Enhancing MAS environments with organizational mechanisms

Electronic version of an article published as International Journal on Arti cial Intelligence Tools Vol. 20, No. 4 (2011) 663-691. DOI10.1142/S0218213011000395 © [copyright World Scientific Publishing Company] [http://www.worldscientific.com/]This work proposes a new coordination system for the environment of a Multi-Agent System by merging the features from two important contributions to this field of research, Organizational Mechanisms and Artifacts. Organizational mechanisms can be introduced into a Multi-Agent System with the aim of influencing the behavior of agents populating it to achieve their goals in a proper way. In this paper, we propose to model organizational mechanisms by means of artifacts, which are non-proactive entities used by agents. Artifacts were presented within the Agents & Artifacts conceptual framework, and that present good advantages for coordinating agents' environments. We put forward a formal model that defines how organizational mechanisms can be designed by using artifacts theory. We validate the approach by presenting a case study focused on a real health care domain problem. Additionally, the Artifacts for Organizational Mechanisms are compared with some different proposed artifacts. © 2011 World Scientific Publishing Company.This work is supported by TIN2009-13839-C03 and PROMETEO/2008/051 projects of the Spanish government, CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 under grant CSD2007-00022, and the COST Action IC0801.Esparcia García, S.; Argente Villaplana, E.; Centeno, R.; Hermoso, R. (2011). Enhancing MAS environments with organizational mechanisms. International Journal on Artificial Intelligence Tools. 20(4):663-690. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218213011000395S663690204E. Argente, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 113 (IOS Press, 2004) pp. 309–316.A. Omicini, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (Springer, 2001) pp. 311–326.Parunak, H. V. D., & Weyns, D. (2006). Guest editors’ introduction, special issue on environments for multi-agent systems. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 14(1), 1-4. doi:10.1007/s10458-006-9003-4BERNON, C., COSSENTINO, M., & PAVÓN, J. (2005). Agent-oriented software engineering. The Knowledge Engineering Review, 20(2), 99-116. doi:10.1017/s0269888905000421Hübner, J. F., Boissier, O., Kitio, R., & Ricci, A. (2009). Instrumenting multi-agent organisations with organisational artifacts and agents. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 20(3), 369-400. doi:10.1007/s10458-009-9084-yVan Gigch, J. P. (1991). System Design Modeling and Metamodeling. doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-0676-2Norman, T. J., Preece, A., Chalmers, S., Jennings, N. R., Luck, M., Dang, V. D., … Fiddian, N. J. (2004). Agent-based formation of virtual organisations. Knowledge-Based Systems, 17(2-4), 103-111. doi:10.1016/j.knosys.2004.03.00

Introduction to the Special Issue: The AgentLink III Technical Forums

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The purpose of AmbieSense is to provide personalised, context-sensitive information to the mobile user. It is about augmenting digital information to physical objects, rooms, and areas. The aim is to provide relevant information to the right user and situation. Digital content is distributed from the surroundings and onto your mobile phone. An ambient information environment is provided by a combination of context tag technology, a software platform to manage and deliver the information, and personal computing devices to which the information is served. This paper describes how the AmbieSense reference architecture has been defined and used in order to deliver information to the mobile citizen at the right time, place and situation. Information is provided via specialist content providers. The application area addresses the information needs of travellers and tourists

Proceedings of the ECSCW'95 Workshop on the Role of Version Control in CSCW Applications

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