67,846 research outputs found
Open Programming Language Interpreters
Context: This paper presents the concept of open programming language
interpreters and the implementation of a framework-level metaobject protocol
(MOP) to support them. Inquiry: We address the problem of dynamic interpreter
adaptation to tailor the interpreter's behavior on the task to be solved and to
introduce new features to fulfill unforeseen requirements. Many languages
provide a MOP that to some degree supports reflection. However, MOPs are
typically language-specific, their reflective functionality is often
restricted, and the adaptation and application logic are often mixed which
hardens the understanding and maintenance of the source code. Our system
overcomes these limitations. Approach: We designed and implemented a system to
support open programming language interpreters. The prototype implementation is
integrated in the Neverlang framework. The system exposes the structure,
behavior and the runtime state of any Neverlang-based interpreter with the
ability to modify it. Knowledge: Our system provides a complete control over
interpreter's structure, behavior and its runtime state. The approach is
applicable to every Neverlang-based interpreter. Adaptation code can
potentially be reused across different language implementations. Grounding:
Having a prototype implementation we focused on feasibility evaluation. The
paper shows that our approach well addresses problems commonly found in the
research literature. We have a demonstrative video and examples that illustrate
our approach on dynamic software adaptation, aspect-oriented programming,
debugging and context-aware interpreters. Importance: To our knowledge, our
paper presents the first reflective approach targeting a general framework for
language development. Our system provides full reflective support for free to
any Neverlang-based interpreter. We are not aware of any prior application of
open implementations to programming language interpreters in the sense defined
in this paper. Rather than substituting other approaches, we believe our system
can be used as a complementary technique in situations where other approaches
present serious limitations
Intelligent agent for formal modelling of temporal multi-agent systems
Software systems are becoming complex and dynamic with the passage of time, and to provide better fault tolerance and resource management they need to have the ability of self-adaptation. Multi-agent systems paradigm is an active area of research for modeling real-time systems. In this research, we have proposed a new agent named SA-ARTIS-agent, which is designed to work in hard real-time temporal constraints with the ability of self-adaptation. This agent can be used for the formal modeling of any self-adaptive real-time multi-agent system. Our agent integrates the MAPE-K feedback loop with ARTIS agent for the provision of self-adaptation. For an unambiguous description, we formally specify our SA-ARTIS-agent using Time-Communicating Object-Z (TCOZ) language. The objective of this research is to provide an intelligent agent with self-adaptive abilities for the execution of tasks with temporal constraints. Previous works in this domain have used Z language which is not expressive to model the distributed communication process of agents. The novelty of our work is that we specified the non-terminating behavior of agents using active class concept of TCOZ and expressed the distributed communication among agents. For communication between active entities, channel communication mechanism of TCOZ is utilized. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed agent using a real-time case study of traffic monitoring system
Frameworks: the future of formal software development?
It could be argued that the primary issue to be dealt with in software engineering today is re-use of software. Current software development rarely, if ever, starts from nothing. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the development of specifications. To overcome this problem, various works have attempted to show how specifications can be built using architectural principles. We discuss one such approach in particular, the Architectural Semantics of Open Distributed Processing. We show the limitations of this work with regard to the architecting of specifications and propose a new approach, based on frameworks. To highlight the approach we use the work currently being done in the TOSCA project in its development of a service creation and validation environment for telecommunication services
Multi-agent systems for power engineering applications - part 2 : Technologies, standards and tools for building multi-agent systems
This is the second part of a 2-part paper that has arisen from the work of the IEEE Power Engineering Society's Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) Working Group. Part 1 of the paper examined the potential value of MAS technology to the power industry, described fundamental concepts and approaches within the field of multi-agent systems that are appropriate to power engineering applications, and presented a comprehensive review of the power engineering applications for which MAS are being investigated. It also defined the technical issues which must be addressed in order to accelerate and facilitate the uptake of the technology within the power and energy sector. Part 2 of the paper explores the decisions inherent in engineering multi-agent systems for applications in the power and energy sector and offers guidance and recommendations on how MAS can be designed and implemented. Given the significant and growing interest in this field, it is imperative that the power engineering community considers the standards, tools, supporting technologies and design methodologies available to those wishing to implement a MAS solution for a power engineering problem. The paper describes the various options available and makes recommendations on best practice. It also describes the problem of interoperability between different multi-agent systems and proposes how this may be tackled
Policy based roles for distributed systems security
Distributed systems are increasingly being used in commercial environments necessitating the development of trustworthy and reliable security mechanisms. There is often no clear informal or formal specification of enterprise authorisation policies and no tools to translate policy specifications to access control implementation mechanisms such as capabilities or Access Control Lists. It is thus difficult to analyse the policy to detect conflicts or flaws and it is difficult to verify that the implementation corresponds to the policy specification. We present in this paper a framework for the specification of management policies. We are concerned with two types of policies: obligations which specify what activities a manager or agent must or must not perform on a set of target objects and authorisations which specify what activities a subject (manager or agent) can or can not perform on the set of target objects. Management policies are then grouped into roles reflecting the organisation..
Natural Language Dialogue Service for Appointment Scheduling Agents
Appointment scheduling is a problem faced daily by many individuals and
organizations. Cooperating agent systems have been developed to partially
automate this task. In order to extend the circle of participants as far as
possible we advocate the use of natural language transmitted by e-mail. We
describe COSMA, a fully implemented German language server for existing
appointment scheduling agent systems. COSMA can cope with multiple dialogues in
parallel, and accounts for differences in dialogue behaviour between human and
machine agents. NL coverage of the sublanguage is achieved through both
corpus-based grammar development and the use of message extraction techniques.Comment: 8 or 9 pages, LaTeX; uses aclap.sty, epsf.te
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