SciAgents-an agent based environment for distributed, cooperative scientific computing

Problem solving using complex mathematical models of physical phenomena requires expert knowledge in a variety of fields of computer science, such as parallel computing and numerical methods. SciAgents is a problem-solving environment to allow these models to become truly easy to use for the application scientists, much like PC-based systems. It is based on the agent-oriented model of computing. In this paper, we discuss the design and architecture of SciAgents in the context of models based on partial differential equations. We present a set of artificial/computational intelligence techniques used by the cooperating agents that constitute SciAgents, which allows them to complete the program specification and to carry out the program execution with minimal need for user intervention. SciAgents permits the non-expert user to cost-effectively and easily develop software for solving complex mathematical models. It is scalable and allows for extensive reuse of existing software.