Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Plug-ins'

This dissertation presents the principles and examples for building AMI for UML-based modeling environments. Modelers may use proposed AMI interface to extend UML modeling tools by modeling plug-ins using modeling tools itself. The work discusses four cases of AMI realization implemented in MagicDraw UML. Moreover, the proposed AMI implementation might be realized in other modeling tools that provide API and access to the model elements via standard UML metamodel interfaces. The ideas and results of this dissertation can be directly applied in numerous UML modeling tools available in the market. Although the focus in this dissertation is on UML modeling tools, many ideas are also applicable in other software systems that are developed using model driven approach.
Šiame darbe yra pristatoma modeliavimu grindžiama praplėtimo sąsaja, kurią siūloma vadinti aplikacijos modeliavimo sąsaja (angl. Application Modeling Interface, AMI). Modeliuotojai, naudodami siūlomą aplikacijos modeliavimo sąsają, gali kurti UML įrankių įskiepius juos modeliuodami pačių UML įrankių pagalba. Darbe taip pat nagrinėjamas aplikacijos modeliavimo sąsajos apibrėžimo ir realizavimo UML įrankiuose aspektai.

I denna studie undersöks om externa tredjeparts ljudeffekt-insticksmoduler, eller plug- ins, från företagen: Universal Audio, Sonnox, Fabfilter och Soundtoys låter annorlunda jämfört med de interna plug-ins som finns i Apple Logic Pro X. I projektet undersöks också eventuella skillnader mellan dessa plug-ins. För att genomföra detta test så komponerade jag fyra verk, alla enkla gitarrbaserade stycken, där varje verk mixades i två versioner. Den ena versionen mixades enbart med Apple Logic Pro X plug-ins och den andra versionen mixades enbart med tredjeparts plug-ins. Därefter genomförde jag ett kontrollerat lyssningstest där jag lät totalt tio undersökningsdeltagare uppdelade i två testgrupper: testgrupp A och testgrupp B lyssna på och jämföra versionerna. Testgrupperna fick redogöra för vilka skillnader de kunde höra mellan mixarna. De fick också ange om de kunde beskriva vilken av de två mixarna dem tyckte lät bäst. Alla undersökningsdeltagarna i testgrupp A har en musikalisk bakgrund och utövar musik regelbundet till skillnad mot undersökningsdeltagarna i testgrupp B som inte har en musikalisk bakgrund och heller inte utövar musik. Resultatet visar att undersökningsdeltagarna kunde höra skillnad mellan de olika plug-in mixarna men deras beskrivningar av mixarna skiljer sig från varandra. En viktig skillnad är att de undersökningsdeltagare som har en musikalisk bakgrund överlag föredrog mixarna med tredjeparts plug-in. Dock visar resultatet på att det är stor spridning mellan hur de olika mixarna uppfattades av deltagarna i lyssningsundersökningen. Därför behövs mer omfattande studier för att ge säkra svar på dessa forskningsfrågor.

I detta examensarbete har en studie utförts för att ta fram och jämföra metoder att modellera krökta vangstycken av stål med komplexa geometrier i programmet Tekla Structures. Avgränsningen för studien har varit att jämföra två metoder: Metod 1 använder verktygen Complex Polybeam Creation i kombination med Surface Generation Between Polybeams i Tekla, och Metod 2 trappverktyget Spiral Staircase. En vindeltrappa från projektet Patienten och Princeton, Sankt Eriks ögonsjukhus i Hagastaden, har använts för att testa de komplexa geometrier som denna vindeltrappa medför. Utifrån detta har Tutorials av de båda metoderna skapats, för att läsaren enkelt ska kunna följa och genomföra samma steg. Resultatet av examensarbetet är att båda metoderna fungerar för modellering, beroende på vilken typ av geometri som skapas. Efter modellering med trappverktyget Spiral Staircase gick det inte att ta fram korrekta tillverkningsritningar av de horisontella plåtarna, till skillnad från Metod 1. Slutsatsen av studien är att vid enbart snabb modellering av cirkulära geometrier samt framtagning av tillverkningsritningar för vertikala krökta plåtar, kan med fördel Metod 2 användas. Däremot vid framtagning av tillverkningsritningar av komplexa och icke cirkulära geometrier lämpar sig Metod 1 bäst.
In this thesis, a study has been conducted to develop and compare methods of modeling curved stringer made of steel with complex geometries in the Tekla Structures program. The delimitation of the study has been to compare two methods: Method 1 uses the Complex Polybeam Creation tools in combination with Surface Generation Between Polybeams in Tekla, and Method 2 uses the tool Spiral Staircase. A spiral staircase from the project Patienten and Princeton, Sankt Eriks Eye Hospital in Hagastaden, Stockholm, has been used to test the complex geometries that this spiral staircase entails. Based on this, Tutorials of the two methods have been created, so that the reader can easily follow and implement the same steps. The result of this thesis is that both methods work for modeling, depending on the type of geometry that is created. After modeling with the tool Spiral Staircase, correct manufacturing drawings of the horizontal plates could not be obtained, unlike Method 1. The conclusion of the study is that with only rapid modeling of circular geometries as well as production of manufacturing drawings for vertical curved plates, Method 2 can be used with advantage. However, in the production of manufacturing drawings of complex and non-circular geometries, Method 1 is best suited.

