Recently, as a robust backup, geographically dispersed and distributed backup systems to save data have been attracting attention. However, existing distributed backup systems that can be operated at low cost present various difficulties such as processing time, immediacy, and storage capacity. Therefore, as an existing method intended to solve this problem, multiagentbased distributed backup systems exist for individuals to solve problems of processing time and immediacy. However, problems of storage capacity exist in such systems. This research presents a deduplication technique of block data to solve problems of storage capacity. By incorporating this into the system, we aim at storage capacity reduction of backup data.

In recent years, programs operating on networks are increasing because of the development of distributed processing technology. Therefore, agent-oriented programming, which can respond dynamically to environmental changes, is receiving attention as a development technique. The agent framework is supports software development through agent-oriented programming. For this research, DASH is a repository type agent framework. A salient feature of DASH is its mechanism, called a repository, which accumulates agents. Moreover, it has the ability to constitute an agent system dynamically using the accumulated agents. Nevertheless, the conventional DASH has a persistent shortcoming. Accumulation of agents who covers all agents is not performed because the agent which each developer developed is accumulated only in a developer's repository. To solve this problem, information is acquired and unified from each repository that exists in a distributed environment. Consequently, we proposes a system that supports the practical use of an agent existing in a broader-based distribution environment. In the operation experiment, we confirm the operation of the search function and the single call function of the agent and increase in the number of available agents by the proposed mechanism.

The demand for backup in preparation for data disappearance caused by a large-scale disaster, etc. is increasing greatly. For robust backup, geographically distributed backup to save data is indispensable. If the backup is distributed, then total loss of data after a catastrophe is unlikely. For this study, we assume that a user is a college student, and assume distributed backup among plural universities. Although such a user distribution backup is applicable at low cost, it entails some difficulties. We propose to resolve these problems using agent technology.

How has the interdisciplinary data mining field been practiced in Network and Systems Management (NSM)? In Science and Technology, there is a wide use of data mining in areas like bioinformatics, genetics, Web, and, more recently, astroinformatics. However, the application in NSM has been limited and inconsiderable. In this article, we provide an account of how data mining has been applied in managing networks and systems for the past four decades, presumably since its birth. We look into the field's applications in the key NSM activities-discovery, monitoring, analysis, reporting, and domain knowledge acquisition. In the end, we discuss our perspective on the issues that are considered critical for the effective application of data mining in the modern systems which are characterized by heterogeneity and high dynamism.

The number of information and content on the Internet is increasing rapidly. It is getting harder and harder for us to search and get the information and contents which we need and want easily since there are a massive amount of information and various contents including text, image, and video on the Internet in recent year. We need user-oriented information delivery system to make it easy for users to search and get the information and contents. We are promoting a research and development of interactive information delivery system based on Active Information Resources (AIR). In this paper, we describe a concept and design of our interactive information delivery system, and we introduce the prototype system based on our concept and experimental results.

Recently, information recorded on paper has been changed rapidly to digital data. Backup systems emphasize prevention of data loss by disasters, mistakes of user operations, and so on. For robust backup, it is necessary that the data be distributed geographically. Using a distributed backup system, the possibility of all data becoming lost will definitely be low. However, several problems with distributed backup systems remain. First, preparing multiple computers is expensive. Second, the computational cost of encryption and redundancy is high. Third, user workloads necessary to manage and maintain the system are great. As described herein, to overcome those problems, we propose a distributed backup system using multiagent technology. The agents can work autonomously depending on the environment.

After the 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, the importance of network services, like IP phone and e-mail, as a mean of communication in an emergency was hugely increased, but are likely to be discontinued in these situations. If that happens, network administrators have to repair the network and restart the services promptly. It is desirable that novice administrators also take part in network recovery operations, because expert administrators are not always stationed all day long. In this paper, we propose a knowledge-based support method for autonomous service operations in emergency situations. We use the Active Information Resource based Network Management System (AIR-NMS) to reduce the burden on administrators and to enable even novice administrators to operate network services. Finally, we show the effectiveness of the proposed method through experiments using a prototype system.

The agent-oriented computing is a technique for generating the agent who operates autonomously according to the behavior knowledge. Moreover, agent can have the characteristic called "Learning” skill. More efficient operation of agents can be expected by realizing "Learning" skill. In this research, our aim is to support agent designer who designs and develops the intelligent agent system equipped with “Learning” skill. We propose interactive design environment for agent system with learning mechanism using repository-based agent framework called DASH framework. Proposed framework enables agent designer to design and implement the learning agents without highly expertise, therefore we can reduce the designer's burden. In this paper, we explain the DASH framework, Q-learning, Profit Sharing and proposed design environment. Moreover we show the effectiveness of the proposal method through the some experiments.

