Gossip and Ostracism in Modelling Automorphosis of Multi-agent Systems

Automorphosis viewed in terms of IT systems requires that these systems have a range of features related to autonomy, dispersion of their components, and communication between their elements. Examples of IT systems in which the issue of automorphosis is an important modelling aspect include software agent societies where individual agent units create structures that specialise in performance of assigned tasks in a dynamic manner, depending on changing conditions. The use of automorphosis mechanisms in such groups of agents enables control of their behaviour and monitoring of their actions. The first chapter will address the issues of automorphosis of software agent societies. The second chapter will present an analysis of the theory of using gossip and ostracism in IT systems. The third chapter presents a proposal of the use of gossip and ostracism. It also includes results of an experiment. The aim of this paper is to analyse the possibilities of the concepts of gossip and ostracism as a control element of agent societies. To achieve that the extension of JADE (Java Agent DEvelopment Framework) was developed

Gossip as a Burdened Virtue

Gossip is often serious business, not idle chitchat. Gossip allows those oppressed to privately name their oppressors as a warning to others. Of course, gossip can be in error. The speaker may be lying or merely have lacked sufficient evidence. Bias can also make those who hear the gossip more or less likely to believe the gossip. By examining the social functions of gossip and considering the differences in power dynamics in which gossip can occur, we contend that gossip may be not only permissible but virtuous, both as the only reasonable recourse available and as a means of resistance against oppression

Character, Caricature, and Gossip

Gossip is rarely praised. There seems little virtuous that is about talking behind someone’s back. Whether there is anything virtuous about gossip, however, depends on the kind of gossip. Some gossip is idle, but some evaluative gossip promulgates and enforces norms. When properly motivated, such gossip effects positive change in society and counts as gossiping well. The virtue of gossiping well even includes some kinds of false gossip, namely the sort that exaggerates a pre-existing trait, thereby creating a caricature of a person’s character in order to establish a moral exemplar (or anti-exemplar)

Engineering Self-Adaptive Collective Processes for Cyber-Physical Ecosystems

The pervasiveness of computing and networking is creating significant opportunities for building valuable socio-technical systems. However, the scale, density, heterogeneity, interdependence, and QoS constraints of many target systems pose severe operational and engineering challenges. Beyond individual smart devices, cyber-physical collectives can provide services or solve complex problems by leveraging a “system effect” while coordinating and adapting to context or environment change. Understanding and building systems exhibiting collective intelligence and autonomic capabilities represent a prominent research goal, partly covered, e.g., by the field of collective adaptive systems. Therefore, drawing inspiration from and building on the long-time research activity on coordination, multi-agent systems, autonomic/self-* systems, spatial computing, and especially on the recent aggregate computing paradigm, this thesis investigates concepts, methods, and tools for the engineering of possibly large-scale, heterogeneous ensembles of situated components that should be able to operate, adapt and self-organise in a decentralised fashion. The primary contribution of this thesis consists of four main parts. First, we define and implement an aggregate programming language (ScaFi), internal to the mainstream Scala programming language, for describing collective adaptive behaviour, based on field calculi. Second, we conceive of a “dynamic collective computation” abstraction, also called aggregate process, formalised by an extension to the field calculus, and implemented in ScaFi. Third, we characterise and provide a proof-of-concept implementation of a middleware for aggregate computing that enables the development of aggregate systems according to multiple architectural styles. Fourth, we apply and evaluate aggregate computing techniques to edge computing scenarios, and characterise a design pattern, called Self-organising Coordination Regions (SCR), that supports adjustable, decentralised decision-making and activity in dynamic environments.Con lo sviluppo di informatica e intelligenza artificiale, la diffusione pervasiva di device computazionali e la crescente interconnessione tra elementi fisici e digitali, emergono innumerevoli opportunità per la costruzione di sistemi socio-tecnici di nuova generazione. Tuttavia, l'ingegneria di tali sistemi presenta notevoli sfide, data la loro complessità—si pensi ai livelli, scale, eterogeneità, e interdipendenze coinvolti. Oltre a dispositivi smart individuali, collettivi cyber-fisici possono fornire servizi o risolvere problemi complessi con un “effetto sistema” che emerge dalla coordinazione e l'adattamento di componenti fra loro, l'ambiente e il contesto. Comprendere e costruire sistemi in grado di esibire intelligenza collettiva e capacità autonomiche è un importante problema di ricerca studiato, ad esempio, nel campo dei sistemi collettivi adattativi. Perciò, traendo ispirazione e partendo dall'attività di ricerca su coordinazione, sistemi multiagente e self-*, modelli di computazione spazio-temporali e, specialmente, sul recente paradigma di programmazione aggregata, questa tesi tratta concetti, metodi, e strumenti per l'ingegneria di ensemble di elementi situati eterogenei che devono essere in grado di lavorare, adattarsi, e auto-organizzarsi in modo decentralizzato. Il contributo di questa tesi consiste in quattro parti principali. In primo luogo, viene definito e implementato un linguaggio di programmazione aggregata (ScaFi), interno al linguaggio Scala, per descrivere comportamenti collettivi e adattativi secondo l'approccio dei campi computazionali. In secondo luogo, si propone e caratterizza l'astrazione di processo aggregato per rappresentare computazioni collettive dinamiche concorrenti, formalizzata come estensione al field calculus e implementata in ScaFi. Inoltre, si analizza e implementa un prototipo di middleware per sistemi aggregati, in grado di supportare più stili architetturali. Infine, si applicano e valutano tecniche di programmazione aggregata in scenari di edge computing, e si propone un pattern, Self-Organising Coordination Regions, per supportare, in modo decentralizzato, attività decisionali e di regolazione in ambienti dinamici

