We are working on the development and design of an approach to agents that can reason, react to the environment and are able to update their own knowledge as a result of new incoming information. In the resulting framework, rational, reactive agents can dynamically change their own knowledge bases as well as their own goals. An agent can make observations, learn new facts and new rules from the environment, and then update its knowledge accordingly. The knowledge base of an agent and its updating mechanism has been implemented in Logic Programming. The agent?s framework is implemented in Java.

This essay puts its focus on examining vendors? underlying decision criterias when choosing an estate agent at the purpose of selling an apartment. The purpose is on one hand to expound the knowledge of the vendor?s decision process and on the other hand to evaluate how the choice of an estate agent is perceived to the vendor. By nine interviews we explored what reasons made vendors choose their agents and whether they were contented with their choice.

Stratego is a boardgame not very different from chess, that contains hidden information. Because of this, existing programs play at beginner level. The purpose of this thesis is to adjust a minimax algorithm so that it passes the demands of Stratego, and then build a Stratego agent around it. Tests with existing minimax algorithms leads to the development p-e-minimax. This algorithm uses two different values in its nodes to simulate the different information available to the agent and its opponent.

In this report I have compiled my thesis which was about investigating what sellers of real estates find important when they shall appoint a real estate agent. I have also looked into other parameters in my study, like whether the sellers at all use real estate agents and how they have proceeded in case they do not use an agent. In addition to that, I have tried to find out why sellers didn´t chose LRF Konsult and what they know about the company. This analyses was made through questionnaires sent to those estate owners who didn´t use LRF Konsult when they sold their estate. The questionnaires contained 8 questions.

Denna rapport beskriver arbetet med att designa, modellera, texturera och rigga en karaktär som är anpassad till att användas i agent FX..

The CASA-paradigm, Computers Are Social Actors, was introduced in the book "TheMedia Equation" by Reeves and Nass. One of their experiments concluded that we tend to be polite to computers in the same way as we are to people. In this study I have replicated Reeves and Nass experiment but instead of a text-based interface I have used a virtual agentin order to find out if we are polite to the agents, or still to the computer. Two experimental setups was conducted. The two setups had a common first part that was carried out on onecomputer with one agent.

The purposes of this thesis is study the European Court of Justice from a non legal perspective and investigate the courts possibility to advance its own preferred goals rather that of the member states in cases of non-compliance. Drawing on general principal-agent theory I construct a model from which I derive certain hypothesis mainly about under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be more sensitive to member states preferences and under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be less sensitive. These hypotheses are then tested empirically against all cases of non-compliance initiated by the European Commission against member states between 1953-2000. The results from the study are rather positive. The most important result is that when the threat of sanctions against the Court increases so does the Courts sensitiveness to member states preferences and when it decreases so does the Courts sensitiveness..

Relationen mellan riskkapitalist och företagsledare kan härröras till industrialismens genombrott i början av 1900-talet, vid den tidpunkten ägde uppdelning av ägare och företagsledning rum. Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva och öka förståelsen för grunden i relationen mellan en riskkapitalist och en företagsledare. När ägandet och styrningen är uppdelat kan konflikter uppstå vilket gör det intressant att även beskriva och öka förståelsen för när de båda aktörerna i relationen kan ha differentierad riskattityd. I den teoretiska referensramen beskrivs två teorier som kan anses ligga till grund för ekonomiska relationer, principal ? Agent teorin och tillits teori.

The number of new estate agent offices is increasing yearly and each year many hundred new estate agents graduate. The comparing of estate agents by sellers has perhaps been most common in larger cities, but as competition has increased even in smaller towns we experience that it has become a common phenomenon even there. We both come from a small town but are not afraid of the idea of moving to a larger city as newly qualified estate agents. We ask ourselves, which are the determining factors in the choice of a estate agent in a large city as opposed to a small town? Can we see any differences? The purpose with this essay is to give us added knowledge about which factors private persons consider to be important in their choice of an estate agent when selling a house.The body of information is based on two parallel surveys, one in Hudiksvall and one in Stockholm, together with interviews of people in this line of business.

