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Malware is a fast growing threat that consists of a malicious script or piece of software that is used to disrupt the integrity of a user's experience. Antivirus software can help protect a user against these threats and there are numerous vendors users can choose from for their antivirus protection. However, each vendor has their own set of virus definitions varying in resources and capabilities in recognizing new threats. Currently, a persistent system is not in place that measures and displays data on the performance of antivirus vendors in responding to new malware over a continuous period of time. There is a need for a system that can evaluate antivirus performance in order to better inform end users of their security options, in addition to informing clients of prevalent threats occurring in their network. This project is dedicated to assessing the viability of a cloud sourced malware reporting framework that uses distributed agents to evaluate the performance of antivirus software based on malware signatures.

The increasing number of network security related incidents has made it necessary for the organizations to actively protect their sensitive data with network intrusion detection systems (IDSs). Detecting intrusion in a distributed network from outside network segment as well as from inside is a difficult problem. IDSs are expected to analyze a large volume of data while not placing a significant added load on the monitoring systems and networks. This requires good data mining strategies which take less time and give accurate results. In this study, a novel hybrid layered multiagent-based intrusion detection system is created, particularly with the support of a multi-class supervised classification technique. In agent-based IDS, there is no central control and therefore no central point of failure. Agents can detect and take predefined actions against malicious activities, which can be detected with the help of data mining techniques. The proposed IDS shows superior performance compared to central sniffing IDS techniques, and saves network resources compared to other distributed IDSs with mobile agents that activate too many sniffers causing bottlenecks in the network. This is one of the major motivations to use a distributed model based on a multiagent platform along with a supervised classification technique. Applying multiagent technology to the management of network security is a challenging task since it requires the management on different time instances and has many interactions. To facilitate information exchange between different agents in the proposed hybrid layered multiagent architecture, a low cost and low response time agent communication protocol is developed to tackle the issues typically associated with a distributed multiagent system, such as poor system performance, excessive processing power requirement, and long delays. The bandwidth and response time performance of the proposed end-to-end system is investigated through the simulation of the proposed agent communication protocol on our private LAN testbed called Hierarchical Agent Network for Intrusion Detection Systems (HAN-IDS). The simulation results show that this system is efficient and extensible since it consumes negligible bandwidth with low cost and low response time on the network.

Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第15354号 / 工博第3233号 / 新制||工||1486(附属図書館) / 27832 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 岡田 憲夫, 教授 戸田 圭一, 教授 多々納 裕一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当

Abstract Agility – namely, the ability of a supply chain to rapidly respond to changes in market and customer demands – is regarded as the bearer of competitive advantage in today's business world. The need for agility has traditionally been associated with supply chains in high technology industry products. However, traditional industries also face similar challenges in terms of speed, flexibility, increased product diversity and customization. This study contributes to the discussion on agility in supply chain management (SCM) and provides a novel focus on the development of an agile supply chain in a traditional industry. The object of this study is the development of an agile supply chain in a steel product network in the Raahe area in Northern Finland. The case network is undergoing a shift towards project-oriented business, where quick responses are the priority and agility is recognised as the facilitating factor. Using a constructive approach, an agile supply chain for a steel product network, SteelNet system, is developed. SteelNet system functions through the Internet and agent software technology. In identifying the new challenges raised by advanced information and communication technologies (ICT) in the development of an agile supply chain, the study presents some valuable ICT options for SCM. Following a review of the current understanding of agility in SCM literature, the study identifies the key elements of agile supply chains and proposes a four-dimensional agile supply chain framework by which to assess levels of agility. Using the framework, the study describes how the key elements appear in the case network. The study assesses the change process, and the necessary improvement steps, towards agility. It is concluded that agile supply chains have a major role also in traditional industry, and comprehensive implementation of ICT throughout the chain is of utmost importance in the development of an agile supply chain. Further insights to the discussion on agility are provided, and these and the conclusions extend a drawbridge to other companies and business networks in traditional industry to consider the clear advantages to developing their own agile supply chains.

Artificial intelligence has grown in importance in many application areas. However, the application in the education sector is in an embryonic state, where a variety of trials has been conducted. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to investigate the factors that influence the acceptability of AI chatbots by university students in higher education which might point subsequently to the lack of usage. The study also suggests the most appropriate communication areas of AI chatbot application in higher education suggested by students. For this study, the unified theory of Acceptance and Use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) has been compiled with the qualitative data gathered from semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys. The study participants are university students from various countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic). The findings showed three primary constructs: Performance expectancy (PE), Effort expectancy (EE), and a newly proposed construct, Nonjudgmental expectancy (NE), to significantly predict intention to use AI chatbot technology without education intentionality. Students suggested using AI chatbots for recap of course material, study material recommendation, and exam and requirements information.  Furthermore, this study provides a rationale behind AI chatbot acceptability based on students' generation characteristics. The results can guide universities to incorporate innovative solutions into their organization.