In domains in which single agent learning is a more natural metaphor for an artifact-embedded agent, Exemplar-Based Learning (EBL) requires significantly large sets of training examples for it to be applicable. Obviously large sets of training examples contradict resource capabilities of artifacts. To make EBL a possibility for these artifacts, sets of training examples must be reduced in size in a way that does not compromise learning performance in order to relieve artifacts' resources (e.g. memory). In this paper, we investigate training sets requirements for artifacts learning and propose a ranking-based Stratified Ordered Selection (SOS) method to scale them down. Contrary to reduction approaches in mainstream learning, this method has been designed with resource constraint nature of artifacts in mind. Artifacts shall use an intermediary which implements SOS to, dynamically and on-demand, retrieve training subsets based on their resource capacities (e.g. memory, CPU). SOS uses a new Level Order (LO) ranking scheme which has been designed to broaden representation of classes of examples, to quicken data retrieval, and to allow for retrieval of subsets of varying sizes while ensuring same or near same learning performance. We present how SOS evaluates on various well known machine learning datasets and how it compares to some of the best performing data reduction approaches.

Realizing application systems that match people's expectations and providing adequate network services for various users under various network and platform environments are difficult challenges. To overcome these problems, we have studied application

This paper proposes a parallelization method for voxel-based 3D shape reconstruction. The voxel-based technique offers accurate 3D shape reconstruction by integrating information obtained from multiple images; however, it requires huge computation time for the reconstruction. Our main approach is parallel processing by voxel space division, which divides the voxel space by planes along with the lines passing through a virtual view point and assigns the process for each divided voxel space to a processing element (PE) individually. This makes it possible to reduce the amount of inter-PE communication. In addition to this, we introduce a method to decrease the amount of computation by controlling iteration count of iterative process for each voxel. Experimental results show that our method more efficiently reduces the computation time than simple horizontal domain division method.

To make a visual examination of various chromosome abnormalities, individual chromosome regions have to be determined in an image and classified into distinct chromosome types in advance. We propose a subregion based method to improve this process. The proposed method regards each chromosome region as a series of subregions, and iterates a search for subregions in the subject image consecutively. In this method, chromosome region classification can be performed simultaneously with its determination for each subregion, and the features in subregions can be integrated effectively for recognizing an entire chromosome region.

To make the visual examination of a chromosome image for various chromosome abnormalities, individual chromosome regions have to be extracted from the image and classified into the distinct chromosome types in advance. To improve the accuracy and flexibility in this process, a subregion (local band pattern) based method has been proposed for recognizing individual chromosome regions in the image. This method regards each chromosome region as a series of subregions, and iterates a search for subregions in the image consecutively. As a result, chromosome region classification is performed simultaneously with its extraction for each subregion. Since the dimensions and intensities of chromosome regions vary with every image, effective subregion searches require templates whose dimensions and intensities correspond with those of chromosome regions in the subject image. In this paper, to develop an efficient subregion search, we present a method for adjusting the dimensions of templates to those of chromosome regions in the subject image and adapting the intensities in the subject image to those of the templates.

We have been working on research and development of advanced network and applications called "flexible computing". We are now in the next stage of this research, strongly pressing forward the concept of flexible computing, namely, "symbiotic computing", towards next generation computing model based on co-existence of real space and digital space. In this paper, we explain basic concepts, architecture and enabling technologies of symbiotic computing that we are aiming to develop.

We have been working on construction scheme of multimedia communication system based on QoS (quality of service)-aware agent organization. In this paper, we propose a behavioral characteristics model in multiagent systems to support their design and operation. We also introduce an observation and control scheme in flexible distributed system (FDS) and configure the behavioral characteristics model to analyze the behavior of multiagent systems based on QoS of FDS. In addition, this model is applied to multimedia communication system configured by QoS-aware agent organization, and discussed the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

To cope with the complexity and broad scope of areas and functions that are involved with a network management system (NMS), a knowledge model should be provided for the system. The aim of this paper is to propose the design of a multi-agent based network management support system with well-organized representation of the formal semantics of networks' experiential knowledge related to NMS fault diagnosis functional area. The modeling of the network knowledge is performed using domain ontology, fault-state causal reasoning models, and problem solving methods (PSMs) in a generic and reusable manner. Hence, knowledge acquisition in the NMS domain can be done by using these reusable structures, thereby eliminating the need to build the new knowledge-based systems from scratch. This paper presents an approach towards the agent-mediated ontology-driven automated NMS to benefit the network administrators through the automatic provision of just-in-time and context-dependent knowledge for resolving network failures.

