards such as STEP, it is now possible to automate the CAD/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM)/computer numerical control (CNC) interface. Distributed artificial intelligence techniques and mobile agents in particular can be used to transfer information throughout the manufacturing network and construct the distributed knowledge-base required for the intelligent interoperable integration of product data models and manufacturing resources. This paper explores the application of mobile agents as enablers of interoperability in a global manufacturing enterprise. A novel manufacturing chain based on the STEP-NC standard is proposed and the application of agents for transfer of manufacturing information is studied. The research is demonstrated through the use of a prototype manufacturing decision support system developed using agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines negotiation procedures in an agent-based distributed shop floor control system (SFCS). A distributed SFCS is under a heterogeneous environment, which is controlled through negotiations between autonomous agents. The negotiation-based control can be considered as the core of a distributed control paradigm. An efficient information exchanging mechanism and an information model with reasonable structure are indispensable for effective negotiations. This paper proposes a novel negotiation mechanism, called a mobile agent-based negotiation process (MANPro), which applies a mobile agent system to the process of information exchange. Since using mobile agents allows each component to execute asynchronously and autonomously and to adapt dynamically to the execution environment, MANPro may guarantee autonomy of agents. Moreover, it is possible to build a fully distributed and autonomous SFCS by using MANPro. MANPro is based on the agent-based control architecture, which includes a communication architecture and an information architecture. The communication architecture provides the exchanging mechanism of information, defining functional modules to support the mechanism while the information architecture provides the framework for information modelling on negotiation, proposing information models required for introducing the ontology concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edge computing in Internet of Things enhances application execution by retrieving cloud resources to the close proximity of resource-constrained end devices at the edge and by enabling task offloading from these devices to the edge. In this paper, edge computing platforms are extended into the data producing end devices, including wireless sensor network nodes and smartphones, with mobile agents. Mobile agents operate, as a multi-agent system, on the opportunistic network of heterogeneous end devices. The benefits include autonomous, asynchronous and adaptive execution and relocation of application-specific computational tasks, while taking into account the local resource availability. In addition to the vertical edge connectivity, mobile agents enable horizontal sharing of information between these devices. Use cases are presented where mobile agents address challenges in current edge computing platforms. An edge application is evaluated where mobile agents as a multi-agent system process sensor data in a heterogeneous set of end devices, control the operation of the devices and share their tasks results in the system. The mobile agents operate atop a REST-compliant software agent framework that relies on embedded Web services for interoperability. A real-world evaluation and large-scale simulations show that energy consumption is reduced significantly, up to 60%, in the edge application execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We study several problems of clearing subgraphs by mobile agents in digraphs. The agents can move only along directed walks of a digraph and, depending on the variant, their initial positions may be pre-specified. In general, for a given subset S of vertices of a digraph D and a positive integer k , the objective is to determine whether there is a subgraph H = (V H , A H) of D such that (a) S ⊆ V H , (b) H is the union of k directed walks in D , and (c) the underlying graph of H includes a Steiner tree for S in D. Since a directed walk is a not necessarily a simple directed path, the problem is actually on covering with paths. We provide several results on the polynomial time tractability, hardness, and parameterized complexity of the problem. Our main fixed-parameter algorithm is randomized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use mobile messaging to leverage recipients' social ties and encourage offline prosocial activities in groups. In particular, we conduct a randomized field experiment with 80,000 blood donors and study how behavioral interventions and economic rewards motivate offline group formation. We find that two commonly used interventions—reminder messages and individual reward—are ineffective in motivating group formation because they do not compensate donors for the cost of bringing friends. In contrast, we find that group reward—a new reward that is contingent on a donor bringing a friend—is effective in motivating group formation. Furthermore, group reward tends to attract different types of donors, especially those who are traditionally less active in online social settings but have more local social ties. Structural estimation further reveals the underlying mechanisms, suggesting that group reward is four times more cost-effective than individual reward in driving total donation. Our study suggests that motivating offline group formation is a promising approach to boost prosocial activities. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3069. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an algorithm for controlling a fleet of swarm robots that construct three-dimensional forms. The swarm robots coordinate with each other through network communication, and compose formations such as polyhedrons presented as spherical coordinates. Our control algorithm achieves communication through mobile software agents, which introduce control programs to robots that initially have no information about the formation. Mobile software agents are autonomous objects that can migrate from one robot to other robots through a communication network and can deliver control programs as they are needed. We have made our swarm robot system to mimic the behaviors of the leafcutter ants. A leafcutter ant is a typical social insect and uses pheromone for communication. In our robot control system, we have implemented ants and pheromones as mobile software agents. We call the mobile software agents that drive the mobile robots as ant agents, and call the other agents that provide communication as pheromone agents. The ant agents drive the swarm robots to locations identified by the pheromone agents. Each ant agent has only partial information. There is no need for either a central control or an agent that has the entire design of the formation. In order to diffuse the partial information among the neighboring robots, each ant agent generates pheromone agents and dispatches them to the surrounding robots. Dispatched pheromone agent looks for a proper ant agent to influence towards a desired relative location. It is the ant agent that actually drives the robot by following the guidance of the pheromone agent, and the collective actions of ant agents and pheromone agents achieve the composition of the objective formation. We have implemented a simulator based on our algorithm and conducted numerical experiments. The results demonstrate that our mobile robot control system is feasible and efficient in practice in practical situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an evacuation support system that provides evacuation routes in case of disasters, and verify the usefulness of the system. Current popular wireless communication infrastructure is supported by a series of base stations and one base station handles a lot of communication. Therefore, when communication base stations break down due to disasters such as an earthquake, it may become difficult for people to use their smartphones based on the Internet. When the communication infrastructure is paralyzed, people will have great difficulty collecting information about the conditions of transportation systems and about the safety of family and friends using smartphones. Our proposed system addresses this problem by using multiple kinds of mobile agents in addition to static agents on smartphones that use a mobile ad hoc network (MANET). The proposed system collects information with mobile agents and diffuses information via mobile agents so that the system is able to provide an optimized evacuation route for each user in a dynamically changing disaster environment. In this paper, we extend our previously proposed evacuation support system to consider elevation information when constructing evacuation routes. When a tsunami or a flood tide occurs, low elevations may be under water. Therefore, this revised evacuation support system helps people to move to safer places by selecting higher elevation routes when warranted by the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper studies the well-known problem of gathering multiple mobile agents moving in a graph, but unlike previous results, we consider the problem in the presence of an adversarial mobile entity which we call the malicious agent. The malicious entity can occupy any empty node and prevent honest mobile agents from entering this node. This new adversarial model is interesting as it models transient mobile faults that can appear anywhere in a network. Moreover, our model lies between the less powerful delay-fault model , where the adversary can block an agent for only a finite time, and the more powerful but static fault model of black holes that can even destroy the agents. We study the problem for ring networks and we provide a complete characterization of the solvability of gathering, depending on the size n of the ring and the number of agents k. We consider both oriented or unoriented rings with either synchronous or asynchronous agents. We prove that in an unoriented ring network with asynchronous agents the problem is not solvable when k is even, while for synchronous agents the problem is unsolvable when both n is odd and k is even. We then present algorithms that solve gathering for all the remaining cases, thus completely solving the problem. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of the synchronous algorithms using programmable Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper studies the formation of multiple mobile agents with double integrator dynamics and their target tracking. An algorithm consisting of an observer and a feedback control law of the nonsmooth type is proposed for the purpose of achieving finite-time formation and target tracking. The development is based on the Multi-input Multi-output (MIMO) super-twisting like approach aiming at finite time convergence without chattering. In addition to the formation; tracking, chattering prevention and robustness is also provided by the sliding mode mechanism which is demonstrated by simulations. Highlights • Formation of multiple mobile agents and their target tracking is studied. • An observer based feedback control algorithm for finite-time tracking is proposed. • The design is based on the Multi-input Multi-output super twisting like approach. • Tracking and chattering prevention of the robust system are shown by simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Threats in wireless network are common these days and when it comes to security threats their consequences are countless. Some of the most commonly witnessed security threats are route manipulation and jamming. There are several researches that are proposed to even more enhance the efficiency of these attacks against their counterfeit. The recently proposed and the most challenging threat is the cross-layer attack. Though we have solutions for single-layer attacks there are very few or no satisfactory methods to detect and counter-attack the cross-layer attacks. With this as the main goal for this paper we proposed a novel framework that secures the wireless network from cross-layer attacks. This proposal