Embodied Conversational Agents (i.e., avatars; ECAs) are appearing in increasingly many everyday contexts, such as e-commerce, occupational training, and airport security. Also common to a typical person's daily life is persuasion. Whether being persuaded or persuading, the ability to change another person's attitude or behavior is a thoroughly researched topic. However, little is known about ECAs' ability to persuade and whether basic persuasion principles from human-human interactions will hold in human-ECA interactions. This work investigates this question. First, a broad review of persuasion literature, which serves as an inventory of manipulations to test in ECA contexts, is presented. This literature review serves an inventory to guide future Persuasive ECA work. The ECA literature is then reviewed. Two preliminary studies exploring the effects of physical attractiveness, voice quality, argument quality, common ground, authority, and facial similarity are presented. Finally, the culminating study testing the effectiveness of ECAs to elicit self-disclosure in automated interviewing is presented and discussed. The findings of that automated interviewing study suggest that ECAs may replace humans in automated interviewing contexts. The findings also suggest that ECAs that are manipulated to look like their interviewees are able to induce greater likeability, establish more rapport, and elicited more self-referencing language than ECAs that do not look like the interviewees.

Musical Agents are an emerging technology, designed to provide a range of new musical opportunities to human musicians and composers. Current systems in this area lack certain features which are necessary for a high quality musician; in particular, they lack the ability to structure their output in terms of a communicative dialogue, and reason about the responses of their partners. In order to address these issues, this thesis develops Musical Act Theory (MAT). This is a novel theory, which models musical interactions between agents, allowing a dialogue oriented analysis of music, and an exploration of intention and communication in the context of musical performance. The work here can be separated into four main contributions: a specification for a Musical Middleware system, which can be implemented computationally, and allows distributed agents to collaborate on music in real-time; a computational model of musical interaction, which allows musical agents to analyse the playing of others as part of a communicative process, and formalises the workings of the Musical Middleware system; MAMA, a musical agent system which embodies this theory, and which can function in a variety of Musical Middleware applications; a pilot experiment which explores the use of MAMA and the utility of MAT under controlled conditions. It is found that the Musical Middleware architecture is computationally implementable, and allows for a system which can respond to both direct musical communi- cation and extramusical inputs, including the use of a custom-built tangible interface. MAT is found to capture certain aspects of music which are of interest — an intuitive notion of performative actions in music, and an existing model of musical interaction. Finally, the fact that a number of different levels — theory, architecture and implementation — are tied together gives a coherent model which can be applied to many computational musical situations.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att testa sambandet mellan en koncentrerad aktieägarandel och låg utdelning bland aktieföretag på den svenska börsen. Vad som är unikt för just denna studie är att den genomförs på den svenska börsen samt den skattesats som skiljer sig mellan Sverige och exempelvis Finland där tidigare studier av samma karaktär genomförts. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ metod och en deduktiv ansats. Den finansiella data som används i studien har hämtats via databasen ”Retriever”, information om aktieägande har manuellt hämtats från ”Ägarna och makten” (Sundqvist, 2015). Resultat och slutsats: Slutsatsen innefattar en saknad av direkt samband mellan koncentrerat ägande och låg utdelningsnivå vilket besvarar syftet. Vad som kan lyftas fram som en eventuell förklaring är den skattemässiga aspekten gällande utdelning och kapitalvinst. Tidigare forskning som påträffat samband i andra länder har en skattesats som skiljer sig mellan utdelning och kapitalvinst vilket innebär skattemässiga fördelat att välja det ena framför det andra. Detta var en av de aspekter som var av stort intresse innan studien startade. Studiens bidrag: Denna studies teoretiska bidrag påvisar att sambandet mellan ägarkoncentrationen och företagens utdelning inte är självklart på den svenska börsen. Istället finner vi att det är huvudsakligen företagens finansiella nyckeltal som ligger till grund för företagens utdelning. Förslag till vidare forskning: Resultatet av denna studie föder ytterligare nyfikenhet kring möjligheter att forska vidare. Exempel på intressanta ämnen är Agnblads (2001)teori om det utländska ägandets påverkan på det framtida ägandet i Sverige. Även agentteorin och dess olika påverkan på företagen går att fördjupa sig i och studera på den svenska marknaden då ägandet är koncentrerat och en stor del maktfördelning sker. / Aim: The aim of this study is to test the relationship between ownership concentration and dividends in listed Swedish firms. Method: This study has a quantitative method and a deductive approach. The financial data has been collected via the database ”Retriever”, information about the ownership of the companies was manually collected from the book ”Ägarna och makten” (Sundqvist, 2015). Result and conclusions: The result of the study is that dividends may variate due to the independent variables. However, there is not a significant relationship between ownership concentration and dividends. Contribution of the thesis: The contribution of this study provides further information regarding ownership concentration and dividends, we find that the financial ratios of the companies have a larger impact on the dividends than the ownership concentration. Suggestions for future research: The result of this study adds alot of curiosity to the future studies about this subject. Our suggestions to future research is to elaborate Agnblads (2001) theory about foreign ownership and how it might affect companies in Sweden. We also propose to research further about the Agency-theory and which effects it has on the Swedish listed firms since we have a concentrated ownership.

