SCoRe: a Self-Organizing Multi-Agent System for Decision Making in Dynamic Software Developement Processes

International audienceSoftware systems are becoming more and more complex. A common dilemma faced by software engineers in building complex systems is the lack of method adaptability. However, existing agent-based methodologies and tools are developed for particular system and are not tailored for new problems. This paper proposes an architecture of a new tool based on SME for self-constructing customized method processes. Our approach is based on two pillars: the process fragment and the MAS meta-model. These two elements are both defined and considered under a specific agent-oriented perspective thus creating a peculiar approach. Our work is based on the self-organization of agents, making it especially suited to deal with highly dynamic systems such as the design of an interactive and adaptive software engineering process

SCoRe: a Self-Organizing Multi-Agent System for Decision Making in Dynamic Software Developement Processes

Software systems are becoming more and more complex. A common dilemma faced by software engineers in building complex systems is the lack of method adaptability. However, existing agent-based methodologies and tools are developed for particular system and are not tailored for new problems. This paper proposes an architecture of a new tool based on SME for self-constructing customized method processes. Our approach is based on two pillars: the process fragment and the MAS meta-model. These two elements are both defined and considered under a specific agent-oriented perspective thus creating a peculiar approach. Our work is based on the self-organization of agents, making it especially suited to deal with highly dynamic systems such as the design of an interactive and adaptive software engineering process

Forward Self-Combined Method Fragments

International audienceDeveloping complex systems is generally simplified if designer is guided by method from Software Engineering. However a single engineering process is often not enough to cover all the possible requirements due to different levels of expertise and systems to design. Currently, Agent Oriented Software Engineering methods aim at providing an adaptive engineering process. The method processes have been broken up into different parts called fragments, enabling the mix of different engineering processes’ parts to get better adequacy between the system to be done and the process. But some difficulties still remain concerning the expertise needed to compose these fragments when the amount of fragments prevents the composition to be done by hand. This paper presents an Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems (AMAS) to deal with a new paradigm of automated fragments combining. This process is made from both the characteristics of users and system and the known fragments. Thanks to their information, agents of the AMAS self-organise and design a tailored method process. The developed system is described and then usual tests are depicted

ADELFE 2.0

International audienceADELFE is a French acronym that means “Toolkit for Designing Software with Emergent Functionalities” (“Atelier de DEveloppement de Logiciels à Fonctionnalité Emergente” in French). ADELFE methodology is dedicated to applications characterized by openness and the need of the system adaptation to an environment. Its main goal is to help and guide any designer during the development of an Adaptive Multi-agent System (AMAS). An AMAS is characterized by the following points: it is plunged into an environment and composed of interdependent agents, each agent carries out a partial function and the agents, organization during runtime makes the system realize an emergent function. Actually, an agent is locally cooperative, i.e. it is able to recognize cooperation failures called Non-cooperative Situations (NCS, which could be related to exceptions in classical programs) and treat them. ADELFE includes five Work Definitions that were initially inspired from the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and gathers 21 activities, producing or refining 12 work products. These products are aggregating modelling diagrams or structured or free text. ADELFE, which is a Model-Driven (model-centred) development method, is not hardly dependent on Domain Specific Modelling Languages (DSML) but currently the recommendation is to use UML2 for general activities and to use AMASML (AMAS Modelling Language) and SpeADL (Species-based Modelling Language) for specific activities appearing in Analysis, Design or Implementation phases

ADELFE 2.0

International audienceADELFE is a French acronym that means “Toolkit for Designing Software with Emergent Functionalities” (“Atelier de DEveloppement de Logiciels à Fonctionnalité Emergente” in French). ADELFE methodology is dedicated to applications characterized by openness and the need of the system adaptation to an environment. Its main goal is to help and guide any designer during the development of an Adaptive Multi-agent System (AMAS). An AMAS is characterized by the following points: it is plunged into an environment and composed of interdependent agents, each agent carries out a partial function and the agents, organization during runtime makes the system realize an emergent function. Actually, an agent is locally cooperative, i.e. it is able to recognize cooperation failures called Non-cooperative Situations (NCS, which could be related to exceptions in classical programs) and treat them. ADELFE includes five Work Definitions that were initially inspired from the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and gathers 21 activities, producing or refining 12 work products. These products are aggregating modelling diagrams or structured or free text. ADELFE, which is a Model-Driven (model-centred) development method, is not hardly dependent on Domain Specific Modelling Languages (DSML) but currently the recommendation is to use UML2 for general activities and to use AMASML (AMAS Modelling Language) and SpeADL (Species-based Modelling Language) for specific activities appearing in Analysis, Design or Implementation phases

Metamodel-Based Metrics for Agent-Oriented Methodologies

International audienceA great number of methodologies has been already intro duced in the agent-oriented software engineering field. Recently many of the authors of these methodologies also worked on their fragmentation thus obtaining portions (often called method or process fragments) that may be composed into new methodologies. The great advancement in this field, however does not correspond to equivalent results in the evaluation of the methodologies and their fragments. It is, for instance, difficult to select a fragment in the composition of a new methodology and to predict the methodology’s resulting features. This work introduces a suite of metrics for evaluating and comparing entire methodologies but also their composing fragments. The proposed metrics are based on the multi-agent system metamodel. The metrics have been applied to the ADELFE and PASSI methodologies, results prove the usefulness of the proposed approach and encourage further studies on the matter