Martin K. Purvis

• PhD
• University of Otago

This paper presents a conceptual refinement of agent cognitive architecture inspired from the beliefs-desires-intentions (BDI) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) models, with an emphasis on different belief facets. This enables us to investigate the impact of personality and the way that an agent weights its internal beliefs and social sanct...

This paper investigates the impact of changes in agents’ beliefs coupled with dynamics in agents’ meta-roles on the evolution of institutions. The study embeds agents’ meta-roles in the BDI architecture. In this context, the study scrutinises the impact of cognitive dissonance in agents due to unfairness of institutions. To showcase our model, two...

This paper investigates the impact of changes in agents' beliefs coupled with dynamics in agents' meta-roles on the evolution of institutions. The study embeds agents' meta-roles in the BDI architecture. In this context, the study scrutinises the impact of cognitive dissonance in agents due to unfairness of institutions. To showcase our model, two...

This paper presents a conceptual refinement of agent cognitive architecture inspired from the beliefs-desires-intentions (BDI) and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) models, with an emphasis on different belief facets. This enables us to investigate the impact of personality and the way that an agent weights its internal beliefs and social sanct...

In this paper, we study the English East India Company (EIC) and Armenian traders of New-Julfa (Julfa) that were active during 17th and 18th centuries. Both were successful trading cooperatives that relied on different institutional parameters and mechanisms to coordinate their activities. In this work, we explore a selection of those aspects (five...

Coalition structure generation in multi-agent systems has long been a challenging problem because of its NP-hardness in computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a stochastic optimization approach that employs a modified population based incremental learning algorithm and a customized genotype encoding scheme to find the optimal coalition...

Coalition structure generation in multi-agent systems has long been a challenging problem because of its NP-hardness in computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a stochastic optimization approach that employs a modified population based incremental learning algorithm and a customized genotype encoding scheme to find the optimal coalition...

In recent years the notion of electrical energy micro-grids, in which communities share their locally-generated power, has gained increasing interest. Typically, the energy generated comes from renewable resources, which means that its availability is variable–sometimes there may be energy surpluses and at other times energy deficits. This energy v...

The cooperation of agents in smart grids to form coalitions could bring benefit both for agent itself and the distribution power system. To tackle the problem as a game of partition form function poses significant computing challenges due to the huge search space for the optimization problem. In this paper, we propose a stochastic optimization appr...

The concept of electric energy micro-grids, in which communities share their locally-generated power, is receiving greater attention day by day. Intrinsic to this idea of energy micro-grids is that the energy is generated and consumed locally from intermittent renewable energy sources. Because of the variability of renewable resources, though, some...

Erratum to: R. Denzer et al. (Eds.) Environmental Software Systems DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-35503-0

To understand the operation of the informal social sphere in human or artificial societies, we need to be able to identify their existing behavioural conventions (institutions). This includes the contextualisation of seemingly objective facts with subjective assessments, especially when attempting to capture their meaning in the context of the anal...

This paper discusses knowledge accumulation and diffusion mechanisms and their effect on social and institutional change in an artificial society. The focus of this paper is to model the role of knowledge keepers in the context of social control in the CKSW institutional meta-role framework. In literature this role has been associated with helping...

Successful software development often depends on the ability of specifically skilled individuals to cooperate effectively in order to achieve the project goals. This cooperative ability goes beyond the individual technical skills of the team participants and concerns how easy it is for people to work together as a team. The primary goal of this pap...

This paper investigates the problem of image segmentation using superpixels. We propose two approaches to enhance the discriminative ability of the superpixel's covariance descriptors. In the first one, we employ the Log-Euclidean distance as the metric on the covariance manifolds, and then use the RBF kernel to measure the similarities between cov...

This paper investigates the problem of image segmentation using superpixels. We propose two approaches to enhance the discriminative ability of the superpixel’s covariance descriptors. In the first one, we employ the Log-Euclidean distance as the metric on the covariance manifolds, and then use the RBF kernel to measure the similarities between cov...

Agent-based Modelling appears as a promising analytical tool when it comes to a lasting question: in how far did different institutions affect the social and economic outcomes of societies? Taking an incremental step to address this question, we present a refined approach that combines existing institution representations (the structure) with a nor...

This paper describes the development of a combined collaborative planning model for global supply chains under environmental dynamics and uncertainties. The proposed approach is based on multi-agent modeling of global supply chains, and employs a combination of Q-learning, system dynamics, and Bayesian networks in a multi-agent architecture. It is...

