Logic-Based Specification Languages for Intelligent Software Agents

The research field of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) aims to find abstractions, languages, methodologies and toolkits for modeling, verifying, validating and prototyping complex applications conceptualized as Multiagent Systems (MASs). A very lively research sub-field studies how formal methods can be used for AOSE. This paper presents a detailed survey of six logic-based executable agent specification languages that have been chosen for their potential to be integrated in our ARPEGGIO project, an open framework for specifying and prototyping a MAS. The six languages are ConGoLog, Agent-0, the IMPACT agent programming language, DyLog, Concurrent METATEM and Ehhf. For each executable language, the logic foundations are described and an example of use is shown. A comparison of the six languages and a survey of similar approaches complete the paper, together with considerations of the advantages of using logic-based languages in MAS modeling and prototyping.Comment: 67 pages, 1 table, 1 figure. Accepted for publication by the Journal "Theory and Practice of Logic Programming", volume 4, Maurice Bruynooghe Editor-in-Chie

Proceedings of The Multi-Agent Logics, Languages, and Organisations Federated Workshops (MALLOW 2010)

http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-627/allproceedings.pdfInternational audienceMALLOW-2010 is a third edition of a series initiated in 2007 in Durham, and pursued in 2009 in Turin. The objective, as initially stated, is to "provide a venue where: the cost of participation was minimum; participants were able to attend various workshops, so fostering collaboration and cross-fertilization; there was a friendly atmosphere and plenty of time for networking, by maximizing the time participants spent together"

Smartphone chronic gaming consumption and positive coping practice

Purpose: Chronic consumption practice has been greatly accelerated by mobile, interactive and smartphone gaming technology devices. This study explores how chronic consumption of smartphone gaming produces positive coping practice. Design/methodology/approach: Underpinned by cognitive framing theory, empirical insights from eleven focus groups (n=62) reveal how smartphone gaming enhances positive coping amongst gamers and non-gamers. Findings: The findings reveal how the chronic consumption of games allows technology to act with privileged agency that resolves tensions between individuals and collectives. Consumption narratives of smartphone games, even when play is limited, lead to the identification of three cognitive frames through which positive coping processes operate: (a) the market generated frame, (b) the social being frame, and (c) the citizen frame. Research limitations/implications: This paper adds to previous research by providing an understanding of positive coping practice in the smartphone chronic gaming consumption. Originality/value: In smartphone chronic gaming consumption, cognitive frames enable positive coping by fostering appraisal capacities in which individuals confront, hegemony, culture and alterity-morality concerns

State-of-the-art on evolution and reactivity

This report starts by, in Chapter 1, outlining aspects of querying and updating resources on the Web and on the Semantic Web, including the development of query and update languages to be carried out within the Rewerse project. From this outline, it becomes clear that several existing research areas and topics are of interest for this work in Rewerse. In the remainder of this report we further present state of the art surveys in a selection of such areas and topics. More precisely: in Chapter 2 we give an overview of logics for reasoning about state change and updates; Chapter 3 is devoted to briefly describing existing update languages for the Web, and also for updating logic programs; in Chapter 4 event-condition-action rules, both in the context of active database systems and in the context of semistructured data, are surveyed; in Chapter 5 we give an overview of some relevant rule-based agents frameworks

Machine ethics via logic programming

Machine ethics is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry that emerges from the need of imbuing autonomous agents with the capacity of moral decision-making. While some approaches provide implementations in Logic Programming (LP) systems, they have not exploited LP-based reasoning features that appear essential for moral reasoning. This PhD thesis aims at investigating further the appropriateness of LP, notably a combination of LP-based reasoning features, including techniques available in LP systems, to machine ethics. Moral facets, as studied in moral philosophy and psychology, that are amenable to computational modeling are identified, and mapped to appropriate LP concepts for representing and reasoning about them. The main contributions of the thesis are twofold. First, novel approaches are proposed for employing tabling in contextual abduction and updating – individually and combined – plus a LP approach of counterfactual reasoning; the latter being implemented on top of the aforementioned combined abduction and updating technique with tabling. They are all important to model various issues of the aforementioned moral facets. Second, a variety of LP-based reasoning features are applied to model the identified moral facets, through moral examples taken off-the-shelf from the morality literature. These applications include: (1) Modeling moral permissibility according to the Doctrines of Double Effect (DDE) and Triple Effect (DTE), demonstrating deontological and utilitarian judgments via integrity constraints (in abduction) and preferences over abductive scenarios; (2) Modeling moral reasoning under uncertainty of actions, via abduction and probabilistic LP; (3) Modeling moral updating (that allows other – possibly overriding – moral rules to be adopted by an agent, on top of those it currently follows) via the integration of tabling in contextual abduction and updating; and (4) Modeling moral permissibility and its justification via counterfactuals, where counterfactuals are used for formulating DDE.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)-grant SFRH/BD/72795/2010 ; CENTRIA and DI/FCT/UNL for the supplementary fundin

