Risk management in intelligent agents

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.This thesis presents the development of a generalised risk analysis, modelling and management framework for intelligent agents based on the state-of-art techniques from knowledge representation and uncertainty management in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Assessment and management of risk are well established common practices in human society. However, formal recognition and treatment of risk are not usually considered in the design and implementation of (most existing) intelligent agents and information systems. This thesis aims to fill this gap and improve the overall performance of an intelligent agent. By providing a formal framework that can be easily implemented in practice, my work enables an agent to assess and manage relevant domain risks in a consistent, systematic and intelligent manner. In this thesis, I canvas a wide range of theories and techniques in AI research that deal with uncertainty representation and management. I formulated a generalised concept of risk for intelligent agents and developed formal qualitative and quantitative representations of risk based on the Possible Worlds paradigm. By adapting a selection of mature knowledge modelling and reasoning techniques, I develop a qualitative and a quantitative approach of modelling domains for risk assessment and management. Both approaches are developed under the same theoretical assumptions and use the same domain analysis procedure; both share a similar iterative process to maintain and improve domain knowledge base continuously over time. Most importantly, the knowledge modelling and reasoning techniques used in both approaches share the same underlying paradigm of Possible Worlds. The close connection between the two risk modelling and reasoning approaches leads us to combine them into a hybrid, multi-level, iterative risk modelling and management framework for intelligent agents, or HiRMA, that is generalised for risk modelling and management in many disparate problem domains and environments. Finally, I provide a top-level guide on how HiRMA can be implemented in a practical domain and a software architecture for such an implementation. My work lays a solid foundation for building better decision support tools (with respect to risk management) that can be integrated into existing or future intelligent agents

Design components

PhD ThesisAlthough it is generally recognised that formal modelling is crucial for ensuring the correctness of software systems, some obstacles to its wider adoption in software engineering persist. One of these is that its productivity is low; another that for modelling techniques and tools to be used efficiently, a broad range of specific skills is required. With the gap between computer performance and engineers’ productivity growing, there is a need to raise the level of abstraction at which development is carried out and off-load much of the routine work done manually today to computers. Formal modelling has all the characteristics required to replace programming and offer higher productivity. Nonetheless, as a branch of software engineering it has yet to be generally accepted. While there is substantial research accumulated in systems analysis and verification, notmuch has been done to foster higher productivity and efficiency of modelling activity. This study puts forward an approach that allows the modeller to encapsulate design ideas and experience in a reusable package. This package, called a design component, can be used in differentways. While a design component is generally intended for constructing a new design using an existing one, we base our approach on a refinement technique. The design encapsulated in the design component is injected into a formal development by formally refining an abstract model. This process is completely automated: the design component is integrated by a tool, with the corresponding correctness proofs also handled automatically. To help us construct design components we consider a number of techniques of transforming models and describing reusable designs. We then introduce the concept ofmodel transformation to encapsulate syntactic rewrite rules used to produce new models. To capture high-level design we introduce the pattern language allowing us to build abstraction and refinement patterns from model transformations. Patterns automate the formal development process and reduce the number of proofs. To help the modeller plan and execute refinement steps, we introduce the concept of themodelling pattern. A modelling pattern combines refinement (or abstraction) patterns with modelling guidelines to form a complete design component

Design components

Although it is generally recognised that formal modelling is crucial for ensuring the correctness of software systems, some obstacles to its wider adoption in software engineering persist. One of these is that its productivity is low; another that for modelling techniques and tools to be used efficiently, a broad range of specific skills is required. With the gap between computer performance and engineers’ productivity growing, there is a need to raise the level of abstraction at which development is carried out and off-load much of the routine work done manually today to computers. Formal modelling has all the characteristics required to replace programming and offer higher productivity. Nonetheless, as a branch of software engineering it has yet to be generally accepted. While there is substantial research accumulated in systems analysis and verification, notmuch has been done to foster higher productivity and efficiency of modelling activity. This study puts forward an approach that allows the modeller to encapsulate design ideas and experience in a reusable package. This package, called a design component, can be used in differentways. While a design component is generally intended for constructing a new design using an existing one, we base our approach on a refinement technique. The design encapsulated in the design component is injected into a formal development by formally refining an abstract model. This process is completely automated: the design component is integrated by a tool, with the corresponding correctness proofs also handled automatically. To help us construct design components we consider a number of techniques of transforming models and describing reusable designs. We then introduce the concept ofmodel transformation to encapsulate syntactic rewrite rules used to produce new models. To capture high-level design we introduce the pattern language allowing us to build abstraction and refinement patterns from model transformations. Patterns automate the formal development process and reduce the number of proofs. To help the modeller plan and execute refinement steps, we introduce the concept of themodelling pattern. A modelling pattern combines refinement (or abstraction) patterns with modelling guidelines to form a complete design component.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Requirements modelling and formal analysis using graph operations

