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632
Agent-Oriented Software Engineering
, 1999
"... Software and knowledge... In this article, we argue that intelligent agents and agent-based systems offer novel opportunities for developing effective tools and techniques. Following a discussion on the classic subject of what makes software complex, we introduce intelligent agents as software struc ..."
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Cited by 259 (19 self)
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Software and knowledge... In this article, we argue that intelligent agents and agent-based systems offer novel opportunities for developing effective tools and techniques. Following a discussion on the classic subject of what makes software complex, we introduce intelligent agents as software structures capable of making "rational decisions". Such rational decision-makers are well-suited to the construction of certain types of software, which mainstream software engineering has had little success with. We then go on to examine a number of prototype techniques proposed for engineering agent systems, including formal specification and verification methods for agent systems, and techniques for implementing agent specifications
Towards Requirements-Driven Information Systems Engineering: The Tropos Project
- INFORMATION SYSTEMS
, 2002
"... Information systems of the future will have to perform well within ever-changing organizational environments. Unfortunately, existing software development methodologies (object-oriented, structured or otherwise) have traditionally been inspired by programming concepts, not organizational ones, leadi ..."
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Cited by 242 (48 self)
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Information systems of the future will have to perform well within ever-changing organizational environments. Unfortunately, existing software development methodologies (object-oriented, structured or otherwise) have traditionally been inspired by programming concepts, not organizational ones, leading to a semantic gap between the software system and its operational environment. To reduce this gap, we propose a software development methodology named Tropos which is founded on concepts used to model early requirements. Our proposal adopts the i* organizational modeling framework, which o#ers the notions of actor, goal and (actor) dependency, and uses these as a foundation to model early and late requirements, architectural and detailed design. The paper outlines Tropos phases through an e-business example, and sketches a formal language which underlies the methodology and is intended to support formal analysis. The methodology seems to complement well proposals for agent-oriented programming platforms.
From Agents to Organizations: An Organizational View of Multi-agent Systems
- In: LNCS n. 2935: Procs. of AOSE’03
, 2003
"... Abstract. While multi-agent systems seem to provide a good basis for building complex software systems, this paper points out some of the drawbacks of classical “agent centered ” multi-agent systems. To resolve these difficulties we claim that organization centered multi-agent system, or OCMAS for s ..."
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Cited by 158 (5 self)
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Abstract. While multi-agent systems seem to provide a good basis for building complex software systems, this paper points out some of the drawbacks of classical “agent centered ” multi-agent systems. To resolve these difficulties we claim that organization centered multi-agent system, or OCMAS for short, may be used. We propose a set of general principles from which true OCMAS may be designed. One of these principles is not to assume anything about the cognitive capabilities of agents. In order to show how OCMAS models may be designed, we propose a very concise and minimal OCMAS model called AGR, for Agent/Group/Role. We propose a set of notations and a methodological framework to help the designer to build MAS using AGR. We then show that it is possible to design multi-agent systems using only OCMAS models. 1
On agent-mediated electronic commerce
- IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
, 2003
"... Abstract—This paper surveys and analyzes the state of the art of agent-mediated electronic commerce (e-commerce), concentrating particularly on the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) aspects. From the consumer buying behavior perspective, agents are being used in the following ..."
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Cited by 111 (15 self)
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Abstract—This paper surveys and analyzes the state of the art of agent-mediated electronic commerce (e-commerce), concentrating particularly on the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) aspects. From the consumer buying behavior perspective, agents are being used in the following activities: need identification, product brokering, buyer coalition formation, merchant brokering, and negotiation. The roles of agents in B2B e-commerce are discussed through the business-to-business transaction model that identifies agents as being employed in partnership formation, brokering, and negotiation. Having identified the roles for agents in B2C and B2B e-commerce, some of the key underpinning technologies of this vision are highlighted. Finally, we conclude by discussing the future directions and potential impediments to the wide-scale adoption of agent-mediated e-commerce. Index Terms—Agent-mediated electronic commerce, intelligent agents. 1
A requirements-driven development methodology
- In Proc. of the 13th Int. Conf. On Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE’01
, 2001
"... Information systems of the future will have to better match their operational organizational environment. Unfortunately, development methodologies have traditionally been inspired by programming concepts, not organizational ones, leading to a semantic gap between the system and its environment. To r ..."
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Cited by 103 (26 self)
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Information systems of the future will have to better match their operational organizational environment. Unfortunately, development methodologies have traditionally been inspired by programming concepts, not organizational ones, leading to a semantic gap between the system and its environment. To reduce as much as possible this gap, this paper proposes a development methodology named Tropos which is founded on concepts used to model early requirements. Our proposal adopts the i* organizational modeling framework [21], which offers the notions of actor, goal and (actor) dependency, and uses these as a foundation to model early and late requirements, architectural and detailed design. The paper outlines Tropos phases through an e-business example, and sketches a formal language which underlies the methodology and is intended to support formal analysis. The methodology seems to complement well proposals for agent-oriented programming platforms.
