Enhancing MAS environments with organizational mechanisms

Electronic version of an article published as International Journal on Arti cial Intelligence Tools Vol. 20, No. 4 (2011) 663-691. DOI10.1142/S0218213011000395 © [copyright World Scientific Publishing Company] [http://www.worldscientific.com/]This work proposes a new coordination system for the environment of a Multi-Agent System by merging the features from two important contributions to this field of research, Organizational Mechanisms and Artifacts. Organizational mechanisms can be introduced into a Multi-Agent System with the aim of influencing the behavior of agents populating it to achieve their goals in a proper way. In this paper, we propose to model organizational mechanisms by means of artifacts, which are non-proactive entities used by agents. Artifacts were presented within the Agents & Artifacts conceptual framework, and that present good advantages for coordinating agents' environments. We put forward a formal model that defines how organizational mechanisms can be designed by using artifacts theory. We validate the approach by presenting a case study focused on a real health care domain problem. Additionally, the Artifacts for Organizational Mechanisms are compared with some different proposed artifacts. © 2011 World Scientific Publishing Company.This work is supported by TIN2009-13839-C03 and PROMETEO/2008/051 projects of the Spanish government, CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 under grant CSD2007-00022, and the COST Action IC0801.Esparcia García, S.; Argente Villaplana, E.; Centeno, R.; Hermoso, R. (2011). Enhancing MAS environments with organizational mechanisms. International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools. 20(4):663-690. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218213011000395S663690204E. Argente, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 113 (IOS Press, 2004) pp. 309–316.A. Omicini, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (Springer, 2001) pp. 311–326.Parunak, H. V. D., & Weyns, D. (2006). Guest editors’ introduction, special issue on environments for multi-agent systems. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 14(1), 1-4. doi:10.1007/s10458-006-9003-4BERNON, C., COSSENTINO, M., & PAVÓN, J. (2005). Agent-oriented software engineering. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 20(2), 99-116. doi:10.1017/s0269888905000421Hübner, J. F., Boissier, O., Kitio, R., & Ricci, A. (2009). Instrumenting multi-agent organisations with organisational artifacts and agents. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 20(3), 369-400. doi:10.1007/s10458-009-9084-yVan Gigch, J. P. (1991). System Design Modeling and Metamodeling. doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-0676-2Norman, T. J., Preece, A., Chalmers, S., Jennings, N. R., Luck, M., Dang, V. D., … Fiddian, N. J. (2004). Agent-based formation of virtual organisations. Knowledge-Based Systems, 17(2-4), 103-111. doi:10.1016/j.knosys.2004.03.00

Organisational Abstractions for the Analysis and Design of Multi-Agent Systems

The architecture of a multi-agent system can naturally be viewed as a computational organisation. For this reason, we believe organisational abstractions should play a central role in the analysis and design of such systems. To this end, the concepts of agent roles and role models are increasingly being used to specify and design multi-agent systems. However, this is not the full picture. In this paper we introduce three additional organisational concepts - organisational rules, organisational structures, and organisational patterns - that we believe are necessary for the complete specification of computational organisations. We view the introduction of these concepts as a step towards a comprehensive methodology for agent-oriented systems

Challenges for adaptation in agent societies

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOIAdaptation in multiagent systems societies provides a paradigm for allowing these societies to change dynamically in order to satisfy the current requirements of the system. This support is especially required for the next generation of systems that focus on open, dynamic, and adaptive applications. In this paper, we analyze the current state of the art regarding approaches that tackle the adaptation issue in these agent societies. We survey the most relevant works up to now in order to highlight the most remarkable features according to what they support and how this support is provided. In order to compare these approaches, we also identify different characteristics of the adaptation process that are grouped in different phases. Finally, we discuss some of the most important considerations about the analyzed approaches, and we provide some interesting guidelines as open issues that should be required in future developments.This work has been partially supported by CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 under grant CSD2007-00022, the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research IC0801 AT, and projects TIN2009-13839-C03-01 and TIN2011-27652-C03-01.Alberola Oltra, JM.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; García-Fornes, A. (2014). Challenges for adaptation in agent societies. Knowledge and Information Systems. 38(1):1-34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10115-012-0565-yS134381Aamodt A, Plaza E (1994) Case-based reasoning; foundational issues, methodological variations, and system approaches. AI Commun 7(1):39–59Abdallah S, Lesser V (2007) Multiagent reinforcement learning and self-organization in a network of agents. 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Theory of deferred action: Agent-based simulation model for designing complex adaptive systems

Deferred action is the axiom that agents act in emergent organisation to achieve predetermined goals. Enabling deferred action in designed artificial complex adaptive systems like business organisations and IS is problematical. Emergence is an intractable problem for designers because it cannot be predicted. We develop proof-of-concept, conceptual proto-agent model, of emergent organisation and emergent IS to understand better design principles to enable deferred action as a mechanism for coping with emergence in artefacts. We focus on understanding the effect of emergence when designing artificial complex adaptive systems by developing an exploratory proto-agent model and evaluate its suitability for implementation as agent-based simulation

Learning in evolutionary environments

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An Abstract Formal Basis for Digital Crowds

Crowdsourcing, together with its related approaches, has become very popular in recent years. All crowdsourcing processes involve the participation of a digital crowd, a large number of people that access a single Internet platform or shared service. In this paper we explore the possibility of applying formal methods, typically used for the verification of software and hardware systems, in analysing the behaviour of a digital crowd. More precisely, we provide a formal description language for specifying digital crowds. We represent digital crowds in which the agents do not directly communicate with each other. We further show how this specification can provide the basis for sophisticated formal methods, in particular formal verification.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figure

Learning policy constraints through dialogue

Publisher PD

Choosing an organisational form: the case of collaborative procurement initiatives

This paper deals with different organisational forms of collaborative procurement and provides insight into when to use which form. Different forms from the literature are compared with empirical examples to give an overview of forms, which are then described in terms of strategy, skills and organisation. Whilst acknowledging variations, the paper distinguishes between two main forms: virtual networks and third-party organisations. Using empirical data and four theoretical perspectives (transaction cost economics, resource-based view, contingency theory, agency theory), the paper reflects on when which form can be used and presents an overall framework to help choose an organisational for