Dissertação (Mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Departamento de Ciência da Computação, 2011.
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O volume crescente de informações disponibilizadas na Internet dificulta a localização da informação desejada, visto que os mecanismos de busca usuais são fortemente baseados em aspectos sintáticos. A Web Semântica e a OWL (Web Ontology Language) são tecnologias promissoras para o desenvolvimento de aplicações que permitam realizar buscas complexas na Internet. No entanto, ambas, como atualmente proposto, não consideram a incerteza, a qual é inerente à problemas do mundo real. Uma linha de pesquisa atual bastante ativa é a busca por propostas que ofereçam princípios sólidos e consistentes para raciocínio plausível na Web. Nesse contexto, Probabilistic Web Ontology Language (PR-OWL) (31, 34) emergiu como uma candidata para representação de ontologias probabilísticas na Web. PR-OWL é baseada no formalismo de MEBN (Multi-Entity Bayesian Network) (67) que é uma linguagem probabilística de primeira ordem. Apesar de sua alta expressividade, PR-OWL falha ao integrar consistentemente o conhecimento probabilístico com conhecimento determinístico oriundo de OWL, dificultando o reuso de informações “não probabilísticas”. Visando solucionar tal problema, PR-OWL 2, uma versão de PR-OWL que permite mapear propriedades OWL com variáveis aleatórias, foi proposta na Universidade George Mason (19). Esta dissertação propõe a primeira implementação mundial da especificação PR-OWL 2. Essa implementação foi feita no framework UnBBayes (17, 22, 79, 81, 100), composta de interface gráfica, API e máquina de inferência, todas elas programadas em Java. Para facilitar o desenvolvimento de aplicações, o UnBBayes foi refatorado, migrando para a arquitetura de plug-ins, com o objetivo de se tornar uma linha de produtos de software com variabilidade resolvida em tempo de execução. Portanto, este trabalho contribui também para a área de Engenharia de Software como um exemplo de linha de produtos de software dinâmico no domínio de Inteligência Artificial. ______________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT
The growing volume of information available on the Internet makes it difficult to locate desired information, because search engines rely basically on syntactic aspects. The Semantic Web and OWL (Web Ontology Language) are promising technologies for developing applications which perform complex searches on the Internet. However, such technologies, as currently proposed, do not consider the uncertainty inherent to real world problems. A very active and up-to-date field of research is to look for proposals that offer principled, consistent, and plausible reasoning on the Web. In such context, Probabilistic Ontology Web Language (PR-OWL) (31, 34) has emerged as a candidate for representing probabilistic ontologies on the Web. PR-OWL is based on MEBN (Multi-Entity Bayesian Network) formalism (67), which is a first-order probabilistic language. Despite its expressiveness, PR-OWL fails to consistently integrate the probabilistic knowledge with deterministic knowledge coming from OWL, making the reuse of “non-probabilistic” information on probabilistic ontologies very difficult. In order to solve such problem, PR-OWL 2, a new version of PR-OWL which allows us to create a mapping from random variables to OWL properties, was proposed at George Mason University (19). This work is intended to offer the first world-wide implementation of PR-OWL 2. This implementation was built on UnBBayes framework (17, 22, 79, 81, 100), offering a GUI, API, and a reasoner, all developed in Java. Additionally, in order to facilitate the development of new applications, the UnBBayes framework was refactored to use a plug-in design, in order to become a Software Product Line with runtime variability. Therefore, this work also contributes to the area of Software Engineering as an example of a Dynamic Software Product Line in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Der Kartendienst OpenStreetMap ist einer der beliebtesten Anbieter für OpenData-Karten. Diese Karten konzentrieren sich jedoch derzeitig auf Außenraumumgebungen, da sich bereits existierende Ansätze zur Innenraumkartografierung nicht durchsetzen konnten. Als einer der Hauptgründe wird die mangelnde Unterstützung der verbreiteten Karteneditoren angesehen. Die vorliegende Bachelorarbeit befasst sich daher mit der Implementierung eines Plug-Ins für die Erstellung von Innenraumkarten im Editor „JOSM“, und dem Vergleich des Arbeitsaufwandes zur Innenraumkartenerstellung mit und ohne diesem Hilfsmittel.