The Logic of the Method of Agent-Based Simulation in the Social Sciences: Empirical and Intentional Adequacy of Computer Programs

The classical theory of computation does not represent an adequate model of reality for simulation in the social sciences. The aim of this paper is to construct a methodological perspective that is able to conciliate the formal and empirical logic of program verification in computer science, with the interpretative and multiparadigmatic logic of the social sciences. We attempt to evaluate whether social simulation implies an additional perspective about the way one can understand the concepts of program and computation. We demonstrate that the logic of social simulation implies at least two distinct types of program verifications that reflect an epistemological distinction in the kind of knowledge one can have about programs. Computer programs seem to possess a causal capability (Fetzer, 1999) and an intentional capability that scientific theories seem not to possess. This distinction is associated with two types of program verification, which we call empirical and intentional verification. We demonstrate, by this means, that computational phenomena are also intentional phenomena, and that such is particularly manifest in agent-based social simulation. Ascertaining the credibility of results in social simulation requires a focus on the identification of a new category of knowledge we can have about computer programs. This knowledge should be considered an outcome of an experimental exercise, albeit not empirical, acquired within a context of limited consensus. The perspective of intentional computation seems to be the only one possible to reflect the multiparadigmatic character of social science in terms of agent-based computational social science. We contribute, additionally, to the clarification of several questions that are found in the methodological perspectives of the discipline, such as the computational nature, the logic of program scalability, and the multiparadigmatic character of agent-based simulation in the social sciences.Computer and Social Sciences, Agent-Based Simulation, Intentional Computation, Program Verification, Intentional Verification, Scientific Knowledge

Creating Space, or Just Juggling? Exploring the Adoption of Innovation in Community Sport

Previous research into community sport organization (CSO) has focused heavily on capacity and resource deficits and the ways in which CSOs manage under these constraints. This study explores mechanisms influencing CSOs as they adopt and implement an innovation: Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD). A critical realist, extensive-intensive design spanning 36 months was used. The first, extensive phase of the study examines the contextual mechanisms influencing the approach of CSOs to adopting the LTAD innovation. Resource dependence and institutional perspectives are integrated to describe the forces acting on CSOs, how these manifest in structures, and how the structures channel the agency of CSO leaders as they work to balance resources and deliver programs. A contextual model of CSO operation under conflicting institutional logics is presented. The second, intensive phase examines the question of how CSOs plan, learn, and consolidate learning into structure as they integrate an innovation. Here, an engaged case study methodology was used to focus on the efforts of a single CSO over a one-year period as it worked to implement LTAD while managing multiple resource constraints. A learning cycle was used to explore processes of embedded agency resulting in structural change. CSOs are conceptualized as juggling resource constraints while balancing conflicting institutional logics: the communitarian logic promoted by resource controllers such as municipalities and Provincial Sport Organizations, and the individualist logic followed by CSO members. The results of the study demonstrate how CSOs compete for resources while balancing these institutional pressures and how when possible, CSOs manipulate institutional factors to gain legitimacy and contingent access to resources. In this competitive environment, LTAD represents a new institutional pressure. CSOs determine whether to adopt LTAD in part based on whether resource controllers signal that compliance will bring legitimacy and enhance resource access. When resource- controlling organizations introduce standards like LTAD intended to improve CSO program quality, the unintended result can be inter-CSO competition for legitimacy that can lead to the systematic privileging of large CSOs at the expense of smaller ones, driving professionalization and potentially increasing costs of sport participation

Learning in an Agile Setting: A Multilevel Study on the Evolution of Organizational Routines

Recognizing a serious lack of research on routinized individual actions and organizational adaptation in the stability-change paradox, we intend to provide an in-depth explanation of the way in which agile methods affect organizational learning in self-managed, team-based organizations, taking a multi-level evolutionary approach. We explore learning in agile organizations by breaking the analysis of organizational routines down into different levels \u2013 individual, team and organization \u2013 and describing the process of variation, selection and retention of routines at each level. Leveraging on multiple case studies, we discuss how team members learn and gain knowledge, from both direct and indirect experience, and analyze how teams develop conceptual frameworks and interpret those experiences. Finally, we discuss how organizational memory develops and how teams in agile organizations adapt simultaneously within an ecological structure that also comprises the changing environment. Our findings reveal substantial flaws in the capacity of agile methods to foster organizational learning

Understanding collective international opportunity recognition : Studies on Finnish SMEs exploring maritime and offshore industry markets in Norway and Russia

