Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) promise a new advance in distributed computing. In MAS autonomous software agents flexibly cooperate, coordinate and compete to provide the desired function(s) of such a system. If some components of a MAS fail or do not provide the desired functionality, the system is expected to autonomously deal with this situation. It is desirable to reduce occurrences of such situ...

Integrating molecular marker technologies such as MAS into breeding strategies could become increasingly important in the coming years, to realize genetic gains with greater speed and precision. The promise of MAS for improving polygenic traits in a quick time-frame and in a cost-effective manner is still elusive. There is a wider appreciation that simply demonstrating that a complex trait can ...

Although Multi Agent Systems (MAS) have attracted a great deal of attention in the field of software engineering, with their promise of capturing complex systems, they remain far away from commercial popularity mainly due to the accessibility of MAS methodologies for commercial developers. In this paper we present a practical method for developing self-managing MAS that we believe enables not o...

Time management is essential when simulating multi-agent systems (MASs) as it allows consistent and repeatable simulation runs. So far, time management lacks explicit support to express the timing characteristics of a simulation at the level of activities within a MAS. Moreover, integrating a MAS into a simulation platform requires the developer to alter the design of a MAS. In this paper, we f...

Changes and adaptations are always necessary after the deployment of a multi-agent system (MAS), as well as of any other type of software systems. Some of these changes may be simply perfective and have local impact only. However, adaptive changes to meet new situations in the operational environment of the MAS may impact globally on the overall design. More specifically, those changes usually ...

i* is one of the more promising goal-oriented modeling framework to capture and model multi agent systems (MAS) requirements. Moreover, i* has been incorporated as the foundation for one of the more important AOSE methodologies, that is, Tropos. Our research interests related with i* cover two mainly directions. The first, is to compare i* with other methods, techniques and notations for captur...

While Multi Agent Systems (MAS) attracted a great deal of attention in the field of software engineering, with its promises of capturing complex systems, they re­ main far away from commercial popularity mainly due to the lack of a MAS method­ ology that is accessible for commercial developers. In this paper we present a prac­ tical method for developing MAS that we believe will enable not only...

An approach to the pre-runtime design of normative systems for problem-solving multi-agent systems (MAS) is suggested. A key element of this approach is to employ evolutionary mechanisms to evolve efficient normative systems. To illustrate, a genetic algoritm is used in the process of designing a normative system for an example MAS based on the Dalmas architecture for normregulated MAS. It is d...

The objective of this study was to investigate polymorphisms MASP2, TG5 and DQA1 genes using PCR-DNA sequencing in seventy Holstein, Brown Swiss dairy cows (35 each). Under complete aseptic condition, blood samples were collected from each animal into tubes containing disodium EDTA as an anticoagulant for DNA extraction. PCR carried out amplification 305-bp 545-bp TG5, 373-bp genes. assessment ...

Macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) is a potentially life threatening complication of chronic rheumatic diseases, particularly systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). A number of triggers have been related to the development of MAS, including viral infections, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug therapy, and gold salt injections. We describe a patient with systemic JIA who developed MAS s...