5 research outputs found
From Procedures, Objects, Actors, Components, Services, to Agents -- A Comparative Analysis of the History and Evolution of Programming Abstractions
The objective of this chapter is to propose some retrospective analysis of
the evolution of programming abstractions, from {\em procedures}, {\em
objects}, {\em actors}, {\em components}, {\em services}, up to {\em agents},
%have some compare concepts of software component and of agent (and multi-agent
system), %The method chosen is to by replacing them within a general historical
perspective. Some common referential with three axes/dimensions is chosen: {\em
action selection} at the level of one entity, {\em coupling flexibility}
between entities, and {\em abstraction level}. We indeed may observe some
continuous quest for higher flexibility (through notions such as {\em late
binding}, or {\em reification} of {\em connections}) and higher level of {\em
abstraction}. Concepts of components, services and agents have some common
objectives (notably, {\em software modularity and reconfigurability}), with
multi-agent systems raising further concepts of {\em autonomy} and {\em
coordination}. notably through the notion of {\em auto-organization} and the
use of {\em knowledge}. We hope that this analysis helps at highlighting some
of the basic forces motivating the progress of programming abstractions and
therefore that it may provide some seeds for the reflection about future
programming abstractions.Comment: This preprint has been published as a chapter of a book about the
French school of programming, coordinated by Bertrand Meyer and published by
Springer in 202
Modeling human and organizational behavior using a relation-centric multi-agent system design paradigm
Today's modeling and simulation communities are being challenged to create rich, detailed models incorporating human decision-making and organizational behavior. Recent advances in distributed artificial intelligence and complex systems theory have demonstrated that such ill-defined problems can be effectively modeled with agent-based simulation techniques using multiple, autonomoous, adaptive entities. RELATE, a relation-centric design paradigm for multi-agent systems (MAS), is presented to assist developers incorporate MAS solutions into their simulations. RELATe focuses the designer on six key concepts of MAS simulations: relationships, environment, laws, agents, things, and effectors. A library of Java classes is presented which enables the user to rapidly prototype an agent-based simulation. This library utilizes the Java programming language to support cross-platform and web based designs. All Java classes and interfaces are fully documented using HTML Javadoc format. Two reference cases are provided that allow for easy code reuse and modification. Finally, an existing metworked DIS-Java-VRML simulation was modified to demonstrate the ability to utilize the RELATE library to add agents to existing applications. LCDR Kim Roddy focused on the development and refinement of the RELATE design paradigm, while LT Mike Dickson focused on the actual Java implementation. Joint work was conducted on all research and reference caseshttp://www.archive.org/details/modelinghumanorg00roddU.S. Navy (U.S.N.) author
Agents and Concurrent Objects
International audienceThe paper considers the main contributions of the notion of an agent and how it differs from object oriented concurrent programmin