Agent-based computing from multi-agent systems to agent-based Models: a visual survey

摘要

Agent-Based Computing is a diverse research domain concerned with thebuilding of intelligent software based on the concept of "agents". In thispaper, we use Scientometric analysis to analyze all sub-domains of agent-basedcomputing. Our data consists of 1,064 journal articles indexed in the ISI webof knowledge published during a twenty year period: 1990-2010. These wereretrieved using a topic search with various keywords commonly used insub-domains of agent-based computing. In our proposed approach, we haveemployed a combination of two applications for analysis, namely NetworkWorkbench and CiteSpace - wherein Network Workbench allowed for the analysis ofcomplex network aspects of the domain, detailed visualization-based analysis ofthe bibliographic data was performed using CiteSpace. Our results include theidentification of the largest cluster based on keywords, the timeline ofpublication of index terms, the core journals and key subject categories. Wealso identify the core authors, top countries of origin of the manuscriptsalong with core research institutes. Finally, our results have interestinglyrevealed the strong presence of agent-based computing in a number ofnon-computing related scientific domains including Life Sciences, EcologicalSciences and Social Sciences.