Capturing Social Embeddedness: a constructivist approach

A constructivist approach is applied to characterising social embeddedness and to the design of a simulation of social agents which displays the social embedding of agents. Social embeddedness is defined as the extent to which modelling the behaviour of an agent requires the inclusion of the society of agents as a whole. Possible effects of social embedding and ways to check for it are discussed briefly. A model of co-developing agents is exhibited, which is an extension of Brian Arthur's `El Farol Bar' model, but extended to include learning based upon a GP algorithm and the introduction of communication. Some indicators of social embedding are analysed and some possible causes of social embedding are discussed

Task Recovery in Self-Organised Multi-Agent Systems for Distributed Domains

Grid computing and cloud systems are distributed systems which provide substantial widely-accessible services to resources. Quality of service is affected by the issues around resource allocation, sharing, task execution and node failure. The focus of this research is on task execution in distributed environments and the effects of node failure on service provision. Most methods in the literature which provide fault tolerance, use reactive techniques; these provide solutions to failure only after its occurrence. In contrast, this research argues that using multi-agent systems with self-organising capabilities can provide a proactive methodology which can improve task execution in open, dynamic and distributed environments. We have modelled a system of autonomous agents with heterogeneous resources and proposed a new delegation protocol for executing tasks within their time constraints. This helps avoid the loss of tasks and to improve efficiency. However, this method on its own is not sufficient in terms of task execution throughput, especially in the presence of agent failure. Hence, we propose, a self-organisation technique. This is represented in this research by two different mechanisms for creating organisations of agents with a certain structure; we suggest, in addition, the adoption of task delegation within the organisations. Adding an organisation structure with agent roles to the network enables smoother performance, increases task execution throughput and copes with agent failures. In addition, we study the failure problem as it manifests within the organisations and we suggest an improvement to the organisation structure which involves the use of another protocol and adding a new role. An exploratory study of dynamic, heterogeneous organisations of agents has also been conducted to understand the formation of organisations in a dynamic environment where agents may fail and new agents may join organisations. These conditions mean that new organisations may evolve and existing organisations may change