This doctoral research was triggered by my interest in understanding why some Finnish maritime and offshore sector SMEs engage in a joint entry to new, challenging foreign markets, such as neighbouring Norway and Russia, while others do not. On this basis, the objective of the thesis is to explore the dynamics of the collective international opportunity recognition process among Finnish maritime and offshore industry SMEs that aim at joint internationalisation. This objective is divided into the following research questions: (1) How do individual entrepreneurs recognise collective international opportunities? (2) How do several entrepreneurs together recognise collective international opportunities? (3) How does the collective international opportunity recognition process evolve over time? These questions are answered in four empirical articles that constitute the core of the thesis. The employed theoretical framework builds on three streams of literature: international opportunity recognition, mental images and sensemaking, and network interaction. The qualitative data were collected primarily via biyearly interviews from 2015 to 2017 with representatives of Finnish maritime industry SMEs exploring business opportunities in Norway and Russia. The thesis contributes particularly to the international entrepreneurship literature by providing insight into collective international opportunity recognition, a process critical to the joint internationalisation of SMEs yet highly understudied. First, by introducing mental images specific to opportunity contexts and by exploring the dynamics of auspicious and ominous sensemaking involved in an individual’s recognition of collective international opportunities, this thesis sheds light on the individual-level aspects of the phenomenon. Second, by investigating two forms of inter-firm sensemaking, that is, collective and fragmented sensemaking, the study provides insight into how multiple individuals from different firms come to recognise, together, an opportunity for joint internationalisation. Third, by building on the process-based approach, this thesis provides understanding on the temporal dynamics of collective international opportunity recognition: mental images and sensemaking processes evolve over time through various kinds of events and determine whether managers recognize opportunities for joint internationalisation in the future. In addition, this thesis provides avenues for further research and offers managerial and policy recommendations for supporting the joint internationalisation of SMEs.Tämä väitöskirjatutkimus sai alkunsa kiinnostuksestani ymmärtää miksi jotkin suomalaiset meri- ja offshore-teollisuuden pk-yritykset lähtevät yhteistyössä kansainvälistymään uusille haastaville markkinoille, kuten Norjaan ja Venäjälle, kun taas toiset eivät. Väitöskirjan tavoitteena onkin tutkia kollektiivisten kansainvälistymismahdollisuuksien tunnistamisen dynamiikkaa sellaisten suomalaisten meri- ja offshore-teollisuuden pk-yritysten keskuudessa, jotka pyrkivät kansainvälisille markkinoille yhteistyössä. Tämä tavoite jakautuu edelleen seuraaviin tutkimuskysymyksiin: (1) Miten yksittäiset yrittäjät tunnistavat yhteisen kansainvälistymisen mahdollisuuksia? (2) Miten useat yrittäjät yhdessä tunnistavat yhteisen kansainvälistymisen mahdollisuuksia? (3) Miten yhteisten kansainvälistymismahdollisuuksien tunnistaminen kehittyy ajan kuluessa? Vastaan näihin kysymyksiin neljässä empiirisessä artikkelissa, jotka muodostavat väitöskirjan ytimen. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys yhdistää elementtejä kolmesta tutkimuskirjallisuudesta, jotka ovat kansainvälisten mahdollisuuksien tunnistaminen,’mielikuvat’ (mental images) ja ’järkeistäminen’ (sensemaking), sekä vuorovaikutus yritysverkostoissa. Olen kerännyt tutkimuksen kvalitatiivisen aineiston haastattelemalla Norjan ja Venäjän liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia tutkailevien suomalaisten meriteollisuusyritysten edustajia puolivuosittain vuosina 2015–2017. Väitöskirja edistää erityisesti kansainvälisen yrittäjyyden kirjallisuutta luomalla uutta ymmärrystä kollektiivisten kansainvälisten mahdollisuuksien tunnistamisesta, joka on pk-yritysten kansainvälistymiselle kriittinen, mutta silti vielä varsin tutkimaton ilmiö. Ensinnäkin, tutkimuksen mukaan eri mahdollisuuskonteksteihin liittyvät mielikuvat sekä hyväenteinen ja pahaenteinen järkeistäminen ovat keskeisiä yksilötason elementtejä yhteisten kansainvälisten mahdollisuuksien tunnistamisessa. Toiseksi, yritystenvälisellä tasolla hajautununut ja kollektiivinen järkeistäminen puolestaan määrittävät miten useat yksilöt yhdessä tunnistavat mahdollisuuksia kansainvälistyä yhteistyössä. Kolmanneksi, tämä prosessipohjainen tutkimus avaa ilmiön ajallista dynamiikkaa; miten mielikuvat ja järkeistäminen kehittyvät erilaisten tapahtumien myötä ja vaikuttavat siihen miten johtajat tunnistavat yhteisen kansainvälistymisen mahdollisuuksia tulevaisuudessa. Tutkimus tarjoaa myös jatkotutkimusehdotuksia sekä suosituksia pk-yritysten yhteisen kansainvälistymisen tukemiseksi