One of the important components of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are the Advanced Traveller Information Systems (ATIS) that provide traffic information to manage traffic flow on existing road networks more efficiently. / Variable Messages Signs (VMS) are one of the key instruments of ATIS for providing en-route traveller information. These signs offer significant potential to resolve urban traffic management issues, such as reducing congestion and increasing network efficiency. The system also delivers considerable personal benefits by assisting drivers to make route choice decisions. / Much research has validated the effectiveness of VMS information on route choice decisions, however, the relationship between route choice behaviour and information content is still not clear. Also, the results show large variation when factors such as the influence of road type, toll roads and degree of congestion are considered. / The primary aims of this research are to investigate route choice behaviour in response to the message content of VMS and to develop route choice models targeted on an arterial road in the Adelaide Central Business District (CBD). The study investigates the influences of VMS message content on drivers taking into account their differing characteristics and experience, including socio-economic factors and trip characteristics. / Two major surveys, a stated preference (SP) survey and a revealed preference (RP) survey, were performed. An anonymous mail-back SP survey questionnaire was conducted with residents along a target route in Adelaide in order to collect drivers' route choice behaviour in response to hypothetical VMS messages. The RP survey was conducted to collect data in the real world situation. A VMS message was displayed to drivers and actual route choice behaviour was measured using anonymous mail-back questionnaires and by observation of traffic volumes. A total of 245 (of 1000 distributed) and 183 (of 500 distributed) replies were used for model development. / A binary logit approach was employed to develop route choice models using data obtained from the SP survey. Goodness-of-fit and hypothesis testing of the model showed that the developed models fitted the data well and estimated parameters were statistically significant at the 5% level. / Thesis (MEng(TransportSystemsEng))--University of South Australia, 2004.

This thesis illustrates and evaluates a generic adaptive tutoring environment based on the theory of cognitive skill acquisition. The theory concerns acquiring problem-solving abilities in intellectual tasks, and emphasises the learning benefits of providing multiple examples and encouraging students to recognize and study their common structure. The system teaches by presenting side-by-side examples and providing devices to highlight their structural components. The purpose of the design is to assist the process of generalisation and reduce mapping by surface features, allowing students to apply their newly gained knowledge to different sets of problems. The study describes the development of Structural Example-based Adaptive Tutoring System (SEATS), which uses a simple adaptive engine and emphasises the structures of side-by-side examples to encourage students to compare them. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2001

Thesis (PhD) -- University of South Australia, 1999

Providing a logical characterisation of rational agent reasoning has been a long standing challenge in artificial intelligence (AI) research. It is a challenge that is not only of interest for the construction of AI agents, but is of equal importance in the modelling of agent behaviour. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to the formalisation of agent reasoning by showing that the computational limitations of agents is a vital component of modelling rational behaviour. To achieve this aim, both motivational and formal aspects of resource-bounded agents are examined. It is a central argument of this thesis that accounting for computational limitations is critical to the success of agent reasoning, yet has received only limited attention from the broader research community. Consequently, an important contribution of this thesis is in its advancing of motivational arguments in support of the need to account for computational limitations in agent reasoning research. As a natural progression from the motivational arguments, the majority of this thesis is devoted to an examination of propositional approximate logics. These logics represent a step towards the development of resource-bounded agents, but are also applicable to other areas of automated reasoning. This thesis makes a number of contributions in mapping the space of approximate logics. In particular, it draws a connection between approximate logics and knowledge compilation, by developing an approximate knowledge compilation method based on Cadoli and Schaerf??s S-3 family of approximate logics. This method allows for the incremental compilation of a knowledge base, thus reducing the need for a costly recompilation process. Furthermore, each approximate compilation has well-defined logical properties due to its correspondence to a particular S-3 logic. Important contributions are also made in the examination of approximate logics for clausal reasoning. Clausal reasoning is of particular interest due to the efficiency of modern clausal satisfiability solvers and the related research into problem hardness. In particular, Finger's Logics of Limited Bivalence are shown to be applicable to clausal reasoning. This is subsequently shown to logically characterise the behaviour of the well-known DPLL algorithm for determining boolean satisfiability, when subjected to restricted branching.

???Agent-based systems are one of the most vibrant and important areas of research and development to have emerged in information technology in the 1990s??? (Luck et al. 2003). The use of agents as a metaphor for designing and constructing software systems represents an innovative movement in the field of software engineering: ???Agent- Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE)??? (Lind 2000; Luck et al. 2003). This research contributes to the evolution of AOSE by proposing a comprehensive ontology-based methodology for the analysis and design of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). The methodology is named MOBMAS, which stands for ???Methodology for Ontology-Based MASs???. A major improvement of MOBMAS over the existing agentoriented MAS development methodologies is its explicit and extensive support for ontology-based MAS development. Ontologies have been widely acknowledged for their significant benefits to interoperability, reusability, MAS development activities (such as system analysis and agent knowledge modelling) and MAS operation (such as agent communication and reasoning). Recognising these desirable ontology???s benefits, MOBMAS endeavours to identify and implement the various ways in which ontologies can be used in the MAS development process and integrated into the MAS model definitions. In so doing, MOBMAS has exploited ontologies to enhance its MAS development process and MAS development product with various strengths. These strengths include those ontology???s benefits listed above, and those additional benefits uncovered by MOBMAS, e.g. support for verification and validation, extendibility, maintainability and reliability. Compared to the numerous existing agent-oriented methodologies, MOBMAS is the first that explicitly and extensively investigates the diverse potential advantages of ontologies in MAS development, and which is able to implement these potential advantages via an ontology-based MAS development process and a set of ontology-based MAS model definitions. Another major contribution of MOBMAS to the field of AOSE is its ability to address all key concerns of MAS development in one methodological framework. The methodology provides support for a comprehensive list of methodological requirements, which are important to agent-oriented analysis and design, but which may not be wellsupported by the current methodologies. These methodological requirements were identified and validated by this research from three sources: the existing agent-oriented methodologies, the existing evaluation frameworks for agent-oriented methodologies and conventional system development methodologies, and a survey of practitioners and researchers in the field of AOSE. MOBMAS supports the identified methodological requirements by combining the strengths of the existing agent-oriented methodologies (i.e. by reusing and enhancing the various strong techniques and model definitions of the existing methodologies where appropriate), and by proposing new techniques and model definitions where necessary. The process of developing MOBMAS consisted of three sequential research activities. The first activity identified and validated a list of methodological requirements for an Agent Oriented Software Engineering methodology as mentioned above. The second research activity developed MOBMAS by specifying a development process, a set of techniques and a set of model definitions for supporting the identified methodological requirements. The final research activity evaluated and refined MOBMAS by collecting expert reviews on the methodology, using the methodology on an application and conducting a feature analysis of the methodology.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). "September 2007." Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-143). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pennsylvania State University, 2007. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D) -- McMaster University, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-124). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 74 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-74).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2007. / Includes graphs, tables. Title from title screen (viewed April 1, 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Information Technologies, Faculty of Science. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.