Vår undersökning syftar till att utreda vilken roll den finansiella informationen spelar för att minska informationsdiskrepansen mellan AP-fonderna och de onoterade fastighetsbolag som fonderna är delägare i. Informationen har samlats in med en kvalitativ metod genom intervjuer med både AP-fonderna och de onoterade fastighetsbolagen de äger och deläger. Teorin som vi utgår från för att undersöka vårt syfte är agentteorin, dessutom använder vi teori för att beskriva på vilket sätt redovisningen används för att minska just principal-agent konflikten. Det som vi kommer fram till i vår studie är att fastighetsbolagens redovisning spelar en begränsad roll för att minska principal-agent konflikten mellan AP-fonderna och de onoterade fastighetsbolagen. Ägarkoncentrationen gör det istället möjligt för parterna att kommunicera genom styrelsemöten och annan rapportering, och fastighetsbolagens redovisning får därmed en mer begränsad roll i att minska principal-agent konflikten..

Titel: Ishockeyagent som yrke! - Har Du vad som krävs, enligt spelarna?Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka agenternas roll inom svensk ishockey idag.Problemformulering: Vad gör att spelarna skaffar agent eller väljer att inte göra det?Vilka kompetenser vill en svensk ishockeyspelare att en svensk ishockeyagent ska ha?Metod: Vårt tillvägagångssätt för denna studie lutar sig emot en kvalitativ forskningsmetoddär de primära källor utgjorts av intervjuer med 13 respondenter, som spelar ishockey på ennivå där agenter förekommer (divison 1 och uppåt i seriesystemen). Undersökningen har haften deduktiv ansats där vi först utgått från forskning och teori för att sedan samla in studiensempiri.Slutsatser: Agenten behöver flera olika kompetenser. Däribland förhandlingskunskap, rådgivning,lyhördhet och förmågan att fungera i sociala sammanhang. Studien påvisar blandannat att spelarna idag inte ser förhandling som den primära kompetensen hos en agent.

This thesis examines the effects of the Swedish school reforms that took place in the early 1990?s. Theories such as Principal-Agent, Stewardship and Lipsky?s street-level bureaucracy are discussed as well as New Public Management (NPM). These reforms were heavily influenced by NPM, causing an increased level of street-level bureaucracy, and according to Principal-Agent theory some outcomes could have been predicted.

Aim: Many people react negatively when they find out that I work as an estate agent. They believe that estate agents earn more money then they should. What many do not know is how hard we must work and that it doesn´t suit someone who is looking for an 8-17 work. As an estate agent I thought it would be interesting to found out why the estate agents have such a bad reputation.Method: This essay is based on the interviews with estate agents and branch organizations but also on newspaper articles about real estate agents. Theory is collected marketing, where I have concentrate on concepts of branding, positioning, communication and image.Result & Conclusions: The factors, which I found in my investigation, that have an effect to the bad reputation are; media, commission, the customers and the bidding.

This bachelor thesis discusses firefighting and the use of portable fireextinguishers in the salvageof historic artefacts focusing on textiles. It also looks into the use of multi-purpose dry chemicalextinguishers in a textile context and the impact the actual dry-agent has on textiles afterfirefighting.Literature studies, interviews and tests on different textiles were carried out to write this thesis.During the tests textiles were exposed to the dry agent and also to dry agent plus water toinvestigate the difference in residue. After vacuumcleaning it was clear that when the textile wasexposed to dry agent and water it was almost impossible to remove the chemical without rinsingin water.By examining the residue left on the textile using SEM it was possible to see if a textile was aswell decontaminated after vacuum-cleaning as it looks to the eye. We know that the dry agentoften consists of ammonium phosphate which acts corrosively on many materials and one canassume it damages textiles as well after longer exposure.Buildings housing cultural collections are vulnerable as we cannot easily replace ruined materialwith new.

The largest project at the AICG lab at Linköping University, Cognitive models for virtual characters, focuses on creating an agent architecture for intelligent, virtual characters. The goal is to create an agent that acts naturally and gives a realistic user experience. The purpose of this thesis is to develop and implement an appropriate learning model that fits the existing agent architecture using an agile project methodology. The model developed can be seen as an online unsupervised reinforcement learning model that enhances experiences through reward. The model is based on Maes model where new effects are created depending on whether the agent is fulfilling its goals or not.The model we have developed is based on constant monitoring of the system.