1,721,030 research outputs found
Multi-Agent Abstractions and Organizations and the i* Framework
No full texti* is one of the more promising goal-oriented modeling framework tocapture and model multi agent systems (MAS) requirements. Moreover, i* has beenincorporated as the foundation for one of the more important AOSE methodologies,that is, Tropos. Our research interests related with i* cover two mainly directions. Thefirst, is to compare i* with other methods, techniques and notations for capturing andmodeling MAS abstractions. The second is related to the computational organizationtheory to model the organizational perspective of the MAS. Specifically, we areanalyzing the critical issue of coping with adaptive changes of MAS organizationswhenever circumstances claim for changes in the very MAS structure. Then, we aresurveying different relevant AOSE methodologies, Tropos (and therefore i*) amongothers, to discuss their suitability in dealing with adaptation in MAS organizations
Profile based comparative analysis for AOSE methodologies evaluation
No full textThis study focuses on the analysis and evaluation of agent-oriented methodologies. Different studies have been proposed for the evaluation of agent-oriented methodologies adopting specifics types of evaluation and criteria. The present work proposes to adopt the Profile Analysis technique for comparing evaluations carried out by different authors (perhaps using different evaluation frameworks) with the aim of improving the acceptability of agent-oriented methodologies evaluation in the agent community. To exemplify the proposal, we present the application of the Profile Analysis technique on a case study
Dealing with Adaptive Multiagent Organizations in the Gaia Methodology
No full textChanges and adaptations are always necessary after the deployment of a multiagent system (MAS), as well as of any other type of software systems. Some of these changes may be simply perfective and have local impact only. However, adaptive changes to meet changed situations in the operational environment of the MAS may have global impact on the overall design. In this paper, we analyze the issue of continuous design change/adaptation in a MAS organization, and the specific problem of how to properly model/design a MAS so as to make it ready to adaptation. Following, the paper focuses on the Gaia methodology and analyzes – also with the help of an illustrative example – its suitability in supporting and facilitating adaptive changes in MASs organizations, and its advantages and limitations with this regard over a number of different agent-oriented methodologies
GAIA4E: A Tool Supporting the Design of MAS Using Gaia
No full textDifferent efforts have been devoted to improve the original version of Gaia methodology. The more relevantis the official extension of Gaia, exploiting the organizational abstractions to provide clear guidelines for theanalysis and design of complex and open multiagent systems. However, now a day a successful designmethodology should include some other strategic factors like the support of a specific CASE tool tosimplify the work of the designer. Such a tool supporting the Gaia design process may facilitate theadoption of the methodology in the industrial arena. The present study introduces Gaia4E, a plug-in for theECLIPSE environment which covers all the phases of Gaia allowing agent engineers to produce anddocument the corresponding models
On the (in)effectiveness of the Share/Tweet button: A study in the context of idea management for civic participation
Get PDFIdea Management in Social Networks: A Study of how to Tap into the Ideas of Facebook Communities
Get PDFOnline Idea Management for Civic Engagement: A Study on the Benefits of Integration with Social Networking
No full textIdea Management (IM) has increasingly been adopted in the civic domain as a tool to engage the citizenry in processes oriented toward innovating plans, policies, and services. While Idea Management Systems (IMSs), the software systems that instrument IM, definitely help manage this practice, they require citizens to be committed to a separate virtual space for which they need to register, they must learn how to operate it, and they must return to it frequently. This article presents an approach that integrates IMS with today’s most popular digital spaces of participation, the social networking sites, thus enabling citizens to engage in IM processes using ordinary tools and without having to step outside their daily habits. Our goal is to reach out and pull into IM those large and demographically diverse sectors of the society that are already present and participating in social networking sites. Through a real case study of IM in the public sector that mixed both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, our proposal demonstrates a promising approach to reduce the barriers of participation. We conclude with an analysis of the strengths and limitations of our proposal
Process Models for Agent-based Development
No full textA great deal of researches in the area of agent-oriented software engineering focuses on proposing methodologies for agent systems, i.e., on identifying the guidelines to drive the various phases of agent-based software development and the abstractions to be exploited in these phases. However, very little attention has been paid so far to the basic issue of engineering the process subjacent the development activity, i.e., of disciplining the execution of the different phases involved in the software lifecycle. In this paper, we focus on process models for software development and put these in relations with current researches in agent-oriented software engineering. First, we introduce the key concepts and issues related to software processes and present the various process models currently adopted in mainstream software engineering. Then, we survey the characteristics of a number of agent-oriented methodologies, as they pertain to software processes. In particular, for each methodology, we analyze which process model it (often implicitly) underlies and which phases of the process are covered by it, thus enabling us to identify some key limitations of currently methodology-centered researches. On this base, we eventually identify and analyze several open issues in the area of process models for agent-based development, calling for further researches and experiences. KEYWORDS: Agent-based Computing, Software Engineering, Methodologies, Process Models. 1
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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