Analysis and design of multiagent systems using MAS-CommonKADS

This article proposes an agent-oriented methodology called MAS-CommonKADS and develops a case study. This methodology extends the knowledge engineering methodology CommonKADSwith techniquesfrom objectoriented and protocol engineering methodologies. The methodology consists of the development of seven models: Agent Model, that describes the characteristics of each agent; Task Model, that describes the tasks that the agents carry out; Expertise Model, that describes the knowledge needed by the agents to achieve their goals; Organisation Model, that describes the structural relationships between agents (software agents and/or human agents); Coordination Model, that describes the dynamic relationships between software agents; Communication Model, that describes the dynamic relationships between human agents and their respective personal assistant software agents; and Design Model, that refines the previous models and determines the most suitable agent architecture for each agent, and the requirements of the agent network

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

Exploring Maintainability Assurance Research for Service- and Microservice-Based Systems: Directions and Differences

To ensure sustainable software maintenance and evolution, a diverse set of activities and concepts like metrics, change impact analysis, or antipattern detection can be used. Special maintainability assurance techniques have been proposed for service- and microservice-based systems, but it is difficult to get a comprehensive overview of this publication landscape. We therefore conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) to collect and categorize maintainability assurance approaches for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and microservices. Our search strategy led to the selection of 223 primary studies from 2007 to 2018 which we categorized with a threefold taxonomy: a) architectural (SOA, microservices, both), b) methodical (method or contribution of the study), and c) thematic (maintainability assurance subfield). We discuss the distribution among these categories and present different research directions as well as exemplary studies per thematic category. The primary finding of our SLR is that, while very few approaches have been suggested for microservices so far (24 of 223, ?11%), we identified several thematic categories where existing SOA techniques could be adapted for the maintainability assurance of microservices

Cooperatives Quality: evidence from Greece

The study of the role and contribution of ISO 9000 QMS to the corporate strategic development and organisational change and performance improvement of the Greek Agrocoops, as well as the identification and analysis of the drivers and constraints of this system’s effective implementation and efficient use has and/or should have been the subject of increased attention in recent times, as the majority of these organisations face increasing financial and business operating problems over the last three decades, as it was identified in a collective work of Papageorgiou et al, published in “Syneteristiki Poreia” (volumes of years 2000-2003) and the re-configuration of their organisational practices and activities, referring to any management system adapted and applied – e.g. the ISO 9000 QMS, is considered a must for their business survival in the words of Arvanitoyiannis (2001). As a result of the aforementioned facts and due to his current professional status, the researcher decided to focus his DBA research on issues relating to the role and contribution of the quality management systems - and more particularly of the ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems - to the achievement of Greek Agricultural Cooperatives’ corporate strategic goals and organisational performance improvement through the improvement of their business processes. The critical examination of the ISO 9000 – QualityManagement Systems’ implementation process and use purpose by the Agricultural Cooperatives sector in Greece is the broad and general Topic of my Doctorate Research. It is mainly connected with the following two current issues: - on one hand, with the reanimation of the ongoing dialogue and debate concerning the perspectives of the Agricultural Cooperatives in Greece and the future status of the 15% of the country’s active population, which is occupied in the broader agricultural sector (Bank of Greece, 2002), and - on the other hand, with the ever increasing public concern, interest and demand for safer, healthier and quality enhanced food products and services all over the world (ICAP, 2002 and Arvanitoyiannis, 2000)

Flexible coordination techniques for dynamic cloud service collaboration

The provision of individual, but also composed services is central in cloud service provisioning. We describe a framework for the coordination of cloud services, based on a tuple‐space architecture which uses an ontology to describe the services. Current techniques for service collaboration offer limited scope for flexibility. They are based on statically describing and compositing services. With the open nature of the web and cloud services, the need for a more flexible, dynamic approach to service coordination becomes evident. In order to support open communities of service providers, there should be the option for these providers to offer and withdraw their services to/from the community. For this to be realised, there needs to be a degree of self‐organisation. Our techniques for coordination and service matching aim to achieve this through matching goal‐oriented service requests with providers that advertise their offerings dynamically. Scalability of the solution is a particular concern that will be evaluated in detail

How banks construct and manage risk: A sociological study of small firm lending in Britain and Germany

This paper analyses the role of banks in financing SMEs in Britain and Germany. It applies a sociological institutionalist approach to understand how banks construct and manage risk, relating to SME business. The empirical analysis is based on the results of a comparative survey of a sample of British and German banks and also refers to statistical material produced by the banks themselves. The paper concludes that, even though bank-firm relations are still deeply embedded in national institutional frameworks, some tendencies towards convergence can also be observed, particularly among commercial banks from the two countries. These flow from both internationalisation and from the political influence of the EU. -- In diesem Papier wird die Rolle von Banken in der Finanzierung von Klein- und Mittelunternehmen (KMU) in Großbritannien und Deutschland untersucht. Mit Hilfe eines soziologisch institutionellen Ansatzes wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Banken Risiken bei der Kreditvergabe an KMU konstruieren und managen. Die empirische Studie basiert auf Ergebnissen einer vergleichenden Befragung von Bankmanagern in einer Stichprobe von britischen und deutschen Banken sowie auf statistischen Angaben der Banken. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Beziehungen zwischen Banken und KMU zwar nach wie vor in nationale institutionelle Rahmenbedingungen eingebettet sind. Zugleich führen aber Internationalisierung und politische Einflüsse der Europäischen Union auch zu einer partiellen Annäherung zuvor unterschiedlicher Modelle, und zwar insbesondere was die Praktiken kommerzieller Banken in beiden Ländern betrifft.