A Generic Framework for the Engineering of Self-Adaptive and Self-Organising Systems

This paper provides a unifying view for the engineering of self-adaptive (SA) and self-organising (SO) systems. We first identify requirements for designing and building trustworthy self-adaptive and self-organising systems. Second, we propose a generic framework combining design-time and run-time features, which permit the definition and analysis at design-time of mechanisms that both ensure and constrain the run-time behaviour of an SA or SO system, thereby providing some assurance of its self-* capabilities. We show how this framework applies to both an SA and an SO system, and discuss several current proof-of-concept studies on the enabling technologies

A Factory-based Approach to Support E-commerce Agent Fabrication

With the development of Internet computing and software agent technologies, agent-based e-commerce is emerging. How to create agents for e-commerce applications has become an important issue along the way to success. We propose a factory-based approach to support agent fabrication in e-commerce and elaborate a design based on the SAFER (Secure Agent Fabrication, Evolution & Roaming) framework. The details of agent fabrication, modular agent structure, agent life cycle, as well as advantages of agent fabrication are presented. Product-brokering agent is employed as a practical agent type to demonstrate our design and Java-based implementation

Separating Agent-Functioning and Inter-Agent Coordination by Activated Modules: The DECOMAS Architecture

The embedding of self-organizing inter-agent processes in distributed software applications enables the decentralized coordination system elements, solely based on concerted, localized interactions. The separation and encapsulation of the activities that are conceptually related to the coordination, is a crucial concern for systematic development practices in order to prepare the reuse and systematic integration of coordination processes in software systems. Here, we discuss a programming model that is based on the externalization of processes prescriptions and their embedding in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). One fundamental design concern for a corresponding execution middleware is the minimal-invasive augmentation of the activities that affect coordination. This design challenge is approached by the activation of agent modules. Modules are converted to software elements that reason about and modify their host agent. We discuss and formalize this extension within the context of a generic coordination architecture and exemplify the proposed programming model with the decentralized management of (web) service infrastructures

Modular Design Patterns for Hybrid Learning and Reasoning Systems: a taxonomy, patterns and use cases

The unification of statistical (data-driven) and symbolic (knowledge-driven) methods is widely recognised as one of the key challenges of modern AI. Recent years have seen large number of publications on such hybrid neuro-symbolic AI systems. That rapidly growing literature is highly diverse and mostly empirical, and is lacking a unifying view of the large variety of these hybrid systems. In this paper we analyse a large body of recent literature and we propose a set of modular design patterns for such hybrid, neuro-symbolic systems. We are able to describe the architecture of a very large number of hybrid systems by composing only a small set of elementary patterns as building blocks. The main contributions of this paper are: 1) a taxonomically organised vocabulary to describe both processes and data structures used in hybrid systems; 2) a set of 15+ design patterns for hybrid AI systems, organised in a set of elementary patterns and a set of compositional patterns; 3) an application of these design patterns in two realistic use-cases for hybrid AI systems. Our patterns reveal similarities between systems that were not recognised until now. Finally, our design patterns extend and refine Kautz' earlier attempt at categorising neuro-symbolic architectures.Comment: 20 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in the International Journal of Applied Intelligenc

Enabling SAML for dynamic identity federation management

Proceedings of: The Second IFIP WG 6.8 Joint Conference, WMNC 2009, Gdansk, Poland, September 9-11, 2009Federation in identity management has emerged as a key concept for reducing complexity in the companies and offering an improved user experience when accessing services. In this sense, the process of trust establishment is fundamental to allow rapid and seamless interaction between different trust domains. However, the problem of establishing identity federations in dynamic and open environments that form part of Next Generation Networks (NGNs), where it is desirable to speed up the processes of service provisioning and deprovisioning, has not been fully addressed. This paper analyzes the underlying trust mechanisms of the existing frameworks for federated identity management and its suitability to be applied in the mentioned environments. This analysis is mainly focused on the Single Sign On (SSO) profile. We propose a generic extension for the SAML standard in order to facilitate the creation of federation relationships in a dynamic way between prior unknown parties. Finally, we give some details of implementation and compatibility issues

OpenKnowledge at work: exploring centralized and decentralized information gathering in emergency contexts

Real-world experience teaches us that to manage emergencies, efficient crisis response coordination is crucial; ICT infrastructures are effective in supporting the people involved in such contexts, by supporting effective ways of interaction. They also should provide innovative means of communication and information management. At present, centralized architectures are mostly used for this purpose; however, alternative infrastructures based on the use of distributed information sources, are currently being explored, studied and analyzed. This paper aims at investigating the capability of a novel approach (developed within the European project OpenKnowledge1) to support centralized as well as decentralized architectures for information gathering. For this purpose we developed an agent-based e-Response simulation environment fully integrated with the OpenKnowledge infrastructure and through which existing emergency plans are modelled and simulated. Preliminary results show the OpenKnowledge capability of supporting the two afore-mentioned architectures and, under ideal assumptions, a comparable performance in both cases

Modelling and analyzing adaptive self-assembling strategies with Maude

Building adaptive systems with predictable emergent behavior is a challenging task and it is becoming a critical need. The research community has accepted the challenge by introducing approaches of various nature: from software architectures, to programming paradigms, to analysis techniques. We recently proposed a conceptual framework for adaptation centered around the role of control data. In this paper we show that it can be naturally realized in a reflective logical language like Maude by using the Reflective Russian Dolls model. Moreover, we exploit this model to specify, validate and analyse a prominent example of adaptive system: robot swarms equipped with self-assembly strategies. The analysis exploits the statistical model checker PVeStA