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computing theory in distributed system, a group of experts and the ability for
ACTOR to acquire intelligence. Hewitt in 1991 proposed open information
systems semantics (Hewitt,1991). He pointed that competitiveness, commitment,
cooperation and negotiation should be scientific basis of distributed intelligent
system. He attempted to provide a new basis for distributed artificial intelligence.
In 1980, Davis and Smith proposed contract net (CNET) (Smith,1980). CNET
use the bid - contract ways to implement task distribution in multi nodes.
Contract Net system provides an important contribution to distributed tasks by
mutual agreement and negotiation.
Distributed vehicle test monitoring (DVMT) system is also one of the earliest
and most influential researches in distributed artificial intelligence field. Lesser,
Corkill and Durfee from University of Massachusetts were responsible for this
project (Lesser, 1980). The system could track to monitor the travelling vehicles
of the urban area. Under this environment, they took many kinds of research on
distributed problem solving (Durfee, 1987). DVMT used the distributed sensor
network data as background to research on complex interaction problem solving
of blackboard to provide a method of abstracting and modeling distributed
system.
In 1987, Gasser developed a system named MACE which is an experimental
environment of distributed artificial intelligence system development (Gasser,
1987).Every computing unit in MACE was named an agent. They have
knowledge and reasoning ability. The agents communicate through message
transmission. MACE is similar to object-oriented environment, but avoiding the
complicated inherits issue in object-oriented system. Every component in MACE
can compute in parallel and provide the description language, the demons
tracking mechanism. The research focused on the implementation of distributed
intelligent system and maintained the clarity of the concepts.
Zhongzhi Shi and his colleagues in Institute of Computing Technology,
Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a distributed knowledge processing
system DKPS. The system uses logic - object knowledge model and research on
knowledge sharing and collaboration solving problems (Shi, 1990b). ACTOR-
based model, Ferber developed a reflection ACTOR Mering IV language in 1991
(Ferber,1991). In this model, actor is active object to interact through
asynchronous transmission. Mering IV is a reflection language that can represent
itself from structure and operation. Reflective of the system makes use of
different sizes and the size of the agent can interact in a uniform manner.
