Interaction devices for coordinating cooperative distributed systems

A cooperative distributed systems approach is an appropriate design paradig m for many applications, such as manufacturing control and network manageme nt. A fundamental problem in this paradigm is how to manage the interdepend encies among the entities. The solution to this interdependency problem is called coordination. In this paper, coordination has been described in term s of structure and mechanism. This paper focuses on the mechanism aspect of the coordination. It is viewed as a composition of decision points and int eraction devices directed to deal with different aspects of the interdepend ency problem. This paper also provides a coordinated, intelligent rational agent (CIR-Agent) model for cooperative distributed systems. The structure and the architecture of the agent are based on its mental state regarding a chieving a goal. The agent's structure consists of four main components: pr oblem-solver, pre-interaction, interaction, and execution. There is no glob al control of coordination allowed in the proposed model, for which the age nts utilize different interaction devices to resolve their interdependencie s.