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The emergence of technologies that promote the users' immersion has pointed the interest of researchers into the healthcare field. These technologies, when combined with electronic games, have obtained good results by being used for therapeutic purposes. Commercial games have been widely used to that end, however, it is still required the supervision of health professionals for a better targeting in the patients' treatment. To decrease the burden of the supervision, tailor-made games with monitoring capabilities have been developed. The problem with this approach is that the quality - in terms of gameplay - of those games is low due to the lack of playfulness. To solve this problem, a good scenario is add monitoring capabilities to the treatments using commercial games. Given the lack of proposals with this approach, it is necessary a mechanism to assist developers in building applications for monitoring patients during the gameplay, according with predetermined characteristics set by health specialists. In this work, we propose the NuSense, a plugin-based framework to support in developing applications for the automatic monitoring of people in environments applied to game-based therapies, motor rehabilitation and physical exercises.
O surgimento de tecnologias que promovem a imersão dos usuários tem despertado o interesse dos pesquisadores da área da saúde. Essas tecnologias, quando aliadas aos jogos eletrônicos, têm obtido bons resultados ao serem utilizadas para fins terapêuticos. Jogos comerciais vêm sendo amplamente utilizados com essa finalidade, contudo, ainda é necessária a supervisão de profissionais de saúde para um melhor direcionamento no tratamento dos pacientes. Para diminuir o nível de supervisão necessário, jogos sob medida, com capacidade de monitoramento, estão sendo desenvolvidos. Porém, a qualidade desses jogos – em termos de jogabilidade – ainda é baixa, devido, muitas vezes, à falta de ludicidade, ou seja, torna-se difícil atrair a atenção do paciente. Para resolver esse problema, o cenário ideal é o uso de jogos comerciais com capacidade de monitoramento. Diante da falta de propostas com esse enfoque, torna-se necessário um mecanismo que auxilie os desenvolvedores na construção de aplicações para o monitoramento de pacientes durante o gameplay, de acordo com características pré-determinadas pelo profissional de saúde. Neste trabalho propõe-se o NuSense, um framework baseado em plug-ins para o auxílio no desenvolvimento de aplicações para o monitoramento automático de pessoas em ambientes aplicados a terapias baseadas em jogos – gameterapia, bem como reabilitação motora e exercícios físicos.

This dissertation provides the motivation for and evidence in favour of an approach to language extension via dynamic loading of plug-ins. There is a growing realisation that language features are often a superior choice to software libraries for implementing applications. Among the benefits are increased usability, safety and efficiency. Unfortunately, designing and implementing new languages is difficult and time consuming. Thus, reuse of language infrastructure is an attractive implementation avenue. The central question then becomes, what is the best method to extend languages? Much research has focussed on methods of extension based on using features of the language itself such as macros or reflection. This dissertation focuses on a complementary solution: plug-in compilers. In this approach languages are extended at run-time via dynamic extensions to compilers, called plug-ins. Plug-ins can be used to extend the expressiveness, safety and efficiency of languages. However, a plug-in compiler provides other benefits. Plug-in compilers encourage modularity, lower the barrier of entry to development, and facilitate the distribution and use of experimental language extensions. This dissertation describes how plug-in support is added, to both the front and back-end of a compiler, and demonstrates their application through a pair of case studies.