The model presented here is mainly concerned with building an artificial society from the bottom-up by specifying their basic social structural elements and institutional meta-roles based on the CKSW (Commander, Knowledge, Skill, Worker) societal meta-model. In this paper our focus is to introduce different types of interactions and outline the deg...

The energy micro-grid, which is a local energy network that generates and consumes its own electricity, has become an effective method for the rural electrification. Typically a micro-grid is also connected to the nearby external utility grid to sell and buy power. Any failures of the utility grid usually have negative implications on the micro-gri...

In recent years the notion of electrical energy micro-grids, in which communities share their locally-generated power, has gained increasing interest. Typically the energy generated comes from renewable resources, which means that its availability is variable-sometimes there may be energy surpluses and at other times energy deficits. This energy va...

Optimizing the performance of teams in modern organizations is an important managerial function, and particularly so in contexts where new teams must continually be formed voluntarily, such as with software development, crowd-sourcing platforms, and even the formation of scientific collaborative teams. In many such cases, team performance is signif...

The success or failure of software development group work depends on the group members' personalities, as well as their skills in performing various tasks associated with the project. Moreover, in the reality, tasks have a dynamic nature and their requirements change over time. Therefore, the effect of task dynamics on the teamwork must be taken in...

This work attempts to capture linguistic aspects of norms, such as the ‘musts’ and ‘must nots’ that govern our daily life, empirically and provide the foundation for a general classification of terms based on their prescriptiveness. The communication of obligations and prohibitions among humans is generally unproblematic and contextualised by a com...

The diminishing availability of fossil fuels will necessitate a shift toward renewable energy resources to supply vital electrical energy needs in the future. Two abundant renewable energy sources, solar and wind, are increasingly cost-competitive and also offer the potential of decentralized, and hence more robust, sourcing. However, the intermitt...

Limiting energy consumption is one of the primary aims for most real-world deployments of wireless sensor networks. Unfortunately, attempts to optimize energy efficiency are often in conflict with the demand for network reactiveness to transmit urgent messages. In this article, we propose SWIFTNET: a reactive data acquisition scheme. It is built on...

Service modelling has become an increasingly important area in today's telecommunications and information systems practice. We have adapted a Network Design course in order to teach service modelling to a mixed class of both the telecommunication engineering and information systems backgrounds. An integrated approach engaging mathematics teaching w...

Finding suitable routing paths for video streaming remains a challenging issue for multi-hop wireless networks, and previous studies rely on heuristics such as minimal hops or load-balancing. In this paper, we present an analytical approach that takes cross-layer factors into account and propose a new routing metric based on optimizing a queueing m...

Modeling collective social action is challenging not only because of the opacity of the underlying social processes, but even more because of the insufficient information detail concerning the activities under investigation. Such information gaps are customarily filled using the modeler’s intuition or randomization techniques. A promising alternati...

While collaborative learning has long been believed to hold a great value for organizations and classrooms, Modeling this learning in small, short-term project teams is a challenge. This paper describes the development of an agent-based modeling approach that can assist in understanding the collaborative learning of such project teams. A key aspect...

Huge amounts of news items are being published from various sources around the world. Our interest in this paper is from the perspective of peace keeping organizations such as United Nations and Red Cross that can benefit from information aggregated from different sources to make important decisions. GDELT project is one such source where data abou...

This paper focuses on the development of open Multiagent Systems. It is argued here that this kind of system can be designed and implemented as institutional environments, where heterogeneous agents can participate by playing roles, and interact by means of institutional acts. To have that set up an institutional model was designed and implemented...

A superpixel can be characterized as a vector in a color space or a covariance matrix on a manifold, by which two graph layers can be modeled on the common vertex sets. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for clustering such kind of multi-layer bipartite graphs. By Laplacian eigenmaps, each layer of the bipartite graph can be represented as...

Although most electric power is presently generated using fossil fuels, two abundant renewable and clean energy sources, solar and wind, are increasingly cost-competitive and offer the potential of decentralized (and hence more robust) sourcing. However, the intermittent nature of solar and wind power presents difficulties in connection with integr...

We propose to use color covariance matrices of superpixels as a feature in addition to colors. A non-Euclidean distance metric is employed for the covariance matrix manifolds. We then introduce three ways of fusing the similarity matrices obtained from both feature spaces for affinity graph generation. Experiments carried out using a benchmark data...

Similarities in physiological and psychological symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and Essential Tremor make accurate diagnosis of these conditions difficult. We have developed a smartphone-based application that uses discrete wavelet transforms and support vector machines to discriminate between Parkinson’s and Essential postural tremors with over 96...

