Publication - Evaluating Research in Cooperative Distributed Problem Solving

Authors: Decker, Keith, Durfee, Edmund, Lesser, Victor
Title: Evaluating Research in Cooperative Distributed Problem Solving
Abstract: Cooperative Distributed Problem Solving (CDPS) is a new field that has not yet established critical research mass, so relating and assessing individual research contributions is difficult. In this paper, we provide a framework for understanding the interrelationships of disparate research efforts in order to assess progress in the field. We evaluate progress in these basic issues by assessing the sophistication of CDPS systems on many different (and interdependent) axes, which when taken as a whole give a view of a system’s overall sophistication. Our sophistication assessments are specified as a set of questions that relate to such things as the class of problem domains and environments that an approach can handle, the theoretical soundness of the approach, the software and hardware support provided, and how the approach addresses the important issues of CDPS themselves. We explain the general goals of CDPS research, present questions pertinent to them, and describe a few examples of CDPS research: the contract net, partial global planning, and proposed extensions to partial global planning. We evaluate these systems and discuss how the questions relate to the multiple goals of CDPS research, and how this methodology can be used to analyze the differences between the above systems.
Keywords: Distributed Problem Solving
Publication: UMass Computer Science Technical Report 88-89
Publisher: University of Massachusetts
Date: August 1998
Sources: PS: ftp://ftp.cs.umass.edu/pub/lesser/decker-88-89.ps
PDF: /Documents/decker-88-89.pdf
Reference: Decker, Keith, Durfee, Edmund, Lesser, Victor. Evaluating Research in Cooperative Distributed Problem Solving. UMass Computer Science Technical Report 88-89, University of Massachusetts. August 1998.
bibtex: 
@article{Decker-161,
  author    = "Keith Decker and Edmund Durfee and Victor Lesser",
  title     = "{Evaluating Research in Cooperative Distributed
               Problem Solving}",
  journal   = "UMass Computer Science Technical Report 88-89",
  publisher = "University of Massachusetts",
  month     = "August",
  year      = "1998",
  url       = "http://mas.cs.umass.edu/paper/161",
}