As Chinese economy develops, service innovation has become a key element for which Chinese enterprises compete and upgrading of service industry all over China due to its influence on national economic competitiveness, among which the innovation of multi-agent service plays an important role in enterprises. This thesis mainly studies the concept of the Multi-agent Participate Model of Service Innovation and explores the strategic role and position of the model in communication industry. The purpose of this thesis includes two parts: firstly it studies the service innovation which multi-agent such as enterprises, customers and suppliers participate in so as to establish a new theoretical framework of such service innovation. Secondly, from the perspective of strategic management of enterprises, it considers the selection of Multi-agent Participate Model of Service Innovation in competitive strategies of the communication industry to clarify the strategic role and position of such model in management of the communication industry. Questionnaire and interview are two main data acquisition methods in this thesis. The author surveyed 100 employees from China Telecom with a questionnaire designed by herself. The data shows that customers’ demands for market and competitors’ competition in the market have a great influence on the innovation activities of enterprises. Some senior managers of China Telecom have been interviewed for this study. The interviews have shown the significance of Multi-agent Participate Model of Service Innovation in telecommunication industry and the Multi-agent Participate Model of Service Innovation can favorably be applied to telecommunication industry. The enterprises, customers, employees, managers and suppliers are of inseparable relationships in the model. As an innovation model of enterprises, Multi-agent Participate Model of Service Innovation can better mobilize enthusiasm of each participant of service innovation, and innovativeness of management service to clarify the strategic position of the model in enterprise management.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / Scott A. DeLoach / Coalition formation is a key cooperative behavior of a system of multiple autonomous agents. When the capabilities of individual agents are not su fficient for the improvement of well-being of the individual agents or of the entire system, the agents can bene t by joining forces together in coalitions. Coalition formation is a technique for finding coalitions that are best fi tted to achieve individual or group goals. This is a computationally expensive task because often all combinations of agents have to be considered in order to find the best assignments of agents to coalitions. Previous research has therefore focused mainly on small-scale or otherwise restricted systems. In this thesis we study coalition formation in large-scale multi-agent systems. We propose an approach for coalition formation based on multi-agent simulation. This approach allows us to find coalitions in systems with thousands of agents. It also lets us modify behaviors of individual agents in order to better match a specific coalition formation application. Finally, our approach can consider both social welfare of the multi-agent system and well-being of individual self-interested agents. Power distribution systems are used to deliver electric energy from the transmission system to households. Because of the increased availability of distributed generation using renewable resources, push towards higher use of renewable energy, and increasing use of electric vehicles, the power distribution systems are undergoing signi ficant changes towards active consumers who participate in both supply and demand sides of the electricity market and the underlying power grid. In this thesis we address the ongoing change in power distribution systems by studying how the use of renewable energy can be increased with the help of coalition formation. We propose an approach that lets renewable generators, which face uncertainty in generation prediction, to form coalitions with energy stores, which on the other hand are always able to deliver the committed power. These coalitions help decrease the uncertainty of the power generation of renewable generators, consequently allowing the generators to increase their use of renewable energy while at the same time increasing their pro fits. Energy stores also bene t from participating in coalitions with renewable generators, because they receive payments from the generators for the availability of their power at speci fic time slots. We first study this problem assuming no physical constraints of the underlying power grid. Then we analyze how coalition formation of renewable generators and energy stores in a power grid with physical constraints impacts the state of the grid, and we propose agent behavior that leads to increase in use of renewable energy as well as maintains stability of the grid.