We have developed a refined institutional scheme derived from Crawford and Ostrom’s Grammar of Institutions (also referred to as ADICO) that has been adapted for the detailed representation of conventions, norms, and rules. In this work we apply this schema to model the emergence of norms. While previous work in the area of normative agent systems...

We present an investigation into the effects that player personality can have on team performance in games that have been designed to have a social purpose (“serious games”), such as games intended to enhance more consideration for the environment and for sustainable energy usage. The work involves multi-agent-based model of team play, where indivi...

Electricity is an essential element of modern life, and presently most electric power is generated using fossil fuels. Two abundant renewable energy sources, solar and wind, are increasingly cost-competitive and also offer the potential of decentralized, and hence more robust, sourcing. However, the intermittent nature of solar and wind power can p...

We analyse two well-established historic trader scenarios from the area of comparative economics known as the Maghribi Traders Coalition and the contemporary Genoese traders, which contrast the otherwise comparable individualistic Genoese and collectivistic North-African trader societies by the institutions they used to sustain cooperative behaviou...

In this work we further the investigation into the function- ing of the Maghribi Traders Coalition – a historically significant traders collective that operated along the North African coast between the 10th and 13th centuries. They acted as a closed group whose interactions were governed by informal institutions (i.e. norms). Historical accounts p...

Although most electric power is presently generated using fossil fuels, two abundant renewable and clean energy sources, solar and wind, are increasingly cost-competitive and offer the potential of decen-tralized (and hence more robust) sourcing. However, the intermittent nature of solar and wind power presents difficulties in connection with integ...

While wireless sensor networks WSN are increasingly equipped to handle more complex functions, in-network processing still requires the battery-powered sensors to judiciously use their constrained energy so as to prolong the elective network life time. There are a few protocols using sensor clusters to coordinate the energy consumption in a WSN, bu...

This work introduces a multiagent model for informal communication about cheating merchants among investing Genoese traders in the 12th century. The model builds on previous, game theory focused work of Avner Greif and extends it by enabling communication between Genoese traders. A trust-based cooperation model is tested across different network to...

We have developed a refined institutional scheme derived from Craw- ford and Ostrom’s Grammar of Institutions (also referred to as ADICO) that has been adapted for the detailed representation of conventions, norms, and rules. In this work we apply this schema to model the emergence of norms. While previous work in this area of normative agent syste...

Electricity is an essential element of modern life, and presently most electric power is generated using fossil fuels. Two abundant renew-able energy sources, solar and wind, are increasingly cost-competitive and also offer the potential of decentralized, and hence more robust, sourcing. However, the intermittent nature of solar and wind power can...

We propose a refined institutional scheme derived from Crawford and Ostrom’s Grammar of Institutions (GoI) that has been refined to provide a more comprehensive representation of conventions, norms, and rules, which extends to describing institutions in more detail but also allowing the expression of fuzzy aspects (e.g. the uncertainty about a sanc...

WikiCrimes is a collaborative system where users can store information about crime occurrences in a georeferenced database. Anyone can access WikiCrimes to consult or add information to the database. In this paper we describe the further work done to extend the model and implementation of the WikiCrimes collaborative system as an Open Institutional...

The objective of this work is to demonstrate how cooperative sharers and uncooperative free riders can be placed in different groups of an electronic society in a decentralised manner. We have simulated an agent-based open and decentralised P2P system which self-organises itself into different groups to avoid cooperative sharers being exploited by...

This chapter aims to identify the main relevant steps in the evolution of (social) norms as well as some of the factors or determinants of such a process and to discuss the most urgent scientific tasks to be fulfilled within a community of scientists committed to the study of norms. It is clearly the case that the scientific study of norms needs in...

Software development effort estimation is important for quality management in the software development industry, yet its automation still remains a challenging issue. Applying machine learning algorithms alone often cannot achieve satisfactory results. This paper presents an integrated data mining framework that incorporates domain knowledge into a...

Data reduction strategy is one of the schemes employed to extend network lifetime. In this paper we present an implementation of a light-weight forecasting algorithm for sensed data which saves packet transmission in the network. The proposed Naive algorithm achieves high energy savings with a limited computational overhead on a node. Simulation re...

The diminishing availability of fossil fuels will necessitate a shift towards renewable energy resources to supply vital electrical energy needs in the future. Two abundant renewable energy sources, solar and wind are increasingly cost-competitive and also offer the potential of decentralized, and hence more robust, sourcing. However, the intermitt...