Circles, columns and screenings: mapping the institutional, discursive, physical and gendered spaces of film criticism in 1940s London

This article revisits the period considered within ‘The Quality Film Adventure: British Critics and the Cinema 1942-1948’, mapping the professional cultures, working contexts and industry relationships that underpinned the aesthetic judgements and collective directions which John Ellis has observed within the critics published writings. Drawing on the records of the Critics’ Circle, Dilys Powell’s papers and Kinematograph Weekly, it explores the evolution of increasingly organised professional cultures of film criticism and film publicity, arguing that the material conditions imposed by war caused tensions between them to escalate. In the context of two major challenges to critical integrity and practice – the evidence given by British producer R.J. Minney in front of the 1948 Royal Commission on the Press and an ongoing libel case between a BBC critic and MGM – the different spaces of hospitality and film promotion became highly contested sites. This article focuses on the ways in which these spaces were characterised, used, and policed. It finds that the value and purpose of press screenings were hotly disputed and observes the way the advancement of women within one sector (film criticism) but not the other (film publicity) created particular difficulties, as key female critics avoided the more compromised masculine spaces of publicity, making them harder for publicists to reach and fuelling trade resentment. More broadly, the article asserts the need to consider film critics as geographically and culturally located audiences, who experience films as ‘professional’ viewers within extended and embodied cultures of habitual professional practice and physical space

Making Sense of Leadership Development: Reflections on my Role as a Leader of Leadership Development Interventions

This thesis examines my experience of leading leadership development. During the last three years I have been researching my role as Head of Leadership and Organisational Development at the University of Hertfordshire (UH), with a view to making sense of and rethinking leadership and approaches to leadership development more generally. This thesis considers how my own thinking and practice has changed and developed as a consequence of paying attention to and reflecting on personal experience, whilst at the same time locating my sense-making in the broader academic scholarship. Narrative accounts of the significant incidents and interactions that I have participated in during the past three years have been shared verbally with the participants on the programmes that I lead, and explored more extensively in written form with colleagues in the learning community on the Doctorate in Management (DMan) programme at UH, as a means of intensifying my sense-making and its generalisability to a community of engaged enquirers. My research was prompted by disillusionment with the dominant discourse on leadership and leadership development based as it is on theories, frameworks, tools and techniques that privilege a form of autonomous, instrumental rationality and deceptive certainty that did not reflect the social, non-linear, uncertain day-to-day realities faced by me and the managers with whom I worked. In this thesis, I draw on my experiences as a manager, leader of leadership development, and a student of leadership development, to problematise the mainstream managerialist conceptions of leadership and organisation that are now part of the organisational habitus (Bourdieu, 1977) in the UK. The rise and naturalisation of managerialist ideology across the private, public, and charitable sectors in the UK makes it an inordinately difficult perspective to contest without risking some form of exclusion. I contend that my experience of attempting to encourage radical doubt and enquiry rather than the mindless acceptance and application of conventional wisdom contributes to knowledge in the field of leadership and organisational development by providing insight into and an alternative way of thinking about and practising leadership and leadership development. In contesting dominant conceptions, I proffer a more reality congruent alternative to mainstream thought. I draw on the perspective of complex responsive processes of relating (Stacey et al, 2000, Griffin, 2002, Shaw, 2002), critical management studies (Alvesson and Willmott, 1996), social constructionism (Berger et al, 1966), and other thinkers critical of managerialist conceptions of leadership and leadership education (Khurana, 2007) to explore leadership as a social, relational activity where leaders are co-participants, albeit highly influential ones, in the ongoing patterning of relationships that constitute organisation. However, I argue that it is insufficient for management educationalists to snipe critically at managerialism from the sidelines, problematising one perspective and simply replacing it with another (Ford et al, 2007), leaving their participants ill-equipped to navigate the potentially destructive political landscape of day-to-day organisational life. While the dominant discourse on leadership and organisation is flawed, to avoid exclusion managers must still become fluent in the language and practice of managerialism, the ideology that has come to dominate the vast majority of organisational communities in which they find themselves. In this thesis, I argue that it is crucial for managers and leaders of leadership development to engage with a polyphony of perspectives, and develop the reflective and reflexive capacity to continuously explore and answer for themselves the questions who am I, and what am I doing, who are we, and what are we doing