In this paper, we propose an agent-based mobile ad-hoc service construction system named AMACS, which is an agent based middleware and improves usability of user communication on ad-hoc networks. AMACS exchanges user information among computers and makes users possible to use various communication services by only selecting target user's name and service name. In this paper, we describe agent-oriented service composition method of AMACS, and show detailed design and implementation. Finally, through experiments using prototype system, we show effectiveness of AMACS.

The explosive growth in online information is making it harder for large, globally distributed organizations to foster collaboration and leverage their intellectual assets. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the development of next generation knowledge management systems focussing on the artificial intelligence based technologies. We propose a generic knowledge management system architecture based on ADIPS (agent-based distributed information processing system) framework. This contributes to the stream of research on intelligent KM system to supports the creation, acquisition, management, and sharing of information that is widely distributed over a network system. It will benefit the users through the automatic provision of timely and relevant information with minimal effort to search for that information. Ontologies which stand out as a keystone of new generation of multiagent information systems, are used for the purpose of structuring the resources. This framework provides personalized information delivery, identifies items of interest to user proactively and enables unwavering management of distributed intellectual assets.

Generally, in order to manage and maintain a network system, it is necessary to carry out a series of operations including assessing the network status, determining the network errors, selecting/approving the countermeasures and applying the countermeasures. Since network systems are becoming more complicated and larger in scale, network operations increasingly require special professional knowledge and effort, thereby imposing heavy workloads on network administrators. In this paper, we propose and design the AIR-NMS (Active Information Resource Architecture based Network Management Support System) for decreasing network administrator workloads.

We present a design and implementation of a Flexible Videoconference System, FVCS. FVCS aims to reduce the botheration of the users under operational environments with insufficient computational resources, such as the Internet environment with the small-scale computers at home and offices, by embedding flexibility to the conventional videoconference system. We propose a design and implementation of FVCS with knowledge-based multiagent framework. We implement some kinds of prototype systems of FVCS with different types of knowledge embedded in the agent. We also perform some experiments using the prototype systems to evaluate the adaptability of the systems in response to the observed operational situations. From the results of the experiments, the adaptability is influenced by knowledge of agent, and we conclude that the knowledge-based design and implementation is reasonable for construction of FVCS.

To reduce the burden for users that utilize information from distributed information resources, the deployment of distributed active information resource (AIR) is proposed. An AIR is a information resource that is enhanced with the knowledge of the content and the functionality for actively and flexibly supporting use/reuse of the content. Multiple AIRs could cooperate actively and automatically to target the proper information resources, carry out complex information processing and then provide composite result. In this paper the concept and main use of AIR are discussed. Also, the construction and information processing of AIR, as well as an experimental implementation of agent-based AIR system, are introduced.

We proposed the design and development of a multimedia communication system that utilizes multi-agent computing technology, called Flexible Video Conference System (FVCS). As a part of FVCS, the user interface (UI) presented to the system's users also requires its flexibility. In this paper we propose the adaptive display management function that is used to improve the flexibility of UI in FVCS. Using this function, the user's preference and taste about UI could be obtained easily, and meanwhile the windows of applications in FVCS could be configured properly and automatically in response to the user's preference and the status of operating environment. The design of adaptive display management function based on multi-agents is then introduced in this paper. The structure of the agent organization, the functionality of each agent, as well as the manner of organizing and collaborating of the agents are presented in detail. Also, an implementation of the proposed design is introduced.

We describe an agent-based design of multimedia processing software component in the Flexible Network Layer (FNL). In FNL, Middleware Service Unit (MSU) provides multimedia communication services for applications by combination of components for processing various multimedia data. In MSU, it is required to construct/reconstruct the necessary and sufficient functions of multimedia data processing dynamically, considering the QoS, user requirements, resource statuses, and characteristics of the media data. In this paper we propose an architecture of a Media Element Agent (MEA) to fulfill the requirement. The MEA consists of multimedia processing component and knowledge of designer developer and user of the component. We also show a scheme of multiagent-based construction of MSU with organized behavior of the agents.

