Manuel Kolp

Agent Oriented Information Systems VIII

Modelling.- Modeling MAS Properties with MAS-ML Dynamic Diagrams.- Providing Contextual Norm Information in Open Multi-Agent Systems.- A Reputation Model Based on Testimonies.- Methodologies.- Towards Agent-Based Scenario Development for Strategic Decision Support.- Preliminary Validation of MOBMAS (Ontology-Centric Agent Oriented Methodology): Design of a Peer-to-Peer Information Sharing MAS.- A Methodology to Bring MAS to Information Systems.- On the Evaluation of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Methodologies: A Statistical Approach.- Agent-Oriented Software Engineering.- From Early to Late Requirements: A Goal-Based Approach.- A Formal Description Language for Multi-Agent Architectures.- Comparing Three Formal Analysis Approaches of the Tropos Family.- Integration of Aspects with i* Models.- Applications.- Enhancing Information Sharing Through Agents.- ToothAgent: A Multi-agent System for Virtual Communities Support.

UML for Agent-Oriented Software Development: The Tropos Proposal

We describe a software development methodology called Tropos for agent-oriented software systems. The methodology adopts the i* modeling framework [29], 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 the methodology, and shows how the concepts of Tropos can be accommodated within UML. In addition, we also adopt recent proposals for extensions of UML to support design specifications for agent software. Finally the paper compares Tropos to other research on agent-oriented software development.

Organizational patterns for early requirements analysis

Early requirements analysis is concerned with modeling and understanding the organizational context within which a software system will eventually function. This paper proposes organizational patterns motivated by organizational theories intended to facilitate the construction of organizational models. These patterns are defined from real world organizational settings, modeled in i* and formalized using the Formal Tropos language. Additionally, the paper evaluates the proposed patterns using desirable qualities such as coordinability and predictability.

Multi-Agent Architectures as Organizational Structures

A Multi-Agent System (hereafter MAS) is an organization of coordinated autonomous agents that interact in order to achieve common goals. Considering real world organizations as an metaphor, this paper proposes architectural styles for MAS which adopt concepts from organizational theories. The styles are modeled in i*/Tropos, using the notions of actor, goal and actor dependency and are intended to capture needs/wants, delegations and obligations. The proposed architectural styles are evaluated with respect to a set of software quality attributes, such as predictability and adaptability. In addition, we report on a comparative study of organizational and conventional software architectures using a mobile robot control example from the Software Engineering literature. The research reported here was conducted within the scope of the Tropos project, whose objective is to develop a comprehensive agent-oriented software development methodology.

A Goal-Based Organizational Perspective on Multi-agent Architectures

A Multi-Agent System (MAS) is an organization of coordinated autonomous agents that interact in order to achieve common goals. Considering real world organizations as an analogy, this paper proposes architectural styles for MAS which adopt concepts from organization theory and strategic alliances literature. The styles are intended to represent a macro-level architecture of a MAS, and they are modeled using the i* framework which offers the notions of actor, goal and actor dependency for modeling multi-agent settings. The styles are also specified as metaconcepts in the Telos modeling language. Moreover, each style is evaluated with respect to a set of software quality attributes, such as predictability and adaptability. The paper also explores the adoption of micro-level patterns proposed elsewhere in order to give a finer-grain description of a MAS architecture. These patterns define how goals assigned to actors participating in an organizational architecture will be fulfilled by agents. An e-business example illustrates both the styles and patterns proposed in this work. The research is being conducted within the context of Tropos, a comprehensive software development methodology for agent-oriented software.

