Software Engineering for Multi-Agent Systems II. Research Issues and Practical Applications

✍ Scribed by Carlos Lucena, Alessandro Garcia, Alexander Romanovsky, Jaelson Castro, Paulo S.C. Alencar

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 291
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book presents a coherent and well-balanced survey of recent advances in software engineering approaches to the development of realistic multi-agent systems (MAS). In it, the concept of agent-based software engineering is demonstrated through examples that are relevant to and representative of real-world applications. The 15 thoroughly reviewed and revised full papers are organized in topical sections on requirements engineering, software architecture and design, modeling, dependability, and MAS frameworks. Most of the papers were initially presented at the Second International Workshop on Software Engineering for Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systems, SELMAS 2003, held in Portland, Oregon, USA, in May 2003; three papers were added in order to complete the coverage of the relevant topics.

✦ Table of Contents

Title......Page 3
Preface......Page 5
Evaluation and Program Committee......Page 9
Table of Contents......Page 11
1 Introduction......Page 13
2 Introduction to REF......Page 14
2.1 The Case Study: ERMS......Page 15
2.2 REF Background......Page 20
3 Improving REF Analysis Capability......Page 22
3.1 Sharing Goals (Tasks, Constraints, ...)......Page 23
4 Conclusions......Page 27
References......Page 29
1 Introduction......Page 31
2.1 Ontology Implementation Languages......Page 32
3 Language Extended Lexicon......Page 35
4 Lexicon Based Ontology Construction Process......Page 37
5 The Meeting Scheduler Ontology: An Example......Page 39
6 Conclusion......Page 44
References......Page 45
1 Introduction......Page 47
2 Tropos Methodology......Page 48
3 Criticality and Complexity......Page 50
3.1 Security Criticality......Page 51
3.2 Security Complexity......Page 52
3.3 An Example......Page 53
4 Conclusions......Page 58
References......Page 59
1 Introduction......Page 61
2 The Investigated Techniques......Page 63
2.1 Pattern-Oriented Development......Page 64
3.1 The Methodology......Page 65
3.4 The MAS Project......Page 66
3.5 The Subjects and Study Phases......Page 68
4.1 The Quality Model......Page 69
4.1.1 The Qualities and Factors......Page 70
4.1.2 The Metrics......Page 71
4.2 The Reuse and Evolution Scenarios......Page 72
5.1.1 Results of the Size Metrics......Page 73
5.1.2 Results of the Coupling and Cohesion Metrics......Page 75
5.2 The MAS Evolution and Reuse Phase......Page 76
6 Discussion and Related Work......Page 78
6.2 Agents vs. Objects......Page 79
6.3 Threats to Validity and Related Work......Page 80
7 Conclusions and Ongoing Work......Page 81
References......Page 82
1 Introduction......Page 85
2 Developing MAS as Computational Organizations......Page 86
2.1 Towards an Architectural Vision of Multi-agent Design......Page 87
3 Object-Oriented Materialization of Architectures Using Proto-frameworks......Page 88
3.1 Outline of the Materialization Process......Page 89
3.2 Adding Support for Organizational Structures......Page 90
4 The {\it Bubble} Architectural Model and Its Proto-framework......Page 91
4.1 Mapping to MAS Organizations......Page 93
5 Case-Study: A MAS for Enterprise Quality Management......Page 94
5.1 Overview of the {\it InQuality} Architecture......Page 95
5.2 Incorporating Workflow Agents in {\it InQuality}......Page 96
5.3 Lessons Learned......Page 99
6 Related Work......Page 100
7 Conclusions and Future Work......Page 101
References......Page 102
1 Introduction......Page 104
2 Related Work......Page 105
4 Composition of Roles......Page 106
4.2 A Basic Taxonomy for Role Composition......Page 107
5.1 Static Composition......Page 108
5.2 Adaptive Composition......Page 112
5.3 Dynamic Composition......Page 116
6 Hierarchical Composition of Roles......Page 118
7 Conclusion and Future Work......Page 119
References......Page 121
1 Introduction......Page 123
3 Overview of the WARP Approach......Page 125