The increasing complexity of enterprise systems requires a more advanced analysis of the representation of services expected than is currently possible. Consequently, the specification stage, which could be facilitated by formal verification, becomes very important to the system life-cycle. This paper presents a formal modelling approach, which may be used in order to better represent the reality of the system and to verify the awaited or existing system’s properties, taking into account the environmental characteristics. For that, we firstly propose a formalization process based upon properties specification, and secondly we use Conceptual Graphs operations to develop reasoning mechanisms of verifying requirements statements. The graphic visualization of these reasoning enables us to correctly capture the system specifications by making it easier to determine if desired properties hold. It is applied to the field of Enterprise modelling

Towards a Formalism-Based Toolkit for Automotive Applications

The success of a number of projects has been shown to be significantly improved by the use of a formalism. However, there remains an open issue: to what extent can a development process based on a singular formal notation and method succeed. The majority of approaches demonstrate a low level of flexibility by attempting to use a single notation to express all of the different aspects encountered in software development. Often, these approaches leave a number of scalability issues open. We prefer a more eclectic approach. In our experience, the use of a formalism-based toolkit with adequate notations for each development phase is a viable solution. Following this principle, any specific notation is used only where and when it is really suitable and not necessarily over the entire software lifecycle. The approach explored in this article is perhaps slowly emerging in practice - we hope to accelerate its adoption. However, the major challenge is still finding the best way to instantiate it for each specific application scenario. In this work, we describe a development process and method for automotive applications which consists of five phases. The process recognizes the need for having adequate (and tailored) notations (Problem Frames, Requirements State Machine Language, and Event-B) for each development phase as well as direct traceability between the documents produced during each phase. This allows for a stepwise verification/validation of the system under development. The ideas for the formal development method have evolved over two significant case studies carried out in the DEPLOY project

Interactive situation modelling in knowledge intensive domains

Interactive Situation Modelling (ISM) method, a semi-methodological approach, is proposed to tackle issues associated with modelling complex knowledge intensive domains, which cannot be easily modelled using traditional approaches. This paper presents the background and implementation of ISM within a complex domain, where synthesizing knowledge from various sources is critical, and is based on the principles of ethnography within a constructivist framework. Although the motivation for the reported work comes from the application presented in the paper, the actual scope of the paper covers a wide range of issues related to modelling complex systems. The author firstly reviews approaches used for modelling knowledge intensive domains, preceded by a brief discussion about two main issues: symmetry of ignorance and system behaviour, which are often confronted when applying modelling approaches to business domains. The ISM process is then characterized and critiqued with lessons from an exemplar presented to illustrate its effectiveness

Developing frameworks for protocol implementation

This paper presents a method to develop frameworks for protocol implementation. Frameworks are software structures developed for a specific application domain, which can be reused in the implementation of various different concrete systems in this domain. The use of frameworks support a protocol implementation process connected with formal design methods and produce an implementation code easy to extend and to reuse

Knowledge Cartography: Software tools and mapping techniques

Knowledge Cartography is the discipline of mapping intellectual landscapes.The focus of this book is on the process by which manually crafting interactive, hypertextual maps clarifies one’s own understanding, as well as communicating it.The authors see mapping software as a set of visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the primary challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible and disputable. With 17 chapters from the leading researchers and practitioners, the reader will find the current state–of-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on educational applications in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to applications in professional communitie