concentrates on both detecting and mitigating the attack. The former one is based on Bayesian learning detecting scheme and the later on is constructed to enhance security and performance of the network. The composed protocol is tested on a framework with cross layer attack that utilizes jamming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the distributed control problem of nonholonomic mobile agents with input delay to track a target. In contrast to the existing works in which some controllers have been designed for ideal conditions, the destructive factor of input delay is considered in the dynamics of the agents in this work. At first, a distributed controller is suggested for each agent to track the target in the absence of input delay. In this case, each nonholonomic mobile agent is divided into two subsystems and two terminal sliding mode controllers are designed for the two subsystems. Based on the proposed controllers, a switching control strategy is obtained to guarantee the finite time tracking control of nonholonomic mobile agents. Then, this controller is extended based on a future state estimator for tracking control in the presence of input delay. The stability analysis of distributed controllers and estimator is also provided. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the suggested algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a new mechanism to improve the disadvantage of the security mechanism proposed by a scholar and then fulfill the demands of Internet of Things (IoT) to go through the decentralized environment access control functions. We also propose the date-constrained hierarchical key management scheme for mobile agents. With elliptic curve cryptosystems (ECCs) and discrete logarithms, the proposed scheme is flexible. Moreover, the duration of access for each security class is restricted with a certain authorized discrete time period. We demonstrate the mathematical derivation and arguments for our scheme and further conduct a numerical trial. The constructed scheme could meet security needs and be more space-efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A pair of agents (robots) are moving in a graph with the goal of meeting at the same node or while traversing the same edge. An asynchronous adversary knows the prescribed walks of the two agents and is in complete control of the speed of each agent during its walk. We provide a complete characterization of pairs of walks that enforce rendezvous against an asynchronous adversary after traversing a given number of edges. The characterization is efficient in that it can be checked in polynomial time. We argue that the certificate of rendezvous enforcement that is produced by the checking algorithm contains a wealth of information on why rendezvous is enforced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract To strengthen the security of access control protocols for mobile cloud environment, dynamic attributes of mobile devices are used. The weak or disconnection issue of the mobile network is a critical task to deal with. The proposed approach provides access control as well as data confidentiality using dynamic attributes encryption. The pairs of mobile agents are used to deal with the issue of network connection. The secret key is distributed using the anonymous key-issuing protocol which preserves the anonymity of the user. The approach is implemented in a real mobile cloud environment, and the performance under various parameters is evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey of students was used to elicit their perception of value of technology-based course features with respect to learning and course success. Particular attention was paid to the mobility of technology elements. The goal was to gain understanding of what students value and thus determine direction for course innovation and development, especially with respect to mobile technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enable mobile agents signing securely on potentially malicious hosts in electronic commerce and other applications, we proposed the definition and security notion of identity-based undetachable digital signature schemes. More importantly, we proposed a concrete identity-based undetachable digital signature scheme with provable security. In the scheme, mobile agents need not carry the private key when they generate digital signatures on behalf of the original signer, so the private key will not be compromised. The encrypted function is combined with the original signer’s requirement, so misuse of the signing algorithm can be prevented. Moreover, because the scheme is identity-based, verification of the signatures generated by mobile agents does not require either verification of the entire certificate path or communication with the certification authority. Therefore, compared with existing undetachable signature schemes, the cost of verification is reduced and even the dependence on a stable network connection is weakened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new immune inspired algorithm, the Clonal Selection Algorithm for Multi-agent Itinerary Planning (CSA-MIP), to solve the MIP problem in wireless sensor networks. CSA-MIP has two computational stages called Stage I and Stage II. When only Stage I is activated in CSA-MIP, in the obtained solutions, the difference between the maximum and minimum numbers of sensor nodes, visited by each mobile agent, is relatively large. When only Stage II is activated in CSA-MIP, in the obtained solutions, the number of mobile agents is relatively small. When both stages are activated in CSA-MIP, in the obtained solutions, the diversity in the number of mobile agents can be achieved and the unbalance in the number of sensor nodes visited by each mobile agent can be reduced, which indicate a higher possibility to obtain solutions of better quality. Moreover, according to the simulation results and analysis of computational complexity, CSA-MIP is shown to perform better than GA-MIP in terms of solution quality and computational efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modelling and verification of complex systems including