4 Agent-Based SCW Software Process......Page 126
5 Object-Oriented Modeling for the SCW Environment......Page 127
5.1 Service Discovery and Service Capturing......Page 128
5.2 Process Modeling......Page 129
5.4 Agent Self-configuration and Deployment......Page 133
6 Composition in the Travel Domain: A Workflow Modeling Example......Page 134
6.1 Concrete Service Information and Mapping to WARP Data Entities......Page 135
7 The WARP Prototype......Page 136
8 Discussion......Page 138
References......Page 139
1 Introduction......Page 141
2.1 TAO Static Aspects......Page 142
2.2 TAO Dynamic Aspects......Page 144
3.1 MAS-ML Static Aspects......Page 145
3.2 MAS-ML Dynamic Aspects......Page 146
4.1 Organization and Role Diagrams......Page 147
4.3 Sequence Diagram......Page 148
5.1 Static Diagrams......Page 149
5.2 Dynamic Diagrams......Page 155
6 Related Work......Page 157
7 Conclusions and Ongoing Work......Page 158
References......Page 160
1 Introduction......Page 161
2.1 Methods of Implementing Mutability in Agents......Page 162
2.3 Multiplane State Machine Framework......Page 164
2.4 The Blueprint Agent Description Language. Mutability Support......Page 165
3 The Software Engineering Perspective of Adaptive Agents......Page 168
3.1 Adding New Functionality to the Agent......Page 169
3.2 Removing Functionality from an Agent......Page 171
3.3 Adapting an Agent to New Requirements......Page 173
3.4 Splitting and Merging Agents......Page 174
4 Summary......Page 175
References......Page 176
1 Introduction......Page 179
2.1 Exception Handling......Page 180
2.2 Agent Paradigm......Page 181
3.1 Preservation of the Agent Paradigm......Page 182
3.2 Cooperative Concurrency Support......Page 184
4.1 An Execution Model That Allows Concurrent Activity Coordination......Page 186
4.2 An Exception Handling System Dedicated to MASs......Page 189
5.1 Communication......Page 193
5.4 Broadcasting......Page 194
6.1 Definition of the Agents of the Travel Agency Example......Page 195
6.3 Termination......Page 196
7 Conclusion and Future Work......Page 197
References......Page 198
1 Introduction......Page 201
2 On the Nature of Management in Open Multi-agent Systems: An Example......Page 203
3.1 On the Nature of LGI Laws and Their Decentralized Enforcement......Page 204
3.3 The Deployment of LGI......Page 206
4 Providing for Monitoring and Steering of a Buying Team......Page 207
5 Recovering from Unexpected Failures of a Manager......Page 212
6 Related Work......Page 216
References......Page 217
1 Introduction......Page 219
2 Security in Mobile Agent Platforms......Page 220
3 SPKI/SDSI Infrastructure......Page 221
4.1 Platform Federations......Page 222
4.2 Authentication and Authorization Scheme......Page 223
5 Implementation of the Proposed Scheme......Page 228
5.3 Generation of Protection Domains......Page 229
6 Integration of the Prototype to a Distributed Application......Page 231
7 Related Work......Page 233
8 Concluding Remarks......Page 234
References......Page 235
1 Introduction......Page 237
2 Overview......Page 239
3 Architecture......Page 240
3.1 Control Flow......Page 242
3.2 Data Flow......Page 243
3.4 Scalability......Page 245
3.5 Coherency......Page 247
4.1 Distributed Resource Allocation......Page 248
4.3 Learning Evaluation......Page 250
5.1 MACE3J......Page 251
5.4 MASS......Page 252
6 Summary......Page 253
1 Introduction......Page 255
2 Background and Motivations......Page 256
3 A Survey of Existing Approaches......Page 259
4 The BRAIN Framework......Page 260
4.1 BRAIN Model and Notation......Page 261
4.2 BRAIN Interaction Infrastructures......Page 262
5 An Application Example......Page 264
5.1 Application Code......Page 268
6 Conclusions......Page 272
References......Page 273
1 Introduction......Page 276
2.1 Aglets......Page 277
2.2 Cougaar......Page 278
2.3 Adaptive Agent Architecture (AAA)......Page 279
3 Test Scenario and Process......Page 280
4.1 Cougaar Architecture......Page 282
4.2 AAA Architecture......Page 283
4.3 Aglets Architecture......Page 284
5.1 Technology Evaluation......Page 285
6 Related Work......Page 288
7 Conclusions and Further Work......Page 289
References......Page 290