There is a growing evidence that visual saliency can be better modeled using top-down mechanisms that incorporate object semantics. This suggests a new direction for image and video analysis, where semantics extraction can be effectively utilized to improve video summarization, indexing and retrieval. This paper presents a framework that models sem...

One of the problems in artificial agent societies is the problem of non-cooperation, where individuals have motivations for not cooperating with others. An example of non-cooperation is the issue of freeriding, where some agents do not contribute to the welfare of the society but do consume valuable resources. New mechanisms for group self-organisa...

While wireless sensor networks (WSN) are increasingly equipped to handle more complex functions, in-network processing still requires the battery-powered sensors to judiciously use their constrained energy so as to prolong the elective network life time. There are a few protocols using sensor clusters to coordinate the energy consumption in a WSN,...

Software development effort estimation is important for quality management in the software development industry, yet its automation still remains a challenging issue. Applying machine learning algorithms alone often cannot achieve satisfactory results. This paper presents an integrated data mining framework that incorporates domain knowledge into a...

The Service-Dominant (S-D) logic shifts the focus of economic transactions from goods to service exchange, and places a greater emphasis on the importance of active operant resources, as opposed to passive operand resources. However, in our view, the scope and operation of operant resources in an institutional context needs clarification. In this a...

Novelty detection is an important functionality that has found many applications in information retrieval and processing. In this paper we propose a novel framework that deals with novelty detection in multiple-scene image sets. Working with wildlife image data, the framework starts with image segmentation, followed by feature extraction and classi...

In normative multi-agent systems, the question of "how an agent identifies norms in an open agent society" has not received much attention. This paper aims at addressing this question. To this end, this paper proposes an architecture for norm identification for an agent. The architecture is based on observation of interactions between agents. This...

The advances of wireless and sensing technologies have opened up new doors for wide application of sensor networks. To fully achieve the potentials of wireless sensor networks, however, a few challenging issues have to be solved. While a majority of the research has focused on energy preservation, little attention has been paid to the coverage pres...

In recent work on image and video retrieval there seems to be a shift of focus from low-level feature extraction to producing high-level semantic representation of scenes. This paper presents a framework that produces semantic context features from video frames which are then employed for key-frame extraction. Working with wildlife video frames, th...

In normative multi-agent systems, the question of “how an agent identifies norms in an open agent society” has not received much attention. This paper aims at addressing this question. To this end, this paper proposes an architecture for norm identification for an agent. The architecture is based on observation of interactions between agents. This...

Although expectations play an important role in designing cognitive agents, monitoring for agent expectations is not explicitly being handled in most common agent programming environments. There are techniques for monitoring fulfilment and violation of agent expectations, however they are not linked with common agent programming environments so tha...

Second Life is a popular multi-purpose online virtual world that provides a rich platform for remote human interaction. It is increasingly being used as a simulation platform to model complex human interactions in diverse areas, as well as to simulate multi-agent systems. It would therefore be beneficial to provide techniques allowing high-level ag...

Second Life is one of the most popular multi-purpose online virtual worlds, which supports applications in diversified areas relating to real-life activities. Moreover, it is possible to use Second Life in testing Artificial Intelligence theories by creating intelligent virtual agents. For the successful implementation of many of these applications...

Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies have been employed in recent years for monitoring purposes in various domains from engineering industry to our home environment due to their ability to intelligently monitor remote locations. In this paper, we have developed a purely deterministic model that utilizes clustering to organize the WSN. We prop...

The notion of μ-agents to develop complex software applications has been under active research interest for some time. Through improved organisational modelling μ-agents provide stronger support for decomposition and abstraction in decentralized applications. With the advent of the mobile application platform Android – which exhibits strong analogi...

While wireless sensor networks (WSN) are increasingly equipped to handle more complex functions, in-network processing still requires the battery-powered sensors to judiciously use their constrained energy so as to prolong the elective network life time. There are a few protocols using sensor clusters to coordinate the energy consumption in a WSN,...

The Opal architecture for software development is described that supports the use of agent-oriented concepts at multiple levels of abstraction. At the lowest level are micro-agents, streamlined agents that can be used for conventional, system-level programming tasks. More sophisticated agents may be constructed by assembling combinations of micro-a...

The Android platform has popularized and caused a widespread adoption of its application development approach based on loosely coupled application components. This loose coupling allows for a flexible composition of applications but also enables invocations and reuse of individual components from third-party applications. One problem with the origi...