Perspectives in Conceptual Modeling

First International Workshop on Best Practices of UML (BP-UML 2005).- Preface to BP-UML 2005.- Experience Reports and new Applications.- Current Practices in the Use of UML.- An Empirical Study of the Nesting Level of Composite States Within UML Statechart Diagrams.- Utilizing a Multimedia UML Framework for an Image Database Application.- Model Evaluation and Requirements Modeling.- Object Class or Association Class? Testing the User Effect on Cardinality Interpretation.- Organizing and Managing Use Cases.- A Comparative Analysis of Use Case Relationships.- Metamodeling and Model Driven Development.- Applying Transformations to Model Driven Development of Web Applications.- A Precise Approach for the Analysis of the UML Models Consistency.- A UML 2 Profile for Business Process Modelling.- Seventh International Bi-conference Workshop on Agent-Oriented Information Systems (AOIS-2005).- Preface to AOIS 2005.- Invited Talk.- Agent Oriented Data Integration.- Positions in Engineering Agent Oriented Systems.- AOSE and Organic Computing - How Can They Benefit from Each Other? Position Paper.- Modeling Dynamic Engineering Design Processes in PSI.- Agent Oriented Methodologies and Conceptual Modeling.- Preliminary Basis for an Ontology-Based Methodological Approach for Multi-agent Systems.- DDEMAS: A Domain Design Technique for Multi-agent Domain Engineering.- An Agent-Oriented Meta-model for Enterprise Modelling.- Agent Communication and Coordination.- An Approach to Broaden the Semantic Coverage of ACL Speech Acts.- Normative Pragmatics for Agent Communication Languages.- Experimental Comparison of Rational Choice Theory, Norm and Rights Based Multi Agent Systems.- Second International Workshop on Conceptual Modeling for Geographic Information Systems (CoMoGIS 2005).- Preface to CoMoGIS 2005.- Invited Talk.- Map Algebra Extended with Functors for Temporal Data.- Spatial and Spatio-temporal Data Representation.- A Formal Model for Representing Point Trajectories in Two-Dimensional Spaces.- A Logical Approach for Modeling Spatio-temporal Objects and Events.- Conceptual Neighbourhood Diagrams for Representing Moving Objects.- Spatial Relations.- A Refined Line-Line Spatial Relationship Model for Spatial Conflict Detection.- Assessing Topological Consistency for Collapse Operation in Generalization of Spatial Databases.- Spatial Relations for Semantic Similarity Measurement.- Spatial Queries, Analysis and Data Mining.- Approximate Continuous K Nearest Neighbor Queries for Continuous Moving Objects with Pre-defined Paths.- Spatio-temporal Similarity Analysis Between Trajectories on Road Networks.- Using Data Mining for Modeling Personalized Maps.- Data Modeling and Visualisation.- 3D Scene Modeling for Activity Detection.- SAMATS - Edge Highlighting and Intersection Rating Explained.- Applying Semantic Web Technologies for Geodata Integration and Visualization.- Sixth International Workshop on Conceptual Modeling Approaches for e-Business (eCOMO 2005).- Preface to eCOMO 2005.- Bargaining in E-Business Systems.- Conceptual Content Management for Enterprise Web Services.- Verifying Web Services Composition.- Towards Amplifying Business Process Reuse.- First International Workshop on Quality of Information Systems (QoIS 2005).- Preface to QoIS 2005.- Information System Models Quality.- Measuring the Perceived Semantic Quality of Information Models.- Situated Support for Choice of Representation for a Semantic Web Application.- Towards Systematic Model Assessment.- A Fuzzy Based Approach to Measure Completeness of an Entity-Relationship Model.- Quality Driven Processes.- Managing Information Quality in e-Science: A Case Study in Proteomics.- Tool Support and Specification Quality: Experimental Validation of an RE-Tool Evaluation Framework.- Improving Object-Oriented Micro Architectural Design Through Knowledge Systematization.- Tutorials.- Tutorial 1: eduWeaver - The Courseware Modeling Tool.- Tutorial 2: FOOM - Functional and Object Oriented Methodology: An Integrated Approach.- Tutorial 3: Domain Engineering - Using Domain Concepts to Guide Software Design.- Tutorial 4: Reasoning About Web Information Systems.- Tutorial 5: Schema and Data Translation.- Tutorial 6: Modeling and Simulation of Dynamic Engineering Design Processes.- Tutorial 7: Modeling Enterprise Applications.

Information systems as social structures

Organizations are changing at an ever-faster pace, as they try tokeep up with globalization and the information revolution.Unfortunately, information systems technologies do not supportsystem evolution well, making information systems a roadblock toorganizational change. We propose to view information systems associal structures and define methodologies which develop and evolveseamlessly an information system within its operationalenvironment. To this end, this paper proposes an ontology forinformation systems that is inspired by social and organizationalstructures. The ontology adopts components of the i*organizational modeling framework, which is founded on the notionsof actor, goal and social dependency. Socialpatterns, drawn from research on cooperative and distributedarchitectures, offer a more macroscopic level of social structuredescription. Finally, the proposed ontology includes organizationalstyles inspired from organization theory. These are used not onlyto model the overall organizational context of an informationsystem, but also its architecture. Social patterns andorganizational styles are defined in terms of configurations ofi* concepts. The research has been conducted in the contextof the Troposproject.

SketchiXML: towards a multi-agent design tool for sketching user interfaces based on USIXML

During these last years, many researchers have proposed new alternatives for early interface design based on hand-sketch. But these new alternatives seem to be dedicated to obsolescence as they only offer the possibility to generate user interfaces for a single platform in a unique language. Indeed, in a context where the number of computing-platforms and system environments is exploding, new alternatives should be considered. This paper presents an innovating alternative with SketchiXML, a multi-agent application able to handle several kinds of hand-drawn sources as input, and to provide the corresponding specification in USIXML (USer Interface eXtensible Markup Language), a platform-independent user interface description language.

Agent-Oriented Software Development

The Tropos project is developing concepts, tools and techniques for building agent-oriented software. This paper presents a quick overview of the project and then focuses on a specific problem: the identification of architectural styles for multi-agent systems (MAS). The proposed styles have been adopted from the literature on organization theory and strategic alliances. The styles are represented in i*, a framework designed to model social and intentional concepts. Each proposed style is evaluated with respect to a set of agent software qualities, such as predictability, adaptability and availability. The use of the styles is illustrated and contrasted with a software architecture for mobile robot reported in the literature.

Information systems development through social structures

Information systems for organizations such as e-business and knowledge management systems must continually evolve to adapt to their operational environment. Unfortunately, current development methodologies do not support system evolution well, making software an obstacle to organizational changes. The paper describes a framework that develops and evolves seamlessly a system-to-be within its organizational environment. We adopt a set of social structures --- organizational styles and social patterns --- based on concepts of organization theory and agent approaches, as a foundation to model early and late requirements as well as architectural and detailed design. We illustrate the use of the social structures through a case study, and we specify one of the styles in Formal Tropos language. This research has been conducted within the context of the Tropos project.