Integrating driving forces into the development of Adaptive Virtual Organizations

Organizations have become the backbone of the society. Humans live around all kinds of organizations, such as neighborhood communities, businesses, schools, unions, political, sports, and religious organizations, etc. These organizations have a set of members, each playing a specific role, which determines their duties and functionalities within the organization. One of these functionalities is to offer a range of services to members of the organization and external people. These members must follow a set of norms to ensure the proper functioning of the organization and should pursue the global goals of the organization. A feature that is repeated in organizations is that they are not static but dynamic, resulting in changes in both its structure and the way in which they behave. In an organization, any of its elements is prone to change due to situations that occur in the organization itself or its environment. Researchers in the field of social sciences and organizations have studied such situations, the reasons why they appear and solutions and actions to be taken to ensure that this situation does not damage the organization or to take advantage of the situation. These situations are known as ‘Forces that drive organizational change’. Human organizations are the main source of inspiration for the Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) based on organizations. These systems are computational abstractions that are populated by agents instead of people, but take into account organizational elements such as roles, services, goals, norms, etc. However, the proposals that have been presented up to now to define this type of MAS are focused mostly on static systems, without changes in its structure. Moreover, in the few proposals that take into account organizational changes, they just state that changes occur, but without specifying the reason for change. Thus, the concept of ‘forces that drive organizational change’ (and their features) is not considered. Therefore, the objective of this PhD thesis is to translate the knowledge of the forces that drive organizational change available in human organizations to MASbased organizations. These forces will be formally expressed with the factors that help to detect them. The solutions to be taken when a force is detected will also be presented. To correctly perform this task, a formalization for virtual organizations is designed, named Virtual Organization Formalization (VOF). Moreover, the Artifacts for Organizational Mechanisms are proposed, which are a tool to help in the representation of organizational knowledge and in the modeling of the environment of the organization. This tool is based on the Agents & Artifacts (A&A) framework.Esparcia García, S. (2015). Integrating driving forces into the development of Adaptive Virtual Organizations [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/48538TESI

Modelado y diseño de Sistemas Multiagente centrados en organizaciones

Esta Tesis de Máster realiza un análisis de los métodos de diseño y modelado de los Sistemas Multiagente Centrados en Organizaciones y de ciertos mecanismos que facilitan la coordinación de los agentes de la organización, proponiendo un modelo formal y un lenguaje de modelado organizativo que integra dichos mecanismos.Esparcia García, S. (2010). Modelado y diseño de Sistemas Multiagente centrados en organizaciones. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/13846Archivo delegad

Efecto de un protocolo de ejercicios mediante el método pilates en la variable de flexibilidad de isquiotibiales y columna lumbar en adultos jóvenes

Introducción: El Método Pilates es considerado como un ejercicio de cuerpo y mente, el cual se centra en la mejora de la flexibilidad, la fuerza y de la musculatura tanto profunda como superficial mediante unos principios básicos. Objetivo: Valorar el efecto de un protocolo de ejercicios basados en el Método Pilates (MP) sobre la flexibilidad en la musculatura isquiotibial y la columna lumbar. Material y Métodos: Estudio experimental y de corte longitudinal en el que participaron 8 sujetos, basado en 2 sesiones de Pilates por semana, durante 4 semanas, siendo el tiempo estimado 40 minutos por sesión. Se ejecutaron 10 ejercicios repetidos 5 veces cada uno. Fueron valorados mediante la prueba sit and reach (para la flexibilidad de los isquiotibiales), y la prueba de Schober (para la flexibilidad de la columna lumbar). Las mediciones se llevaron a cabo previamente a la intervención, periódicamente cada semana durante el proceso de intervención y por ultimo, a la quinta y sexta semana (7 y 15 días tras el término) Resultados: Se obtuvo una mejoría significativa en cuanto a la flexibilidad de la columna lumbar, no obstante, los cambios en la flexibilidad isquiotibial no han resultado ser significativo. Conclusiones: Un programa de ejercicios basados en el Método Pilates provoca una mejora significativa mantenida en el tiempo de la flexibilidad de la columna lumbar y además, aunque en la flexibilidad isquiotibial los resultados no han sido significativos, estos apuntan hacia la mejoría en mujeres jóvenes sedentarias.Introduction: Pilates method is considered as a body-mind exercise which is focused on the improvement of flexibility, strength and the deep and superficial musculature with a basic principles. Objective: To value de effect produced by a set of exercises based on the Pilates method on the flexibility from the hamstring muscles and the lumbar spine. Material and method: This is an experimental longitudinal study with 8 subjects. It is based on 2 Pilates sessions by week during 4 weeks with an approximate duration of 40 minutes per session. The subjects did 10 different exercises, repeating 5 times each one. They were valued by the Sit and Reach test (hamstring muscles flexibility) and Schober test (for lumbar spine flexibility). The measurements were taken before the intervention, periodically during each different week and to conclude, on the 5!" and 6!" week (7 and 15 days after the end of the set of exercises). Results: The subjects gained a significant improvement in terms of lumbar spine’s flexibility but the improvements in hamstring flexibility were not significant. Conclusions: A set of exercises based on the Pilates method causes a held improvement on the lumbar spine flexibility a set of exercises based on the Pilates method causes a held improvement on the lumbar spine flexibility and although hamstring’s flexibility results have not been significant, they aim to the improvement in sedentary women. Key words: Pilates method, flexibility, hamstring muscles, lumbar spine