The semantic grid: A future e-science infrastructure
, 2003
"... e-Science offers a promising vision of how computer and communication technology can support and enhance the scientific process. It does this by enabling scientists to generate, analyse, share and discuss their insights, experiments and results in an effective manner. The underlying computer infrast ..."
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Cited by 94 (6 self)
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e-Science offers a promising vision of how computer and communication technology can support and enhance the scientific process. It does this by enabling scientists to generate, analyse, share and discuss their insights, experiments and results in an effective manner. The underlying computer infrastructure that provides these facilities is commonly referred to as the Grid. At this time, there are a number of grid applications being developed and there is a whole raft of computer technologies that provide fragments of the necessary functionality. However there is currently a major gap between these endeavours and the vision of e-Science in which there is a high degree of easy-to-use and seamless automation and in which there are flexible collaborations and computations on a global scale. To bridge this practice–aspiration divide, this paper presents a research agenda whose aim is to move from the current state of the art in e-Science infrastructure, to the future infrastructure that is needed to support the full richness of the e-Science vision. Here the future e-Science research infrastructure is termed the Semantic Grid (Semantic Grid to Grid is meant to connote a similar relationship to the one that exists between the Semantic Web and the Web). In particular, we present a conceptual architecture for the Semantic Grid. This architecture adopts a service-oriented perspective in which distinct stakeholders in the scientific process, represented as software agents, provide services to one another, under various service level agreements, in various forms of marketplace. We then focus predominantly on the issues concerned with the way that knowledge is acquired and used in such environments since we believe this is the key differentiator between current grid endeavours and those envisioned for the Semantic Grid. 1.
Argumentation-based negotiation
, 2004
"... Negotiation is essential in settings where autonomous agents have conflicting interests and a desire to cooperate. For this reason, mechanisms in which agents exchange potential agreements according to various rules of interaction have become very popular in recent years as evident, for example, in ..."
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Cited by 90 (19 self)
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Negotiation is essential in settings where autonomous agents have conflicting interests and a desire to cooperate. For this reason, mechanisms in which agents exchange potential agreements according to various rules of interaction have become very popular in recent years as evident, for example, in the auction and mechanism design community. However, a growing body of research is now emerging which points out limitations in such mechanisms and advocates the idea that agents can increase the likelihood and quality of an agreement by exchanging arguments which influence each others ’ states. This community further argues that argument exchange is sometimes essential when various assumptions about agent rationality cannot be satisfied. To this end, in this article, we identify the main research motivations and ambitions behind work in the field. We then provide a conceptual framework through which we outline the core elements and features required by agents engaged in argumentation-based negotiation, as well as the environment that hosts these agents. For each of these elements, we survey and evaluate existing proposed techniques in the literature and highlight the major challenges that need to be addressed if argument-based negotiation research is to reach its full potential.
Research challenges of autonomic computing
- In Proc. of Int. Conf. on Software Eng
"... Autonomic computing is a grand-challenge vision of the future in which computing systems will manage themselves in accordance with high-level objectives specified by humans. The IT industry recognizes that meeting this challenge is imperative; otherwise, IT systems will soon become virtually impossi ..."
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Cited by 88 (0 self)
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Autonomic computing is a grand-challenge vision of the future in which computing systems will manage themselves in accordance with high-level objectives specified by humans. The IT industry recognizes that meeting this challenge is imperative; otherwise, IT systems will soon become virtually impossible to administer. But meeting this challenge is also extremely difficult, and will require a worldwide collaboration among the best minds of academia and industry. In the hope of motivating researchers in relevant areas to apply their expertise to this vitally important problem, I outline some of the main scientific and engineering challenges that collectively make up the grand challenge of autonomic computing, and
Organisational Rules as an Abstraction for the Analysis and Design of Multi-Agent Systems
, 2001
"... Multi-agent systems... In this paper we introduce three additional organisational concepts - organisational rules, organisational structures, and organisational patterns - and discuss why we believe they are necessary for the complete specification of computational organisations. In particular, we f ..."
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Cited by 85 (4 self)
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Multi-agent systems... In this paper we introduce three additional organisational concepts - organisational rules, organisational structures, and organisational patterns - and discuss why we believe they are necessary for the complete specification of computational organisations. In particular, we focus on the concept of organisational rules and introduce a formalism, based on temporal logic, to specify them. This formalism is then used to drive the definition of the organisational structure and the identification of the organisational patterns. Finally, the paper sketches some guidelines for a methodology for agent-oriented systems based on our expanded set of organisational abstractions.
Software agents
- IEE Review
, 1996
"... Building smart software that operates effectively in environments that: – Have no centralised control – Are highly interconnected – Are in constant state of flux ..."
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Cited by 82 (2 self)
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Building smart software that operates effectively in environments that: – Have no centralised control – Are highly interconnected – Are in constant state of flux