Architectural and structural design process are closely connected but traditionally done in twoseparate steps in the design process. This requires effective coordination between the two disciplinesand without the right tools problems often arise.The thesis was done by support from structural engineers at Tyréns and in collaboration with astudent from the department of architecture. The aim of the thesis was to investigate if the use ofparametric design tools from both architects and structural engineers could be a way of making thedesign process more effective. This thesis also include test the structural plug-ins of the parametricdesign tools and compare them with the outputs from traditional structural software and handcalculations.The comparison was made for different cases followed by a collaboration project. The cases wastargeting different structural features which in turn gave the knowledge needed to develop thecollaboration project.The case studies consists of five cases where the first two gives an introduction to parametricmodelling. The third case is a steel beam with fully restrained supports loaded by two pointloads. It will compare the displacement calculations between the different software. The next caseis a concrete slab with different supports along edges loaded by a uniformly load. The analysisincludes calculation and evaluation of section forces. The final case is a concrete dome. It is builtup by arches and five supports. The analysis of this case includes calculation and evaluation of thedisplacement.The collaboration project is a concrete structure built up by a curved surface lifted by curvedcolumns. The architect worked with the structure in parallel to this this thesis and targeted thedevelopment process whilst the authors targeted the structural parts and at the same time gavestructural insight to the architect.The results show a difference between the parametric structural tools and the traditional FEsoftware regarding deformation and moments. The hand calculations in the collaboration projectshow that the amount of reinforcement will not work with the given inputs and assumptions dueto practical reasons regarding spacing.The possibility to export models from the parametric environment to traditional engineering software’senables a faster analysis, since the modelling capabilities is limited and time-consumingin these. The structural capabilities of the parametric tools are good enough for deciding initialgeometry and properties but these will probably change when subjected to an more extensiveanalysis.

Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Informática
Em computação gráfica, a representação de tecidos virtuais é, normalmente, constituída por malhas de triângulos ou quadriláteros, nas quais se podem definir as propriedades usadas no modelo físico (elasticidade, densidade, rigidez à curvatura, etc.). Quanto mais detalhada é uma malha, maior é o realismo na representação de um tecido real, levando também a um processo de simulação de tecidos mais moroso. Usando um simulador de tecidos com detalhe dinâmico alivia-se o processamento inerente a malhas mais detalhadas. Com este projecto pretendeu-se criar um conjunto de funcionalidades que disponibilizem um sistema de conversão de malhas poligonais quaisquer, modeladas de forma livre num programa de modelação, para malhas com um formato específico necessário ao simulador de tecidos com detalhe. A característica mais importante do trabalho resulta da capacidade dos algoritmos de conversão desenvolvidos serem capazes de preservar as características individuais dos modelos geométricos, tais como vincos, mapeamento de texturas ou a mistura de diferentes propriedades materiais em zonas diferenciadas do modelo. A ideia principal consiste na determinação de regiões de polígonos afins sobre o modelo original, nas quais se pode efectuar a conversão de forma livre. O sistema construído é flexível ao ponto de poder ser estendido para diferentes critérios de afinidade, incluindo critérios a definir de futuro. No final analisam-se os resultados obtidos pelos algoritmos desenvolvidos recorrendo, quer à inspecção visual dos resultados, quer à comparação metódica entre os modelos obtidos e o modelo original. São ainda analisados alguns indicadores que permitem aferir a qualidade das malhas assim obtidas.

The Gravity Control for Maya will be extraordinary

beneficial to an animator trying to create realistic

animation, by calculating the center of gravity and area

of balance. This control will provide the animator with

the ability to rotate around the center of gravity and

keep the character in a balanced pose. With that ability,

the animator can easily create accurate poses and

animation, such as mid-air flips. The system also

supports a vast number of characters with different

shapes, sizes and number of limbs.

Conventional wisdom suggests that in order to build a secure system, security must be an integral component in the system design. However, cost considerations drive most system designers to channel their efforts on the system's performance, scalability and usability. With little or no emphasis on security, such systems are vulnerable to a wide range of attacks that can potentially compromise confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive data. It is often cumbersome to redesign and implement massive systems with security as one of the primary design goals. This thesis advocates a proactive approach that cleanly retrofits security solutions into existing system architectures. The first step in this approach is to identify security threats, vulnerabilities and potential attacks on a system or an application. The second step is to develop security tools in the form of customizable and configurable plug-ins that address these security issues and minimally modify existing system code, while preserving its performance and scalability metrics. This thesis uses overlay network applications to shepherd through and address challenges involved in supporting security in large scale distributed systems. In particular, the focus is on two popular applications: publish/subscribe networks and VoIP networks. Our work on VoIP networks has for the first time identified and formalized caller identification attacks on VoIP networks. We have identified two attacks: a triangulation based timing attack on the VoIP network's route set up protocol and a flow analysis attack on the VoIP network's voice session protocol. These attacks allow an external observer (adversary) to uniquely (nearly) identify the true caller (and receiver) with high probability. Our work on the publish/subscribe networks has resulted in the development of an unified framework for handling event confidentiality, integrity, access control and DoS attacks, while incurring small overhead on the system. We have proposed a key isomorphism paradigm to preserve the confidentiality of events on publish/subscribe networks while permitting scalable content-based matching and routing. Our work on overlay network security has resulted in a novel information hiding technique on overlay networks. Our solution represents the first attempt to transparently hide the location of data items on an overlay network.

