Treffer: VISUALIZATION AND DEBUGGING OF DISTRIBUTED MULTIAGENT SYSTEMS.

Visualizing the behavior of systems with distributed data, control, and process is a notoriously difficult task. Each component in the distributed system has only a local view of the whole setup, and the onus is on the user to integrate, into a coherent whole, the large amounts of limited information they provide. In this article, we describe an architecture and an implemented system for visualizing and controlling distributed multiagent applications. The system comprises a suite of tools, with each tool providing a different perspective of the application being visualized . Each tool interrogates the components of the distributed application, collates the returned information, and presents this information to users in an appropriate manner. This in essence, shifts the burden ofinference from the user to the visualizer. Our visualizer has been evaluated on four distributed multiagent systems: a travel management application, a telecommunications network management application, a business process management demonstrator, and an electronic commerce application. Lastly, we briefly show how the suite of tools can be used together for debugging multiagent applications - a process we refer to as debugging via corroboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Applied Artificial Intelligence is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)