Πέραν από τις κλασσικές μεθόδους ηλεκτρονικής μάθησης που εφαρμόζονται σήμερα, προτείνεται ένας συνδυασμός εξελικτικών αλγορίθμων και τεχνητής νοημοσύνης για την δημιουργία έξυπνων προσαρμοστικών συστημάτων ηλεκτρονικής μάθησης. Σε αυτή τη διπλωματική εργασία περιγράφονται και παρουσιάζονται οι προτεινόμενοι αλγόριθμοι και ταυτόχρονα η προτεινόμενη πιλοτική εφαρμογή. Το προτεινόμενο σύστημα μπορεί να προβλέψει τις μαθησιακές ικανότητες του μαθητή, μέσα από εξεταστικές διαδικασίες οι οποίες προσφέρονται από το σύστημα, με αποτέλεσμα, το σύστημα να είναι σε θέση να προβλέψει τις επόμενες κινήσεις του μαθητή. Μέσα από την προτεινόμενη εφαρμογή αναπτύχθηκαν μηχανισμοί οι οποίοι συλλέγουν πληροφορίες για τον κάθε χρήστη ξεχωριστά και δημιουργούν ανεξάρτητα προφίλ χρήστη για τον κάθε ένα. Με την χρήση συνδυασμού εξελικτικών αλγορίθμων και αλγορίθμων μάθησης το σύστημα εκπαιδεύεται ώστε να μπορεί να προβλέπει τις μελλοντικές κινήσεις του χρήστη. Η εφαρμογή που αναπτύχτηκε είναι βασισμένη σε τεχνολογίες διαδικτύου, βάσεις δεδομένων και τεχνολογίες έξυπνων πρακτόρων. / As a step beyond the classic e-learning methods that are applied today, the combination of evolutionary programming with artificial intelligence has incorporated in order to create an intelligent adaptive e-learning system. In this thesis the theory of the proposed algorithms are presented and the proposed pilot application too. The proposed system can predict the learning possibilities of a student, concerning the knowledge that is provided to him by the system, thus providing the ability to the machine to predict and anticipate his reactions. We have developed applications that can collect information for the student’s history, thus creating concrete individual profiles. Then, using evolutionary programming techniques combined with machine learning algorithms the system is trained in order to can henceforth calculate and anticipate the student’s knowledge. The applications that have been developed are based on internet technologies, data bases and intelligent agents’ technology.

En esta tesis se ha desarrollado un marco de trabajo que hace uso de las tecnologías de agentes y de Servicios Web Semánticos para la elaboración de aplicaciones que puedan tratar con el dinamismo de la Web, al tiempo que se pueden beneficiar de características como la autonomía, el aprendizaje y el razonamiento. Éste es el punto en que cobra relevancia la Ingeniería Ontológica. Las ontologías son los componentes que permiten que la comunicación entre agentes y Servicios Web, situados a distintos niveles de abstracción, se produzca de forma fluida y sin interpretaciones erróneas. La arquitectura del marco de trabajo desarrollado consta, fundamentalmente, de un entorno multi-agente, un conjunto de bases de conocimiento y diversas interfaces que permiten al sistema comunicarse, de forma efectiva, con las entidades externas identificadas, a saber, Servicios Web y proveedores de servicios, entidades (usuarios) consumidores de servicios, y desarrolladores. / In this thesis, a knowledge-based Semantic Web Services framework that successfully integrates Intelligent Agents and Semantic Web Services technologies has been developed. For achieving this combination, the framework takes an ontology-centred approach. Ontologies are the facilitating technology that enables a seamlessly communication between agents and services.

