Title: Stochastic analysis of mobile agent-based e-shopping

Authors: Wenyu Qu, Hong Shen, John Sum

Addresses: Graduate School of Information Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Tatsunokuchi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan. ' Graduate School of Information Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Tatsunokuchi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan. ' Department of Computing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, KLN, Hong Kong

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the problem of mobile agent-based e-shopping. We analyse the probability of success (the probability that an agent can find the destination shop) and the population growth of mobile agents. We found that though a single mobile agent may act randomly, the behaviour of all mobile agents as a whole has some stochastic properties. Our mathematical analysis provides a way to estimate user satisfaction and network performance. Since there is a trade-off between these two factors, managers can achieve maximum benefits by tuning the relevant parameters in our analysis according to the users| requirements and the characteristics of the network.

Keywords: mobile agents; e-shopping; probability of success; population distribution; e-business; electronic business; agent-based systems; multi-agent systems; user satisfaction; network performance; e-commerce; electronic commerce.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2005.007277

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2005 Vol.3 No.3/4, pp.339 - 355

Published online: 30 Jun 2005 *

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