The usage of specific databases for certain application does not allow the replacement of database or sharing information with other databases by user, without rebuilding the entire application, turning non-trivial the application of the solutions proposed in the literature. This reduces the interoperability among different suppliers of present biomedical data. This paper describes the design and development of a system for interface and management of biomedical signals databases. The system s features includes the use of different databases and the storage of the data for further analysis and was designed using the object-oriented technique, plug-ins and reflection technique, leading to create an application capable of connecting with the different databases. The developed system has capability of storage biomedical information, through the use of adaptive systems and plug-ins, reducing the problems of lack of compatibility between data banks, difficulties in maintenance and integration among them. The experiment results showed that the framework is able to collect patients biomedical data, that may be registered with their clinical features, and interact with differentdatabases.
A utilização de bancos de dados específicos para determinado aplicativo não permite ao usuário a substituição do banco de dados ou o compartilhamento com outras bases de informações sem a reconstrução de todo o aplicativo, tornando não trivial a aplicação das soluções propostas na literatura. Isso reduz a interoperabilidade entre os aplicativos de software de diferentes fornecedores de equipamentos biomédicos existentes. Este trabalho descreve o projeto e o desenvolvimento de um framework para interface e gerenciamento de bancos de dados utilizados em aplicações biomédicas. O sistema se caracteriza por permitir que diferentes bancos de dados possam ser utilizados para diferentes aplicativos a fim de armazenar os dados para posteriores análises. O sistema foi projetado utilizando a técnica de orientação a objetos, plug-ins e reflexão, permitindo criar aplicativos capazes de conectarem-se com os diferentes bancos de dados. Os resultados demonstram que o framework permite a coleta e o armazenamento de informações biomédicas por meio de sistemas adaptativos e de plug-ins, minimizando os problemas de falta de compatibilidade entre bancos, as dificuldades de manutenção e melhorando a integração dos mesmos.
Mestre em Ciências

This master's thesis deals with possibilities of modifying and extending functionality of Visual Paradigm with plug-ins as well as the study of tools for creating UML diagrams. The primary goal of this thesis is to describe graphical tools and simultaneously, the less known variants of creating UML diagrams. Those are tools that process text UML formats. Special attention is given to text tool PlantUML and to the graphical tool Visual Paradigm. Furthermore, the thesis deals with use of the Visual Paradigm open interface for programmers to create plug-ins. The main output is an implemented plug-in that allows you to convert UML diagrams between Visual Paradigm and text format PlantUML, which was published as open source software. Grammar for the PlantUML language have also been created for this plug-in.

Master‘s thesis covers use of graphical user interface in audio plug-ins. In first part structure and rendering techniques of audio plug-ins graphical libraries are described. Their efficiency and their way of memory utilization is questioned. Next part puts these techniques in comparison with the state of the art methods used in computer graphics and gaming industry. Their possible use in audio graphical interafaces is analyzed. In the following part, thesis finds solutions to uneffective methods in frequently used situations by presenting deferred shading into audio parameter editor with the goal of photorealistic rendering. Second introduced technique of „Knob Normal Maps“ reduces number of images needed for rendering of turning knob from hundereds to six with comparable results. Goal of diploma thesis was to create graphical library. Graphical library with name RealBox was created, and introduced techniques are the core features. Library reduces work needed to achieve graphical user interfaces for 2D and 3D cases of use. Full class and method documentation for RealBox library was assembled. Library was tested during creation of three VST plugins, with different approaches and emphasis on quick work and fine rendering. Graphical library offers new, faster way of creating audio plug-in interfaces.