Durant ces dernières années, la congestion du trafic urbain et la pollution de l'air sont devenus d'énormes problèmes dans de nombreuses villes dans le monde. Afin de réduire cette congestion, nous pouvons investir dans l'amélioration des infrastructures de la ville. Toutefois, cette solution reste très coûteuse à entreprendre et de ne permet pas de réduire la pollution de l'air. C'est pourquoi nous travaillons sur la mobilité intelligente afin de disposer d'une meilleure utilisation de la voiture. L'application de nouvelles technologies de l'information, tels que les systèmes multi-agents appliqués au contrôle de l'information de la circulation urbaine, a permis de créer et de déployer une gestion plus intelligente du trafic comme le système DRT (transport à la demande). L'objectif des systèmes multi-agents basés sur le DRT est de gérer les taxis de manière intelligente, afin d'accroître le nombre de passagers dans chaque véhicule, et en même temps à réduire le nombre de véhicules dans les rues. Cela permettra de réduire les émissions de CO2 et la pollution de l'air causée par les véhicules, ainsi que la congestion du trafic et les coûts financiers associés. La simulation multi-agents est considérée comme un outil efficace pour les services dynamiques urbains de la circulation. Toutefois, le principal problème est de savoir comment construire un agent à base de modèle pour cette problématique. Ces travaux de recherche présente une solution basée sur les systèmes multi-agents réactifs pour la problématique du transport à la demande (DRT), qui adopte une approche multi-agent de planification urbaine en utilisant des services de contrôle qui satisfont aux principales contraintes : réduction de la période totale creuse, demandes spéciales du client, augmentation du nombre de places utilisées dans un même taxi, utilisation du nombre minimal de véhicules, etc. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons un modèle multi-agents multicouche hybride distribué pour des problématiques en temps réel. Dans la méthode proposée, un agent pour chaque véhicule trouve un ensemble de routes pour sa recherche locale, et choisit un itinéraire en coopérant avec d'autres agents se trouvant dans son domaine de planification. Nous avons examiné expérimentalement, l'efficacité de la méthode proposée. / In recent years, urban traffic congestion and air pollution have become huge problems in many cities in the world. In order to reduce congestion, we can invest in improving city infrastructures. Infrastructure improvements, however, are very costly to undertake and do not reduce air pollution. Hence we can work on intelligent mobility in order to have a more efficient car use. The application of new information technologies, such as multi-agent technologies to urban traffic information control, has made it possible to create and deploy more intelligent traffic management like DRT (Demand Responsive Transport) system. The objective of multi-agent based DRT system is to manage taxis in an intelligent way, to increase the efficient number of passengers in every vehicle, and at the same time to decrease the number of vehicles on streets. This will reduce the CO2 emissions and air pollution caused by the vehicles, as well as traffic congestion and financial costs. Multi-agent simulation has been looked as an efficient tool for urban dynamic traffic services. However, the main problem is how to build an agent-based model for it. This research presents a multi-agent based demand responsive transport (DRT) services model, which adopts a practical multi-agents planning approach for urban DRT services control that satisfies the main constraints: minimize total slack time, client’s special requests, increases taxis’ seats use ratio, and using minimum number of vehicle etc. In this thesis, we propose a multi-agent based multi-layer distributed hybrid planning model for the real-time problem. In the proposed method, an agent for each vehicle finds a set of routes by its local search, and selects a route by cooperation with other agents in its planning domain. By computational experiments, we examine the effectiveness of the proposed method. This research is supported by project “Gestion Temps Réel du Transport Collectif à la Demande” (CPER) Budgetthe French.

