2,256 research outputs found
Socionic Multi-Agent Systems Based on Reflexive Petri Nets and Theories of Social Self-Organisation
This contribution summarises the core results of the transdisciplinary ASKO project, part of the German DFG's programme Sozionik, which combines sociologists' and computer scientists' skills in order to create improved theories and models of artificial societies. Our research group has (a) formulated a social theory, which is able to explain fundamental mechanisms of self-organisation in both natural and artificial societies, (b) modelled this in a mathematical way using a visual formalism, and (c) developed a novel multi-agent system architecture which is conceptually coherent, recursively structured (hence non-eclectic) and based on our social theory. The article presents an outline of both a sociological middle-range theory of social self-organisation in educational institutions, its formal, Petri net based model, including a simulation of one of its main mechanisms, and the multi-agent system architecture SONAR. It describes how the theory was created by a re-analysis of some grand social theories, by grounding it empirically, and finally how the theory was evaluated by modelling its concepts and statements.Multi-Agents Systems, Petri Nets, Self-Organisation, Social Theories
Representing Conversations for Scalable Overhearing
Open distributed multi-agent systems are gaining interest in the academic
community and in industry. In such open settings, agents are often coordinated
using standardized agent conversation protocols. The representation of such
protocols (for analysis, validation, monitoring, etc) is an important aspect of
multi-agent applications. Recently, Petri nets have been shown to be an
interesting approach to such representation, and radically different approaches
using Petri nets have been proposed. However, their relative strengths and
weaknesses have not been examined. Moreover, their scalability and suitability
for different tasks have not been addressed. This paper addresses both these
challenges. First, we analyze existing Petri net representations in terms of
their scalability and appropriateness for overhearing, an important task in
monitoring open multi-agent systems. Then, building on the insights gained, we
introduce a novel representation using Colored Petri nets that explicitly
represent legal joint conversation states and messages. This representation
approach offers significant improvements in scalability and is particularly
suitable for overhearing. Furthermore, we show that this new representation
offers a comprehensive coverage of all conversation features of FIPA
conversation standards. We also present a procedure for transforming AUML
conversation protocol diagrams (a standard human-readable representation), to
our Colored Petri net representation
Object-based Control/Data-flow Analysis
Not only does a clear distinction between control and data flow enhance the readability of models, but it also allows different tools to operate on the two distinct parts of the model. This paper shows how the modelling based on control/data-flow analysis can benefit from an object-based approach. We have developed a translation mechanism that is faithful and gives an extra dimension (hierarchy) to the existing paradigm of control and data flow interacting in a model. Our methodology provides a comprehensible separation of these two parts, which can be used to feed another analysis or synthesis tools, while still being able to reason about both parts through formal methods of verification
On Negotiation as Concurrency Primitive
We introduce negotiations, a model of concurrency close to Petri nets, with
multiparty negotiation as primitive. We study the problems of soundness of
negotiations and of, given a negotiation with possibly many steps, computing a
summary, i.e., an equivalent one-step negotiation. We provide a complete set of
reduction rules for sound, acyclic, weakly deterministic negotiations and show
that, for deterministic negotiations, the rules compute the summary in
polynomial time
Engineering of service-oriented automation systems: a survey
The evolution of manufacturing systems and the emergence of decentralised control require flexibility at various
levels of their lifecycle. New emerging methods, such as multi-agent and service-oriented systems are major research
topics in the sense of revitalizing the traditional production procedures. This paper takes an overview of the serviceoriented
approach in terms of platform and engineering tools, from the perspective of automation and production
systems. From the basic foundation to the more complex interactions, service-oriented architectures and its
implementation in form of web services provide diverse and quality proved features that are welcome to different
states of the production systems’ life-cycle. Key elements are the concepts of modelling and collaboration, which
enhance the automatic binding and synchronisation of individual low-value services to more complex and meaningful
structures. Such interactions can be specified by Petri nets, a mathematically well founded tool with features that
enhance towards the modelling of systems. The right application of different methodologies together should motivate
the development of service-oriented manufacturing systems that embrace the vision of collaborative automation.The authors would like to thank the European
Commission and the partners of Network of Excellence
“Innovative Production Machines and Systems”
(http://www.iproms.org/) and the SOCRADES project
(http://www.socrades.eu) for their support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Engineering of service-oriented automation systems: a survey
The evolution of manufacturing systems and the emergence of decentralised control require flexibility at various
levels of their lifecycle. New emerging methods, such as multi-agent and service-oriented systems are major research
topics in the sense of revitalizing the traditional production procedures. This paper takes an overview of the serviceoriented
approach in terms of platform and engineering tools, from the perspective of automation and production
systems. From the basic foundation to the more complex interactions, service-oriented architectures and its
implementation in form of web services provide diverse and quality proved features that are welcome to different
states of the production systems’ life-cycle. Key elements are the concepts of modelling and collaboration, which
enhance the automatic binding and synchronisation of individual low-value services to more complex and meaningful
structures. Such interactions can be specified by Petri nets, a mathematically well founded tool with features that
enhance towards the modelling of systems. The right application of different methodologies together should motivate
the development of service-oriented manufacturing systems that embrace the vision of collaborative automation.The authors would like to thank the European
Commission and the partners of Network of Excellence
“Innovative Production Machines and Systems”
(http://www.iproms.org/) and the SOCRADES project
(http://www.socrades.eu) for their support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Internet enabled modelling of extended manufacturing enterprises using the process based techniques
The paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing research project on Internet enabled process-based modelling of extended manufacturing enterprises. It is proposed to apply the Open System Architecture for CIM (CIMOSA) modelling framework alongside with object-oriented Petri Net models of enterprise processes and object-oriented techniques for extended enterprises modelling. The main features of the proposed approach are described and some components discussed. Elementary examples of object-oriented Petri Net implementation and real-time visualisation are presented
Workshop on Modelling of Objects, Components, and Agents, Aarhus, Denmark, August 27-28, 2001
This booklet contains the proceedings of the workshop Modelling of Objects, Components, and Agents (MOCA'01), August 27-28, 2001. The workshop is organised by the CPN group at the Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark and the "Theoretical Foundations of Computer Science" Group at the University of Hamburg, Germany. The papers are also available in electronic form via the web pages: http://www.daimi.au.dk/CPnets/workshop01
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