mobile agent-based software systems are a painful task, because of different constraints such as mobility and security which must be taken into account to build correct software. This is what strongly hindered their evolution in preceding years in comparison to the success enjoyed by object oriented systems. UML has contributed largely in the success of object oriented systems. Mobile UML is a proposed extension to UML for modelling mobile agent-based software systems, and it inherits the problem of no precise formal semantics due to its semi-formal nature. This paper aims to build a semi-formal/formal framework that allows modelling and verification of mobile agent-based applications. First, a mobile agent-based application is modeled using Mobile UML diagrams. Then, an automatic translation of these diagrams to π -calculus specifications is proposed. Finally, the derived π -claculus specifications are verified and analysed using π -calculus tools. The AToM 3 multi-paradigm tool is used to implement the approach. The result is an integrated framework that allows visual modelling (using Mobile UML diagrams) and formal verification of the behaviour of mobile agent-based applications (using π -calculus tools). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pivotal cause for the boom of Mobile Agent paradigm relies on the competence to ward off security attacks. This article surveys the prevalent attacks on the mobile agents and the agent platforms; the existing countermeasures and their curbs, catering threefold benefaction: First, to acquaint the researchers with numerous security requirements and the objectives. Second, to analyze the different detection and prevention mechanisms mitigating the security bottlenecks in Mobile Agents System. Third, to address the future security challenges. In a nutshell, this survey hands over a key to researchers who primarily target the security concerns of the mobile agent-based applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider the uniform deployment problem of mobile agents in asynchronous unidirectional rings, which requires the agents to uniformly spread in the ring. The uniform deployment problem is in striking contrast to the rendezvous problem which requires the agents to meet at the same node. While rendezvous aims to break the symmetry, uniform deployment aims to attain the symmetry. It is well known that the symmetry breaking is difficult in distributed systems and the rendezvous problem cannot be solved from some initial configurations. Hence, we are interested in clarifying what difference the uniform deployment problem has on the solvability and the number of agent moves compared to the rendezvous problem. We consider two problem settings, with knowledge of k (or n ) and without knowledge of k or n where k is the number of agents and n is the number of nodes. First, we consider agents with knowledge of k (or n since k and n can be easily obtained if one of them is given). In this case, we propose two algorithms. The first algorithm solves the uniform deployment problem with termination detection. This algorithm requires O ( k log n ) memory space per agent, O ( n ) time, and O ( k n ) total moves. The second algorithm also solves the uniform deployment problem with termination detection. This algorithm reduces the memory space per agent to O ( log n ) , but uses O ( n log k ) time, and requires O ( k n ) total moves. Both algorithms are asymptotically optimal in terms of total moves since there are some initial configurations such that agents require Ω ( k n ) total moves to solve the problem. Next, we consider agents with no knowledge of k or n . In this case, we show that, when termination detection is required, there exists no algorithm to solve the uniform deployment problem. For this reason, we consider the relaxed uniform deployment problem that does not require termination detection, and we propose an algorithm to solve the relaxed uniform deployment problem. This algorithm requires O ( ( k ∕ l ) log ( n ∕ l ) ) memory space per agent, O ( n ∕ l ) time, and O ( k n ∕ l ) total moves when the initial configuration has symmetry degree l . This means that the algorithm can solve the problem more efficiently when the initial configuration has higher symmetric degree (i.e., is closer to uniform deployment). Note that all the proposed algorithms achieve uniform deployment from any initial configuration, which is a striking difference from the rendezvous problem because the rendezvous problem is not solvable from some initial configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A team consisting of an unknown number of mobile agents, starting from different nodes of an unknown network, have to meet at the same node and terminate. This problem is known as gathering. We study deterministic gathering algorithms under the assumption that agents are subject to crash faults which can occur at any time. Two fault scenarios are considered. A motion fault immobilizes the agent at a node or inside an edge but leaves intact its memory at the time when the fault occurred. A more severe total fault immobilizes the agent as well, but also erases its entire memory. Of course, we cannot require faulty agents to gather. Thus the gathering problem for fault prone agents calls for all fault‐free agents to gather at a single node, and terminate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data aggregation represents one of the most challenging and well-studied subjects in the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) literature. The energy constraints of sensor nodes call for energy-efficient data aggregation methods so as to prolong network lifetime. Among other approaches, Mobile Agents (MAs) have been proposed to improve the performance of data aggregation in WSNs. In such approaches, the itineraries followed by travelling agents largely determine the overall performance of the data aggregation tasks. Along this line, several heuristics have been proposed to perform efficient itinerary planning for MAs. However, a direct comparison of the proposed algorithms is not straightforward, as they are typically performed on the ground of different