Ce travail de recherche est consacré à la formalisation et à la réalisation d’un processus de diagnostic pluridisplinaire. La particularité d’un tel diagnostic résulte du fait qu’il nécessite de nombreux spécialistes, chacun ayant des connaissances sur leur domaine. Le problème principal réside dans les interconnexions entre les domaines. Ces interconnexions peuvent ou non être connues et influer sur le diagnostic. Dans ce manuscrit, nous proposons de réaliser un diagnostic pluridisciplinaire l’aide d’un système multi-agents. Les agents élaborent un diagnostic local à un domaine puis, fusionnent leurs diagnostics afin d’obtenir le diagnostic pluridisciplinaire. Dans ce but, nous proposons un cadre d’argumentation et une méthode de fusion des diagnostics. Ensemble, ces deux propositions forment le modèle ANDi. / Sharing opinions among different participants is a useful and common way to build a constructive argumentation in order to solve complex problems that require the confrontation of different discipline areas. In such settings, experts build different arguments in relation to their own discipline area, then share and confront them to the other experts’ opinions. In this report we present an argumentative framework ANDi based on a multi-agent approach and Bayesian networks. In this framework, the agents support the elaboration of a global diagnostic from local ones. Local diagnostics are resulting of argumentations between group of experts from the same discipline area. We illustrate the use of this argumentation framework on the domain of fault diagnosis.

The goal of this work is to design a model of episodic memory for virtual agents capable of creating false memories and implement its prototype. The model architecture is inspired by present day knowledge about human episodic memory. Core structures in our model are the chronobags storing details of experienced episodes, and the schemabag storing the general scripts for all experienced events. The episodes are stored in the form of AND-OR trees and it is possible to derive missing details from the stored scripts during recall. We followed the work of Burkert and implemented a prototype of designed memory model in Java using the Pogamut 3 Framework. The model is parameterizable and it is evaluated in several experiments. In these experiments we looked on the trends in correct and incorrect recalls over time and we simulated the experiment demonstrating existence of room schemata. We compared the results produced by our model with the data from psychological researches and we showed that our model can produce false memories similar to false memories recollected by humans.

This thesis analyses the legal regime of in rem security interests, in particular pledges and security assignments of rights, in the context of syndicated loan finance. The thesis draws mainly from the Act No. 89/2012 Coll., the Civil Code, and the Act No. 90/2012 Coll., on Commercial Companies and Cooperatives (the Corporations Act), and related legal acts, case law and jurisprudence. In the first chapter, the author describes the main elements of a facilities agreement and the typology of loans. The term syndicated loan is defined as a bank loan provided by two or more creditors, who are not joint and severe creditors among themselves, and which is usually secured by in rem security interests. The second chapter of the thesis introduces the area of securing debts and describes the security and reimbursement functions of security interests. In the third and fourth chapter, the author details the main attributes of in rem security interests. The thesis focuses on the secured party, the security provider and the secured debt whereas emphasis is given on the security agent, whose position can be structured using the institutes of joint and severe creditorship, administration of security, trust and parallel debt. The thesis deals with the ranking of security interests and negative pledges. The author states...

There is a growing number of virtual agents in today's virtual worlds. This is directly related to the need of coordinating their behavior and movement. In this work we design algorithms to maintain desired formation of agents while moving through difficult terrain. The methods we study should maintain the requirements of the formation as well as traverse along various obstacles. We then use an arbitrary fitness function to compare the performance of these methods on typical scenarios.