A Middleware framework for self-adaptive large scale distributed services

Modern service-oriented applications demand the ability to adapt to changing conditions and unexpected situations while maintaining a required QoS. Existing self-adaptation approaches seem inadequate to address this challenge because many of their assumptions are not met on the large-scale, highly dynamic infrastructures where these applications are generally deployed on. The main motivation of our research is to devise principles that guide the construction of large scale self-adaptive distributed services. We aim to provide sound modeling abstractions based on a clear conceptual background, and their realization as a middleware framework that supports the development of such services. Taking the inspiration from the concepts of decentralized markets in economics, we propose a solution based on three principles: emergent self-organization, utility driven behavior and model-less adaptation. Based on these principles, we designed Collectives, a middleware framework which provides a comprehensive solution for the diverse adaptation concerns that rise in the development of distributed systems. We tested the soundness and comprehensiveness of the Collectives framework by implementing eUDON, a middleware for self-adaptive web services, which we then evaluated extensively by means of a simulation model to analyze its adaptation capabilities in diverse settings. We found that eUDON exhibits the intended properties: it adapts to diverse conditions like peaks in the workload and massive failures, maintaining its QoS and using efficiently the available resources; it is highly scalable and robust; can be implemented on existing services in a non-intrusive way; and do not require any performance model of the services, their workload or the resources they use. We can conclude that our work proposes a solution for the requirements of self-adaptation in demanding usage scenarios without introducing additional complexity. In that sense, we believe we make a significant contribution towards the development of future generation service-oriented applications.Las Aplicaciones Orientadas a Servicios modernas demandan la capacidad de adaptarse a condiciones variables y situaciones inesperadas mientras mantienen un cierto nivel de servio esperado (QoS). Los enfoques de auto-adaptación existentes parecen no ser adacuados debido a sus supuestos no se cumplen en infrastructuras compartidas de gran escala. La principal motivación de nuestra investigación es inerir un conjunto de principios para guiar el desarrollo de servicios auto-adaptativos de gran escala. Nuesto objetivo es proveer abstraciones de modelaje apropiadas, basadas en un marco conceptual claro, y su implemetnacion en un middleware que soporte el desarrollo de estos servicios. Tomando como inspiración conceptos económicos de mercados decentralizados, hemos propuesto una solución basada en tres principios: auto-organización emergente, comportamiento guiado por la utilidad y adaptación sin modelos. Basados en estos principios diseñamos Collectives, un middleware que proveer una solución exhaustiva para los diversos aspectos de adaptación que surgen en el desarrollo de sistemas distribuidos. La adecuación y completitud de Collectives ha sido provada por medio de la implementación de eUDON, un middleware para servicios auto-adaptativos, el ha sido evaluado de manera exhaustiva por medio de un modelo de simulación, analizando sus propiedades de adaptación en diversos escenarios de uso. Hemos encontrado que eUDON exhibe las propiedades esperadas: se adapta a diversas condiciones como picos en la carga de trabajo o fallos masivos, mateniendo su calidad de servicio y haciendo un uso eficiente de los recusos disponibles. Es altamente escalable y robusto; puedeoo ser implementado en servicios existentes de manera no intrusiva; y no requiere la obtención de un modelo de desempeño para los servicios. Podemos concluir que nuestro trabajo nos ha permitido desarrollar una solucion que aborda los requerimientos de auto-adaptacion en escenarios de uso exigentes sin introducir complejidad adicional. En este sentido, consideramos que nuestra propuesta hace una contribución significativa hacia el desarrollo de la futura generación de aplicaciones orientadas a servicios.Postprint (published version