parameter instances and assumptions about the underlying network and nodes capabilities. This article provides a critical review and qualitative evaluation of the most prominent itinerary planning algorithms. More importantly, having implemented and simulated a set of eleven (11) itinerary planning algorithms, we compare their performance upon a common parameter space, making realistic network-level assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile Agent systems are prevalent in Distributed Environment due to the autonomy and adaptability in diversified situations. Mobile Agents are capable of movement from one platform to another and hence it is a need to ensure the safety of the Mobile Agent during the phase of transit. Since Mobile Agents are capable of deciding their itinerary dynamically, a decision support system which helps to ensure the trustworthiness of a platform would complement the decision. A Trust Scoring System is therefore proposed to measure the trustworthiness of a platform based on a metric termed Trust Score. Trust Score varies dynamically with respect to time and is based on a function comprising of five parameters namely Persistence, Competence, Reputation, Credibility and Integrity. In order to reduce the computational latency, another metric named Trust Rank for platforms, based on Trustability co-efficient of variation is introduced. The experimentation is done in cloud environment with platforms located at different geographic regions. The performance is evaluated in terms of response time and accuracy of decision. From the experimental results, it is evident that the Trust Ranking mechanism consumes less response time and improves the accuracy of decision of Mobile Agents during their itineraries, compared to that of the prototype system that uses Trust Score alone as a measure of decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The typical business processes in building material equipment manufacturing enterprises are analyzed, and the framework and functional models of the tracking system for building material equipment manufacturing enterprises in the order lifecycle are presented. Based on the model, using a mobile agent and XML technology, the order tracking system’s framework is built for building material equipment manufacturing enterprises based on a mobile agent in the Aglet platform. The key technologies in the process of tracking the order lifecycle are introduced in detail. Finally, a prototype system is developed and used in an enterprise successfully, verifying the feasibility and availability of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing increases the expertise, scalability and efficiency of the company. However, new security issues arise. Indeed, traditional security solutions are becoming obsolete because the majority of the traffic of virtual networks does not necessarily leave the physical server,and therefore does not allow permanent control. In order to overcome these limitations, this article presents the integration of a mobile agent-based intrusion detection system in a datacenter to provide a security solution that detects known and unknown attacks in a cloud environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two mobile agents, starting at arbitrary, possibly different times from arbitrary locations in the plane, have to meet. Agents are modeled as discs of diameter 1, and meeting occurs when these discs touch. Agents have different labels which are positive integers. Each agent knows its own label, but not the label of the other agent. Agents are equipped with compasses and have synchronized clocks. They make a series of moves. Each move specifies the direction and the duration of moving. This includes a null move which consists in staying inert for some time, or forever. In a non-null move agents travel at the same constant speed, normalized to 1. We assume that agents have sensors enabling them to estimate the distance from the other agent (defined as the distance between centers of discs), but not the direction towards it. We consider two models of estimation. In both models an agent reads its sensor at the moment of its appearance in the plane and then at the end of each move. This reading (together with the previous ones) determines the decision concerning the next move. In both models the reading of the sensor tells the agent if the other agent is already present. Moreover, in the monotone model, each agent can find out, for any two readings in moments t1 and t2, whether the distance from the other agent at time t1 was smaller, equal or larger than at time t2. In the weaker binary model, each agent can find out, at any reading, whether it is at distance less than ρ or at distance at least ρ from the other agent, for some real ρ > 1 unknown to them. Such distance estimation mechanism can be implemented, e.g., using chemical sensors. Each agent emits some chemical substance (scent), and the sensor of the other agent detects it, i.e., sniffs. The intensity of the scent decreases with the distance. In the monotone model it is assumed that the sensor is ideally accurate and can measure any change of intensity. In the binary model it is only assumed that the sensor can detect the scent below some distance (without being able to measure intensity) above which the scent is too weak to be detected. We show the impact of the two ways of sensing on the cost of meeting, defined as the total distance travelled by both agents until the meeting. For the monotone model we show an algorithm achieving meeting at cost O(D), where D is the initial distance between the agents. This complexity is optimal. For the binary model we show that, if agents start at distance smaller than ρ (i.e., when they sense each other initially) then meeting can be guaranteed at cost O(ρ log λ), where λ is the larger label, and that this cost cannot be improved in general. Finally we observe that, if agents start at distance αρ, for some constant α > 1 in the binary model, then sniffing does not help, i.e., the worst-case optimal meeting cost is of the same order of magnitude as without any sniffing ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]