We have proposed an application-oriented flow control system which decides the priority of flow according to the application utilizing situation and controls application flow. We have observed some problems at the time of experimentation using the prototype system. In this paper to improve the maintainability and availability of our proposed system by solving the problems, we propose two improving methods. We have carried out an evaluation through experiments, and the results show the effectiveness of our proposal.

The main subject of this study is to inquire whether it is possible to control transient dynamics in a multiagent dynamical system. It is a well known fact that any multiagent dynamical system follows its transient dynamics, whether its transient dynamics are temporal or not, whenever a dynamical system starts operating at any initial condition. Especially in the case of a transient state occurring frequently due to intermittent perturbations, such as from user's requests, most tasks would be processed on the system's transient dynamics. Then undoubtedly you would care to ask "Is it possible to control transient dynamics on performance and life span, or not?" So far however, for transient dynamics being rated as temporal and uncontrollable dynamics, any systematic knowledge on controlling transient dynamics for multiagent dynamical systems has not been clarified. This study has introduced a new type of agent strategy called "info-reliability." It has clarified the diversification of agent strategy as an available procedure to make the system's transient dynamics controllable on its performance and on the life span of the transient dynamics.

We present a design and implementation of a flexible videoconference system (VCS) using multiagent computing technology. The proposed system, we named FVCS, aims to reduce the burden of the users under the operational environment with insufficient computational resources, such as the Internet environment with small-scale computers at homes and offices, by embedding flexibility to the conventional videoconference system. In this paper, we design and implement FVCS with knowledge-based multiagent framework to realize adaptability of FVCS. We also evaluate the adaptability of the prototype systems of FVCS based on an operational situation observed in its experiments. From the result of the experiments, we conclude that the multiagent-based design and implementation is reasonable for construction of FVCS.

Asynchronous messaging systems like e-mail systems need some advanced characteristics, such as intelligence, controllability and scalability, to accomplish more effective and sophisticated message handling. We propose a framework of next generation messaging systems, Flexible Asynchronous Messaging System (FAMES), which consists of autonomous and collaborative software agents. In FAMES, various messaging functions composing of agents can be utilized to integrate heterogeneous user environment. Moreover, FAMES operates message flow in an intelligent manner, considering the receiver's own convenience and that flexible message delivery can be achieved. We designed and implemented the proposed system based on multi agent technology, and we show its effectiveness through experimental studies using a prototype system.

In existing meeting scheduling systems, finding a common free time slot of all (prospective) participants is the goal. When such a free-time slot is not found, the host has to ask the busy participants to change their schedules. Changing a schedule is a complex process requiring a lot of negotiations and, there is no guarantee that the goal will be achieved. In the worst case the host has to ignore the time slot (which was probably the first choice) and try to schedule the meeting in another time slot (probably a lesser choice). The process will continue till the scheduling succeeds. We argue that it is not always necessary for all the participants to attend a meeting. There are some participants whose presence is mandatory for the meeting. The presence of other participants are non-mandatory. The meeting can proceed in the absence of some of the non-mandatory participants. This allows greater flexibility and more efficient scheduling. This paper introduces the concept of a Quorum in the meeting scheduling process and proposes a two-round negotiating protocol to find the time-slot which meets the quorum requirements. To establish the robustness of our scheduler, we simulated scheduling in our lab, and showed its flexibility in scheduling a meeting.

A concept of a flexible network is formalized as a foundation of next generation distributed systems. Considering the requisite properties of flexible networks, we propose an architecture of a flexible network called agent oriented flexible information network (AFIN) model. The model is based on the multi agent paradigm. Furthermore, we focus on a communication network which is a core component of the flexible information network. We propose an agent oriented flexible communication network (AFCN) model and demonstrate with an example the advantages of the proposed architecture of the flexible network.>

A knowledge-based design methodology for computer communication systems is proposed, along with a framework for a knowledge-based design support system. The design methodology is based on the user-requirements-oriented approach parameters. According to these requirements, formal specifications are defined as user's view virtual machine (UVM) and designer's view virtual machine (DVM). These virtual machines are constructed as knowledge models from the specifications. Due to the design methodology, a knowledge-based design support system for computer communication systems, called KDSS, is constructed. This design support system consists of many expert systems corresponding to the design phases given by methodology. A design example is given to illustrate the methodology.>