Designing community care systems with AUML

This paper describes an approach to developing an appropriate agent environment appropriate for use in community care applications. Key to its success is that software designers collaborate with environment builders to provide the levels of cooperation and support required within an integrated agent–oriented community system. Agent-oriented Unified Modeling Language (AUML) is a practical approach to the analysis, design, implementation and management of such an agent-based system, whilst providing the power and expressiveness necessary to support the specification, design and organization of a health care service. The background of an agent-based community care application to support the elderly is described. Our approach to building agent–oriented software development solutions emphasizes the importance of AUML as a fundamental initial step in producing more general agent–based architectures. This approach aims to present an effective methodology for an agent software development process using a service oriented approach, by addressing the agent decomposition, abstraction, and organization characteristics, whilst reducing its complexity by exploiting AUML’s productivity potential. </p

Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

Methodologies for self-organising systems:a SPEM approach

We define ’SPEM fragments’ of five methods for developing self-organising multi-agent systems. Self-organising traffic lights controllers provide an application scenario

Agent-oriented Modeling for Collaborative Learning Environments: A Peer-to-Peer Helpdesk Case Study

In this paper, we present the analysis and modelling of Help&Learn, an agent-based peer-to-peer helpdesk system to support extra-class interactions among students and teachers. Help&Learn expands the student’s possibility of solving problems, getting involved in a cooperative learning experience that transcends the limits of classrooms. To model Help&Learn, we have used Agent-Object-Relationship Modeling Language (AORML), an UML extension for agent-oriented information systems modeling. The aim of this research is two-fold. On one hand, we aim at modeling the variety of roles and the complexity of their interactions and activities within the Help&Learn system. On the other hand, we aim at showing the expressive power and the modeling strengths of AORML

A MDE-Based Approach for Developing Multi-Agent Systems

This paper focuses on the development of multi-agent systems based on a model driven engineering approach. Our goal is to cope with the traceability between design and implementation models and with the always changing characteristics of such systems

Variable time scales, agent-based models, and role-playing games: The PIEPLUE river basin management game

This article presents a specific association of a role-playing game (RPG) and an agent-based model (ABM) aimed at dealing with a large range of time scales. Applications to the field of natural resource management lead one to consider the short time scale of resource use in practice at the same time as the longer ones related to resource dynamics or actors' investments. In their daily practice, stakeholders are translating their long-term strategies, a translation that is contextualized and combined with some cooccurring events. Long-term thinking is required for sustainable use of natural resources, but it should take into account its necessary adaptation on a short time scale. This raises the necessity for tools able to tackle jointly these various time scales. The similarity of architecture between computerized ABMs and RPGs makes them easy to associate in a hybrid tool, targeted at meeting this requirement. The proposition of this article is to allocate the representation of short time scales to computerized ABMs and the long ones to RPGs, while keeping the same static structural conceptual model, shared as a common root by both. This synergy is illustrated with PIEPLUE, an interactive setting tackling water-sharing issues.GESTION DE L'EAU;BASSIN VERSANT;RESSOURCE NATURELLE;MODELE;JEU DE ROLE;SYSTEME MULTIAGENTS;AGENT-BASED MODEL;CASE STUDY OF WATER SHARING;CONCEPTUAL MODEL;HYBRID TOOL;INVESTMENTS;LONG-TERM ISSUES;NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT;PIEPLUE;PARTICIPATORY MODELING;RESOURCE DYNAMICS;RESOURCE USE;ROLE-PLAYING GAME;STAKEHOLDERS;SUSTAINABLE USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES;TIME-SCALE DIVERSITY;VARIABLE TIME SCALES;WATER MANAGEMENT