Conclusion - A Perspective on Agent Systems - page 126

Chapter 6
Conclusion
The author, together with the team from the Intelligent Information Systems Group
(IISG), at the Department of Computer Science AGH University of Science and
Technology has been participating actively in the development of agent technologies
since the 1980s. Considerations presented in this monograph are an attempt to explain
and establish basic concepts that play a crucial role in agent technologies and outline
the concept of the agent and the agent system at a few levels of generality.
Chapter 1 provides a general introduction to the history of the development of
agent systems development. It gives an overview of some reasons why the agent
concept was invented. Then the process of agent system development at universities
and research centers is presented. This chapter contains also a layout of the problem
presentation in the monograph.
Chapter 2 looks at the notions of the partial function and the Cartesian product.
The presentation of the problem opens with a formal approach to the definition of the
agent's properties. This part explores the reasons for the introduction of the concept
of the agent and give an interpretation of such definitions as the autonomy of the
agent or its capability to observe the environment .
Chapter 3 offers a more intuitive approach based on the concept of the M-agent
architecture. In this chapter, the inner structure of the agent is given with an attempt to
keep the balance between a universal approach with its broad application of the agent,
and a more detailed approach which could help to understand the basic elements of
the agent's structure and its action.
Chapter 4 deals with the agents' application in practice. The system of balancing
the resources inmulti-processor environment is presented. It is a very good illustrative
example of the application of the multi-agent systems, and allows for the discussion
of the main properties of the agent and agent systems.
Chapter 5 is concerned with further solutions that are responsible indicating the
domains that are particularly predisposed to the application of agent systems. It
illustrates mainly of the fact that the agent system is not a universal solution, and
operates in certain characteristic situations. The role of the designer is to make a
decision on whether the agent approach should be applied to a given solution and in
what way.