Network management plays a vital role to keep a network and its application work e ciently. The network management in MANETs is a crucial and the challenging task, as these networks are characterized by dynamic environment and the scarcity of resources. There are various existing approaches for network management in MANETs. The Ad hoc Network Management Protocol (ANMP) has been one of the rst e orts and introduced an SNMP-based solution for MANETs. An alternative SNMP-based solu-tion is proposed by GUERRILLA Management Architecture (GMA). Due to self-organizing characteristic feature of MANETs, the management task has to be distributed. Policy-based network management relatively o ers this feature, by executing and applying policies pre-viously de ned by network manager. Otherwise, the complexity of realization and control becomes di cult Most of the works address the current status of the MANET to take the network man-agement decisions. Currently, MANETs addresses the dynamic and intelligent decisions by considering the present situation and all related history information of nodes into consid-eration. In this connection we have proposed a network management system using agents (NMSA) for MANETs, resolving major issues like, node monitoring, location management, resource management and QoS management. Solutions to these issues are discussed as inde-pendent protocols, and are nally combined into a single network management system, i.e., NMSA. Agents are autonomous, problem-solving computational entities capable of performing e ective operation in dynamic environments. Agents have cooperation, intelligence, and mobility characteristics as advantages. The agent platforms provide the di erent services to agents, like execution, mobility, communication, security, tracking, persistence and directory etc. The platform execution environment allows the agents to run, and mobility service allows them to travel among the di erent execution environments. The entire management task will be delegated to agents, which then executes the management logic in a distributed and autonomous fashion. In our work we used the static and mobile agents to nd some solutions to the management issues in a MANET. We have proposed a node monitoring protocol for MANETs, which uses both static agent (SA) and mobile agents (MA), to monitor the nodes status in the network. It monitors the gradational energy loss, bu er, bandwidth, and the mobility of nodes running with low to high load of mobile applications. Protocol assumes the MANET is divided into zones and sectors. The functioning of the protocol is divided into two segments, The NMP main segment, which runs at the chosen resource rich node (RRN) at the center of a MANET, makes use of SA which resides at same RRN, and the NMP subsegment which runs in the migrated MAs at the other nodes. Initially SA creates MAs and dispatches one MA to each zone, in order to monitor health conditions and mobility of nodes of the network. MAs carrying NMP subsegment migrates into the sector of a respective zone, and monitors the resources such as bandwidth, bu er, energy level and mobility of nodes. After collecting the nodes information and before moving to next sector they transfer collected information to SA respectively. SA in turn coordinates with other modules to analyze the nodes status information. We have validated the protocol by performing the conformance testing of the proposed node monitoring protocol (NMP) for MANETs. We used SDL to obtain MSCs, that repre-sents the scenario descriptions by sequence diagrams, which in turn generate test cases and test sequences. Then TTCN-3 is used to execute the test cases with respect to generated test sequences to know the conformance of protocol against the given speci cation. We have proposed a location management protocol for locating the nodes of a MANET, to maintain uninterrupted high-quality service for distributed applications by intelligently anticipating the change of location of its nodes by chosen neighborhood nodes. The LMP main segment of the protocol, which runs at the chosen RRN located at the center of a MANET, uses SA to coordinate with other modules and MA to predict the nodes with abrupt movement, and does the replacement with the chosen nodes nearby which have less mobility. We have proposed a resource management protocol for MANETs, The protocol makes use of SA and MA for fair allocation of resources among the nodes of a MANET. The RMP main segment of the protocol, which runs at the chosen RRN located at the center of a MANET, uses SA to coordinate with other modules and MA to allocate the resources among the nodes running di erent applications based on priority. The protocol does the distribution and parallelism of message propagation (mobile agent with information) in an e cient way in order to minimize the number of message passing with reduction in usage of network resources and improving the scalability of the network. We have proposed a QoS management protocol for MANETs, The QMP main segment of the protocol, which runs at the chosen RRN located at the center of a MANET, uses SA to coordinate with other modules and MA to allocate the resources among the nodes running di erent applications based on priority over QoS. Later, to reallocate the resources among the priority applications based on negotiation and renegotiation for varying QoS requirements. The performance testing of the protocol is carried out using TTCN-3. The generated test cases for the de ned QoS requirements are executed with TTCN-3, for testing of the associated QoS parameters, which leads to performance testing of proposed QoS management protocol for MANETs. We have combined the developed independent protocols for node monitoring, location management, resource management, and QoS management, into one single network management system called Network Management System using Agents (NMSA) for MANETs and tested in di erent environments. We have implemented NMSA on Java Agent development environment (JADE) Platform. Our developed network management system is a distributed system. It is basically divided into two parts, the Network Management Main Segment and other is Network Management Subsegment. A resource rich node (RRN) which is chosen at the center of a MANET where the Main segment of NMSA is located, and it controls the management activities. The other mobile nodes in the network will run MA which has the subsegments of NMSA. The network management system, i.e., the developed NMSA, has Network manage-ment main (NMSA main), Zones and sector segregation scheme, NMP, LMP, RMP, QMP main segments at the RRN along with SA deployed. The migrated MA at mobile node has subsegments of NMP, LMP, RMP, and QMP respectively. NMSA uses two databases, namely, Zones and sectors database and Node history database. Implementation of the proposed work is carried out in a con ned environment with, JDK and JADE installed on network nodes. The launched platform will have AMS and DF automatically generated along with MTP for exchange of message over the channel. Since only one JVM, which is installed, will executes on many hosts in order to provide the containers for agents on those hosts. It is the environment which o ered, for execution of agents. Many agents can be executed in parallel. The main container, is the one which has AMS and DF, and RMI registry are part of JADE environment which o ers complete run time environment for execution of agents. The distribution of the platform on many containers of nodes is shown in Fig. 1. The NMSA is based on Linux platform which provides distributed environment, and the container of JADE could run on various platforms. JAVA is the language used for code development. A middle layer, i.e., JDBC (java database connection) with SQL provides connectivity to the database and the application. The results of experiments suggest that the proposed protocols are e ective and will bring, dynamism and adaptiveness to the applied system and also reduction in terms network overhead (less bandwidth consumption) and response time.

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