Kang Ning

Name: Kang Ning
Email: emukang@hotmail.com
Homepage: http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/ST/Students/KangNing

Planning

Below is my planning for the master program Software Technology.
I'm planning to follow the P-track.

2003-2004

• Software Technology Colloquium (one meeting each week during year 1 and 2)

Period 1

• Software Engineering
• Normal Functional Programming

Period 2

• Software Architecture
• Grammars and Parsing

Period 3

• Implementation of Programming Languages
• Distributed Object Systems

Period 4

• Program Verification
• Program Analysis

2004-2005

Period 1

• Networked Objects
• Software Specification

Thesis Project

Topic/Area

compilation

Project

Project title: Using mobile agents to simplify consumer electronics applications
Advisor: Philips: Leszek Holenderski, Utrecht University: Doaitse Swierstra
Start date: Nov, 2004
End date: Jun, 2005

Description

The central issue of this thesis will be the application of mobile agents for some consumer electronics applications. For example, when a person visiting his friend, he can show his friend some photos on his PDA, using his friend’s TV.

The usage languages are Tcl and Prolog. An agent is just a script in Tcl. Imagine two computers, X and Y, each running its own Tcl interpreter. X sends a script to Y, and Y simply evaluates the script. An agent moved from X to Y. Simple, isn't it? Tcl is a very high level language. The infrastructure arranges a communication between Tcl interpreters, via sockets.

This project will extend this basic idea with additional infrastructure to support not only mobile, but also intelligent agents. For this purpose it need some logical deduction engine that would perform non-trivial reasonings. A well known engine of this type is Prolog (another interpreted language). The idea is to embed Prolog in Tcl. This boils down to solving two problems: embed Prolog's syntax in Tcl's syntax and "link" Prolog interpreter to Tcl interpreter such that Tcl can use the Prolog interpreter to perform logical deductions. This sounds more serious than it really is.

The integration of Prolog with Tcl will be only presented as a particular technique used to make quick experiments with mobile agents. In addition, this thesis has to do more research on mobile agents in general, and compare various approaches used to develop such agents.

Thesis Progress

15,Nov---21,Nov

• Start my project in Philips. Get to be familiar with the new environment and colleagues
• Begin to start learning two languages: TCL and Prolog TCL official site http://www.tcl.tk/ Prolog official site http://www.swi-prolog.org Prolog Tutorial http://cs.wwc.edu/~cs_dept/KU/PR/Prolog.html
• study Building Tcl from C, and C Programming for Tcl http://www.beedub.com/book/

22,Nov---28,Nov

• Continue studying Tcl and Prolog
• Study the basic knowledge of mobile agent, read a lot of related papers

29,Nov---5,Dec

• Start writing my proposal, make the construction of proposal, and finsh the first 3 chapters
• Continue reading papers of mobile agents

6,Dec---12,Dec

• Continue writing my proposal
• Research different available mobile agents

13,Dec---18,Dec

• Finish all chapters of my proposal
• Define the CE applications of my project
• Make the comparasion work of different existing mobile agents

19,Dec---25,Dec

• Rectify some errors and structures of my proposal, hand it to my supervisors

26,Dec---2,Jan

• Research different prolog compilers which have Tcl/Tk interface, including SWI prolog, Sicstus prolog, Bin prolog, Ciao prolog.
• Study the interface of Sicstus prolog, and try all the interface example programs, also write some simple programs which load Tcl in prolog

3,Jan---9,Jan

• Research the construction and source code of some mobile agents systems which support Tcl, including D’agent (agent Tcl) and TACOMA. Also some mobile agents systems which support prolog, including OAA (http://www.ai.sri.com/~oaa/) and IMAGO (http://draco.cis.uoguelph.ca/main.html).
• Do some research work of Tcl/Tk version which support WinCE? (http://wiki.tcl.tk/2946)
• Solve the problem of access prolog from tcl
• Install tcl and prolog into windows CE

10,Jan---16,Jan

• Write a simple mobile agent program
• Reconstructed the mobile agent source code, redesigned the GUI of server

17,Jan---23,Jan

• Get rid off some bugs of the program
• Design the software architecture of the mobile agent and demonstration

24,Jan---30,Jan

• Write the software architecture of the mobile agent and demonstration
• Try again with the socket communication on WinCE?

31,Jan---6,Feb

• Start the program work of module in Remote control
• Finish the embryo module of photo show and play music
• Finish the embryo module of chat
• Finish the embryo module of exchange media

7,Feb---13,Feb

• improve the module of exchange media
• continue the program work of module in Remote control
• change the showing device function
• Thinking about how to realize the whole demo on computer

14,Feb---20,Feb

• reconstructe the program, now all the program information will saved in the remote side
• suppport the multiple files transfer function, add the tooltip function
• change the showing device function
• finish the scenario of picture slide show

21,Feb---27,Feb

• Add the function to record and analysis friends’ hobby
• Add the function to read windows registry, so that it can know which program is the default program to play the specific file
• Research the wireless positioning method
• Research the prolog usage in the area of consumer electronics

28,Feb---6,Mar

• Finish the remote mp3 statistics module
• Finish the CD gift module
• Research freeDB.org and some other sites to find CD database interface
• Research the Bayesian Inference in the usage of prolog module

7,Mar---13,Mar

• Write the function to analysis and select the gift CD using Prolog
• Add some functions to tcl-prolog interface
• Rectify some bugs
• Research the expert system usage in my system