OntologyBeanGenerator 5.0: Extending ontology concepts with methods and exceptions

When modeling and implementing complex systems based on agents and artifacts, achieving semantic interoperability is not only useful, but often necessary. A commonly adopted solution to manage complex and real MASs is adopting a Model Driven methodology, which uses an ontology as the formal representation of the domain, and then exploiting some existing tool to automatically generate code for agents in the MAS, to let them interact according to the model. While this approach is satisfactorily supported when the target MAS environment is Jason, less support is provided to Jade MASs, despite Jade's large adoption for real MASs development. So, considering the great support given by the automatic code generation starting from a formal model, and the large community working on Jade MASs, in this work we present an extension of the OntologyBeanGenerator plugin for Prot\ue9g\ue9, used to generate a Java representation of an OWL ontology for Jade. We improved the OntologyBeanGenerator tool to support the modeling of exceptions, formalized at the ontology level, and of methods associated with ontology elements, to set the interface of concrete objects (artifacts) at design stage. This extension allows us to integrate in a Model Driven approach a support for the formal definition of artifacts and provide an automatic generation of Jade code/interfaces to interact with them respecting the model

Agent ontology alignment repair through dynamic epistemic logic

vandenberg2020aInternational audienceOntology alignments enable agents to communicate while preserving heterogeneity in their information. Alignments may not be provided as input and should be able to evolve when communication fails or when new information contradicting the alignment is acquired. In the Alignment Repair Game (ARG) this evolution is achieved via adaptation operators. ARG was evaluated experimentally and the experiments showed that agents converge towards successful communication and improve their alignments. However, whether the adaptation operators are formally correct, complete or redundant is still an open question. In this paper, we introduce a formal framework based on Dynamic Epistemic Logic that allows us to answer this question. This framework allows us (1) to express the ontologies and alignments used, (2) to model the ARG adaptation operators through announcements and conservative upgrades and (3) to formally establish the correctness, partial redundancy and incompleteness of the adaptation operators in ARG

Replicator-interactor in experimental cultural knowledge evolution

International audienc

Abductive Design of BDI Agent-based Digital Twins of Organizations

For a Digital Twin - a precise, virtual representation of a physical counterpart - of a human-like system to be faithful and complete, it must appeal to a notion of anthropomorphism (i.e., attributing human behaviour to non-human entities) to imitate (1) the externally visible behaviour and (2) the internal workings of that system. Although the Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) paradigm was not developed for this purpose, it has been used successfully in human modeling applications. In this sense, we introduce in this thesis the notion of abductive design of BDI agent-based Digital Twins of organizations, which builds on two powerful reasoning disciplines: reverse engineering (to recreate the visible behaviour of the target system) and goal-driven eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) (for viewing the behaviour of the target system through the lens of BDI agents). Precisely speaking, the overall problem we are trying to address in this thesis is to “Find a BDI agent program that best explains (in the sense of formal abduction) the behaviour of a target system based on its past experiences . To do so, we propose three goal-driven XAI techniques: (1) abductive design of BDI agents, (2) leveraging imperfect explanations and (3) mining belief-based explanations. The resulting approach suggests that using goal-driven XAI to generate Digital Twins of organizations in the form of BDI agents can be effective, even in a setting with limited information about the target system’s behaviour

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

A Noncoherent Governance: Tinkering with Stones in the Old City of Acre

This dissertation recounts a series of episodes in the architectural conservation of the Old City of Acre in Israel. It studies the stones and mortars, residents and inspectors, papers and computers involved in the conservation of historic buildings, highlighting the moments in which the technical details of architectural conservation entangle themselves with the administrative techniques of government authorities. I describe architectural conservation as a tentative process, one that requires the coordination of various actants into precarious associations. Here, description is important. The pages that follow experiment with an anthropological practice that writes against conclusion. This is an anthropology that refuses to privilege a knowing subject and a stable world. Instead, it opts to tinker with noncoherent forms of analysis, forms that can grapple with realities that can always be done differently

Drawn to Life: A Common Theory of Making

My research pivots around questions of making, its importance to all of life, and the challenges it faces in the contemporary world. The research is grounded in simple questions such as: what is making, what are its instruments, and can we do it on purpose? I approach these questions as if through binoculars. With one eye, I want to establish an account of making that is plain and somewhat quotidian. This will ensure the long-term viability of my study. With the other eye, I look for an account of making that is theoretically substantial and thoroughly vigorous. I apply magnification to both of these angles in order to home in on the essential features and operations of making. Though these two focal angles are arranged sequentially in the dissertation, they are conceptually reflexive. One perspective informs the other. I start with the focal chamber that is directed towards the mundane. I take the everyday concerns of “making a living” as my point of departure and treat it as my raw sample. I then examine that sample under the fourfold lens of SYSTEMATIC COMBINING. These lenses spotlight and isolate three structural principles of making. Namely, all making is comprised of agency, surface, and the process of marking. With a more formidable sample in view, I turn to the other binocular barrel and apply more levels of magnification. I look at “making a living” under the lenses of anthropology, phenomenology, and architecture. These rotating magnifications reveal three critical motifs for an account of making. Namely, making is inflected by number, touch, and repetition. Finally, I speculate about the way these binocular angles and their constituent parts are held together by controlling theoretical perspectives. I claim that most making in the modern world has been understood under the rubric of writing and has been guided by a philosophical assumption about exteriority. I assert that drawing—and its correlative assumption about interiority—can rehabilitate making and achieve the goals set out from the beginning of the dissertation. That is, drawing—both as a theory and instrument of making—elides contemporary problems whilst remaining accessible precisely because it is material, habitual, and tectonic

Cross-lingual Semantic Parsing with Categorial Grammars

Humans communicate using natural language. We need to make sure that computers can understand us so that they can act on our spoken commands or independently gain new insights from knowledge that is written down as text. A “semantic parser” is a program that translates natural-language sentences into computer commands or logical formulas–something a computer can work with. Despite much recent progress on semantic parsing, most research focuses on English, and semantic parsers for other languages cannot keep up with the developments. My thesis aims to help close this gap. It investigates “cross-lingual learning” methods by which a computer can automatically adapt a semantic parser to another language, such as Dutch. The computer learns by looking at example sentences and their translations, e.g., “She likes to read books”/”Ze leest graag boeken”. Even with many such examples, learning which word means what and how word meanings combine into sentence meanings is a challenge, because translations are rarely word-for-word. They exhibit grammatical differences and non-literalities. My thesis presents a method for tackling these challenges based on the grammar formalism Combinatory Categorial Grammar. It shows that this is a suitable formalism for this purpose, that many structural differences between sentences and their translations can be dealt with in this framework, and that a (rudimentary) semantic parser for Dutch can be learned cross-lingually based on one for English. I also investigate methods for building large corpora of texts annotated with logical formulas to further study and improve semantic parsers