Natalya Keberle

Towards a Framework for Agent-Enabled Semantic Web Service Composition

The article presents the framework for agent-enabled dynamic Web service composition. The core of the methodology is the new understanding of a Web service as an agent capability having proper ontological description. It is demonstrated how diverse Web services may be composed and mediated by dynamic coalitions of software agents collaboratively performing tasks for service requestors. Middle Agent Layer is introduced to conduct service request to task transformation, agent-enabled cooperative task decomposition and performance. Discussed are the formal means to arrange agents’ negotiation, to represent the semantic structure of the task-activity-service hierarchy and to assess fellow-agents’ capabilities and credibility factors. Finally, it is argued that the presented formal technique is applicable to various application domains. Presented is the ongoing work on designing and implementing agent-based layered architecture for intelligent rational information and document retrieval. Finally, the discussion of the OntoServ.Net framework for the development of P2P mobile service infrastructures for industrial asset management provides the extension of the Web service composition approach.

Towards Agent-Based Rational Service Composition - RACING Approach

Presented is the vision of the authors on how diverse web services may be composed, mediated by dynamic task coalitions of agents performing tasks for service requestors. The focus and the contribution of the paper is the proposal of the layered web service mediation architecture. Middle Agent Layer is introduced to conduct service request to task transformation, agent-enabled cooperative task decomposition and performance. Presented are the formal means to arrange agents’ negotiation, to represent the semantic structure of task-activity-service hierarchy and to assess fellow-agents’ capabilities and credibility factors. Finally, it is argued that the presented formal technique is applicable to various application domains. Presented is the ongoing work on building agent-based layered architecture for intelligent rational information and document retrieval mediation in frame of the RACING project.

OIL Ontologies for Collaborative Task Performance in Coalitions of Self-Interested Actors

Presented are the Task Model and the ontologies for arranging cooperative work in an open organization of intelligent agents-executives. These agents dynamically form the coalitions for collaborative task performance. Coalition formation is guided by contracting negotiation in frame of the Arrangement Phase. The role of the Task and Negotiation Ontologies is to provide the shared conceptualisation of the terms, the structures and the procedures used by agents in the processes of activity analysis, decomposition, performance and delegation. The ontologies are formalized in OIL and are translated to DAML (RDF), RDFS, SHIQ notations, thus providing the concepts in the forms of emerging service mark-up standards.

An Ontology of Environments, Events, and Happenings

The paper presents our intermediate results in ontologizing a refined formal representation of environments, events, and happenings elaborated in PSI project. This ontology is used for agent-based modeling of engineering design systems and processes. Our formal approach is inspired by discrete event calculus (DEC). In difference to DEC based on discrete linear time representation, it uses fuzzy time intervals. Our framework also refines classic event calculi approaches by introducing explicit formal representations for environments and happenings as well as drawing a clear distinction between events and atomic actions. A reduced version of PSI environment, event, and happening ontology based on crisp representation of time intervals has been implemented as an OWL-DL ontology and is used in PSI design process simulation software. Fuzzy time interval based ontology is also implemented in OWL-DL and will be used in the future software versions.

Fuzzy Time Intervals for Simulating Actions

The paper presents time-related part of PSI1 theoretical framework. In comparison to other theories of time based on interval logics our approach presents the advancement by introducing fuzziness of time intervals as transition periods at beginnings and endings. It is argued that, though quite simple (discrete, linear, and anisotropic), our theoretical model is expressive enough to be used as a logical formalism for reasoning about stochastic, unpredictable, weakly defined action and process flows. A metric and a rich set of axiomatic relationships among time intervals are introduced for that. Further on, a means for modeling and reasoning about singular, repeated, regular events and actions having phases and vague durations is elaborated. Presented theory of time is used for modeling and reasoning about events, environmental influences, happenings, and actions while planning and scheduling in our simulations of dynamic engineering design processes.

Modeling dynamic engineering design processes in PSI

One way to make engineering design effective and efficient is to make its processes flexible – i.e. self-adjusting, self-configuring, and self-optimizing at run time. This paper presents the descriptive part of the Dynamic Engineering Design Process (DEDP) modeling framework developed in the PSI project. The project aims to build a software tool to assist managers to analyze and enhance the productivity of the DEDPs through process simulations. The framework incorporates the models of teams and actors, tasks and activities as well as design artifacts as the major interrelated parts. DEDPs are modeled as weakly defined flows of tasks and atomic activities which may only “become apparent” at run time because of several presented dynamic factors. The processes are self-formed through the mechanisms of collaboration in the dynamic team of actors. These mechanisms are based on several types of contracting negotiations. DEDP productivity is assessed by the Units of Welfare collected by the multi-agent system which models the design team. The models of the framework are formalized in the family of DEDP ontologies.

Coursework Peer Reviews Increase Students' Motivation and Quality of Learning

This chapter reports about a pedagogical experiment at Zaporozhye National University (ZNU) aiming at improving students’ motivation and learning quality in our Computer Science Bachelor program. The major novelty in teaching and learning practice introduced in the experiment was the use of peer evaluation for the assessment of coursework reports in two disciplines – one in the second and the other in the fourth year of study. The results were compared to the historical data collected in the previous 3-4 years for which traditional assessment by instructors was applied. Our experiment proved that constructively exploiting students’ aspirations for informal leadership and incurred competition is effective and yields some increase in motivation to learn and learning quality. The assessments were also subjectively regarded as more clear and better justified by the students involved in the experiment. A good side effect is also that the students learn the working patterns broadly used by professionals in their field in academia and industry for making qualitative and unbiased peer evaluations.

Modeling Actions in Dynamic Engineering Design Processes

The paper presents the approach for modeling actions in the dynamic processes of engineering design in microelectronics and integrated circuits domain. It elaborates the formal framework for representing processes, the states of these processes and process environments, the actions being the constituents of the processes. Presented framework is implemented as the part of PSI suite of ontologies and is evaluated using three different methods: user evaluation, formal evaluation, and commonsense evaluation following PSI shaker modeling methodology. The suite of PSI ontologies is used for representing dynamic engineering design processes in Cadence Project Planning Expert System software prototype.