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

Forces that Drive Organizational Change in an Adaptive Virtual Organization

Abstract-Virtual Organizations are a specific type of MultiAgent Systems that look for modeling agent organizations by means of elements typically used in Organizational Theory, such as roles, organizational goals, or services. The Organizational Theory considers that the structure of a human organization is likely to change through time, being the external and internal forces that drive organizational change the most important source for change. This work presents a set of guidelines that will help MAS designers and developers how to deal with these forces, in order to take advantage of them, or to avoid damage to the organization

A negotiation approach for energy-aware room allocation systems

[Otros] This paper addresses energy-aware room allocation management where the system aims to satisfy individuals¿ needs as much as possible while concerning total energy consumption in a building. In the problem, there are a several rooms having varied settings resulting in different energy consumption. The main objective of the system is not only finding the right allocations for user¿s need, but also minimizing energy consumption. However, the users of the system may have conflicting preferences over the rooms to be allocated for them. This paper pursues how the system can increase user satisfaction while achieving its goals. For that purpose, an adaptation of the mediated single text negotiation model is introduced. The proposal seeks to guarantee an upper bound on energy consumption by pruning the negotiation space via a genetic algorithm, and to take advantage of the negotiation for increasing user satisfaction. Experiments suggest that the adaptations improve the performanceThis work is supported by TIN2012-36586-C03-01, TIN2011-27652-C03-01, and TIN2009-13839-C03-01 projects of the Spanish government, the FPU grant AP2008-00600 awarded to V¿¿ctor S¿anchez-Anguix, and the New Governance Models for Next Generation Infrastructures project with NGI grant number 04.17. We would also like to thank anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.Esparcia García, S.; Sanchez-Anguix, V.; Aydogan, R. (2013). A Negotiation Approach for Energy-Aware Room Allocation Systems. Springer. 280-291. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38061-7_27S280291Perez-Lombard, L., Ortiz, J., Pout, C.: A review on buildings energy consumption information. Energy and Buildings 40(3), 394–398 (2008)Plan de ahorro de eficiencia energética de los edificios públicos de la generalitat. Diari oficial de la Comunitat Valenciana (6800), 18038–18044 (June 2012)Sorici, A., Boissier, O., Picard, G., Santi, A.: Exploiting the jacamo framework for realising an adaptive room governance application. In: Proc. DSM 2011, TMC 2011, AGERE! 2011, AOOPES 2011, NEAT 2011, & VMIL 2011, pp. 239–242. ACM (2011)Klein, M., Faratin, P., Sayama, H., Bar-Yam, Y.: Negotiating complex contracts. Group Decision and Negotiation 12, 111–125 (2003)Sareni, B., Krahenbuhl, L.: Fitness sharing and niching methods revisited. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 2(3), 97–106 (1998)Mengshoel, O.J., Goldberg, D.E.: The crowding approach to niching in genetic algorithms. Evolutionary Computation 16(3), 315–354 (2008)Sanchez-Anguix, V., Valero, S., Julian, V., Botti, V., Garcia-Fornes, A.: Evolutionary-aided negotiation model for bilateral bargaining in ambient intelligence domains with complex utility functions. Information Sciences 222, 25–46 (2013)Kuo, P., Schroeder, R., Mahaffey, S., Bollinger, R.: Optimization of operating room allocation using linear programming techniques. J. Am. Coll. Surg. 197(6), 889–895 (2003)Schumann, A., Wilson, N., Burillo, M.: Learning user preferences to maximise occupant comfort in office buildings. In: García-Pedrajas, N., Herrera, F., Fyfe, C., Benítez, J.M., Ali, M. (eds.) IEA/AIE 2010, Part I. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 6096, pp. 681–690. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)Abras, S., Pesty, S., Ploix, S., Jacomino, M.: An anticipation mechanism for power management in a smart home using multi-agent systems. In: Information and Communication Technologies: From Theory to Applications, pp. 1–6. IEEE (2008

Political communication and think tanks in Spain. Strategies with the media

Think tanks have become increasingly important as political players in Spain having grown in both quantity and quality, and with greater social, political and communicative presence. This research analyses the presence of think tanks in Spanish main newspapers. Six principal general information newspapers and two economic information newspapers from 2012 to 2016 were analysed, using the content analysis method. Variables analysed include name and type of think tank, type of content (information or opinion) and communication technique used to give them journalistic presence. The results show that El país is the newspaper that provides more information about think tanks, and FAES is the think tank with the greatest presence in newspapers