碩士
國立臺北商業技術學院
資訊與決策科學研究所
102
In recent years, because the flourish in mobile platforms and the popularity of network application (referred as Webapp), it is clear that the development of Web technique becomes an important issue. In particular, Web technique using HTML 5 has received much attention. Due to the fact that network and information are very popular nowadays, most of users cannot satisfy some situations, such as monotone webpages and unconventional user interface. Thus, the graphic renderings and visual effects have become essential elements for designing applications. For instance, HTML 5 offers many new features, including a simple and fast graphics API, providing gorgeous visuals presentation in the case that does not rely on any plug-in. A new feature called Canvas in HTLM 5 is characterized by rapid and simple high-profile. Canvas can draw a variety of graphics within the HTML tags canvas through javascript new syntax. Although it has a well effect on image processing, its drawing results cannot support the operation of event, and thus is an obvious drawback. Once a drawing is complete, all graphics cannot continue to be operated by a browser. Moreover, all events can be done only in the entire canvas tag operation, and cannot be individually operated on any inner graphic. Therefore, we design a drawing package for Canvas that use plug-in to draw graphics. Consequently, it enables that developers can draw a graphic more easily and made modifications more quickly.

abstract: Time-series plots are used in many scientific and engineering applications. In this thesis, two new plug-ins for piecewise constant and event time-series are developed within the Eclipse BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) framework. These customizable plug-ins support superdense time, which is required for plotting the dynamics of Parallel DEVS models. These plug-ins are designed to receive time-based alphanumerical data sets from external computing sources, which can then be dynamically plotted. Static and dynamic time-series plotting are demonstrated in two settings. First, as standalone plug-ins, they can be used to create static plots, which can then be included in BIRT reports. Second, the plug-ins are integrated into the DEVS-Suite simulator where runtime simulated data generated from model components are dynamically plotted. Visual representation of data sets can simplify and improve model verification and simulation validation.
Dissertation/Thesis
Masters Thesis Computer Science 2015

碩士
國立成功大學
政治經濟學研究所
93
Following the successful development of online-games in South Korea, online-games were introduced into Taiwan and yielded considerable value. The profit-maximizing plug-in producers draw profits from online-game producers via the interactions between game suppliers, consumers and Internet cafes. The government had tried to eradicate the problems caused by online-games but failed and consequently suffered social surplus loss. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the causes of the existence of online-games and to provide some policy implications for the growth of this industry. 　First, I highlight the channels that the plug-ins affects the industry. Second, I analyze the structure of Taiwan’s online-game industry based on the competition theory. The result shows that the plug-ins does lead loss of online-game industry; therefore, the manufacturers must employ foreclosure and/or leverage strategies to keep the market-power. Third, the two-stage model developed in the thesis elucidates the social value of the plug-ins. 　According to the competition theory, the analysis indicates that by tying the plug-ins and online-games, the loss from the existence of plug-ins could be transformed into the profitability of online-game producers. On the other hand, the analysis of the two-stage model shows that by adopting the strategy of price-squeeze, online-game producers share some of the surplus induced by the plug-ins. In sum, to avoid the plug-ins from entering the market raises social costs but not online-game producers’ profits, the monopolist’s profits could be improved via virtual tie or real one.

Researchers in artificial intelligence and agent technologies are presented with a massive array of various technologies that they might use for their research projects. It is difficult for researchers to test their theories effectively in the field. It takes a great deal of time to develop the platform on which the newly created agent will be tested, with little or no time left for troubleshooting and the investigation of further solutions. Every time a new technique or agent is researched, the agent has to be redeveloped from the ground up. This makes it difficult for researchers to compare their own theories with previously developed components. With the wide range of technologies and techniques available, there is no easy way to effectively make use of the various components, as each tool uses different technologies that cannot be combined easily. This dissertation outlines the new plug-in oriented agent architecture (POAA) and describes the agents that use the POAA. POAA agents make extensive use of functional and controller-based plug-ins in order to extend the functionality and behaviour of the agent. The architecture was designed to facilitate machine learning and agent mobility techniques. POAA agents are created by mounting newly created dynamic plug-in components into the static structure of the agent. The static structure of the agent serves as the basis of agent functionality and as the controller for the agent’s life cycle. The static and dynamic components of the POAA agent interact with each other in order to perform the agent’s required tasks. The use of plug-ins will greatly improve the effectiveness of researchers, as only a single, standard architecture will exist. Researchers only need design and develop the plug-in required for their specific agent to function as desired. This will also facilitate the comparison of various tools and methods, as only the components being reviewed need to be interchanged to measure system performance. The use of different plug-in architectures is also investigated. This includes deciding if the plug-in base will be configured at application run-time or at the time of application compilation. This dissertation focuses on techniques that will facilitate machine learning and agent mobility. For these purposes, extensive use is made of the machine learning tool WEKA developed by University of Waikato in New Zealand [Wi00]. The use of Java in the prototype will also facilitate the cross platform capability of the proposed agents.
Prof. E.M. Ehlers