An interpreter for Parallel Prolog, a study and implementation

In April 1982, a new institute named ICOT (Institute for New Generation Computer Technology ) was created in Japan. The institute was to support the FGCS ( Fifth Generation Computer Systems ) project. The project is a tremendous effort to enter the fifth generation of computing. The idea is to have a Logic Programming Language as a base language for the project. The goal is to develop basic computer technology to build an intelligent computer system and its prototype which will have an inference function and an intelligent interface function. [18] The inference machine to be developed will be a parallel Logic Programming Machine consisting of hundreds of processing elements, a structured memory and a network element. Assuming that the technology can provide us with a multiprocessor capable of supporting the execution of several procedures or processes in parallel, the problem is to build an interpreter for Concurrent Prolog called TCP (Toy Concurrent Prolog). TCP is to be implemented on a single processor with simulated con currency. The implementation will provide some program annotation schemes to make communication between concurrent processes possible

Towards the Automation of E-Negotiation Processes Based on Web Services - A Modeling Approach

E-Negotiation is the process of conducting negotiations be- tween business partners using electronic means. The interest in e-negotiation is motivated by its potential to provide business partners with more e±cient processes, enabling them to draft better contracts in less time. Most of today's e-marketplaces support some form of e-negotiation. Numerous attempts are being made to design e-marketplaces that support more than one negotiation protocol. The main problem in designing these e-marketplaces is the lack of a systematic approach. In our view, the e-marketplace enforces negotiation protocols and therefore should make them available for consultation by humans and for automation by software agents. Separating the protocols from the e-negotiation media is a step towards a configurable e-marketplace. In this paper we address the requirements for modeling e-negotiation protocols. Then we adopt the Statechart formalism as a modeling language and provide de- scriptions of five commonly used e-negotiation protocols. Finally, we discuss how we move from these Statechart descriptions of the protocols to modeling the interactions between the e-marketplace participants using a web service orchestration language

Combined negotiations in E-commerce : concepts, architecture, and implementation

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

A Rule-driven Approach for Defining the Behavior of Negotiating Software Agents

One problem with existing agent-mediated negotiation systems is that they rely on ad hoc, static, non-adaptive, and hardcoded schemes to represent the behaviour of agents. This limitation is probably due to the complexity of the negotiation task itself. Indeed, while negotiating, software (human) agents face tough decisions. These decisions are based not only on the information made available by the negotiation server, but on the behaviour of the other participants in the negotiation process as well. The information and the behaviour in question are constantly changing and highly uncertain. In the first part of the paper, we propose a rule-driven approach to represent, manage and explore negotiation strategies and coordination information. For that, we divide the behaviour of negotiating agents into protocols, strategies and coordination. Among the many advantages of the proposed solution, we can cite the high level of abstraction, the closeness to human understanding, the versatility, and the possibility to modify the agents' behaviour during the negotiation process. To validate our solution, we ran many agent tournaments, and used the rule-driven approach to implement bidding strategies that are common in the English and Dutch auctions. We also implemented simple coordination schemes across several auctions. The ongoing validation work is detailed and discussed in the second part of the paper. Un des inconvénients qu'on retrouve fréquemment dans les systèmes de négociation par agents est qu'ils reposent sur des schémas ad-hoc, non adaptatifs et figés dans le code pour représenter le comportement des agents. Cette limitation est probablement due à la complexité de l'activité de négociation elle-même. En effet, au cours de la négociation, les agents logiciels (humains) ont des décisions difficiles à prendre. Ces décisions ne sont pas seulement basées sur l'information disponible sur le serveur de négociation, mais aussi sur le comportement des autres participants durant le processus de négociation. L'information et le comportement en question changent constamment et sont très incertains. Dans la première partie de l'article, nous proposons une approche à base de règles pour représenter, gérer et explorer les stratégies de négociation ainsi que l'information de coordination. Parmi les nombreux avantages de la solution proposée, on peut citer le haut niveau d'abstraction, la proximité avec la compréhension humaine, la souplesse d'utilisation et la possibilité de modifier le comportement des agents durant le processus de négociation. Pour valider notre solution, nous avons effectué plusieurs tournois entre agents et utilisé l'approche à base de règles pour implémenter des stratégies simples applicables à l'enchère anglaise et à l'enchère hollandaise. Nous avons aussi implémenté des schémas simples de coordination impliquant plusieurs enchères. Le travail de validation, en cours, est détaillé et discuté dans la seconde partie de l'article.e-negotiation, online auction, software agent, negotiation strategy, coordination, rule-based system, rule engine, Négociation électronique, enchères en ligne, agents logiciels, stratégie de négociation, coordination, système à base de règles, moteur de règles

Addressing Dynamism in E-negotiations by Workflow Management Systems

Workflows (Wfs) are a major enabling technology for e-commerce. In our research, a Combined Negotiation (CN) is modeled and enacted using Wf technology. The modeling task captures the sequencing of the individual negotiations as well as the dependencies between them, and the enacting task runs the model. A CN support system (CONSENSUS) is used by the user to perform both tasks. Supporting dynamic modifications to the model during run-time should increase the benefits of our approach. In this paper, we highlight the need for such support by identifying the dynamic aspects that can occur while negotiating the different items of a package (i.e., the CN object). To address these aspects, we experimented using ADEPT, a Wf Management System supporting dynamism. This leads us to discuss the Wf Reference Model of the Wf Management Coalition, and suggest a "dynamic" extension to the current functional areas and architecture. La technologie des Workflows (Wfs) s'est avérée importante pour le commerce électronique. Dans le cadre de notre recherche, une négociation combinée (CN) est modélisée et exécutée utilisant un Wf. La phase de modélisation capture la séquence des différentes négociations ainsi que les dépendances qui existent entre elles. La phase d'exécution quant à elle, permet comme son nom l'indique, d'exécuter le modèle. Un système de support pour les CN (CONSENSUS) est utilisé pour accomplir ces deux tâches. Supporter les modifications dynamiques du modèle lors de l'exécution devrait augmenter les bénéfices de notre approche. Dans cet article, nous mettons l'emphase sur le besoin d'un tel support, ceci en identifiant les aspects dynamiques qui peuvent apparaître lors de la négociation des différents items d'un package (i.e., l'objet de la CN). Nous utilisons ADEPT - un système de gestion de Wf qui supporte le dynamisme - pour étudier ces aspects. Ceci nous mène à discuter le modèle de référence de la Wf Management Coalition, et à proposer une extension "dynamique" à l'architecture actuelle.e-Negotiations, Sourcing, Workflows, Workflow management systems, Dynamism, Négociations électroniques, Approvisionnement, Workflows, Systèmes de gestion de Workflow, Dynamisme

Measuring the modeling complexity of microservice choreography and orchestration: The case of e-commerce applications

Context: With the increasing popularity of microservices for software application development, businesses are migrating from monolithic approaches towards more scalable and independently deployable applications using microservice architectures. Each microservice is designed to perform one single task. However, these microservices need to be composed together to communicate and deliver complex system functionalities. There are two major approaches to compose microservices, namely Choreography and Orchestration. Microservice compositions are mainly built around business functionalities, therefore businesses need to choose the right composition style that best serves their needs. Hence, this research uses existing complexity metrics from the software engineering and business process modeling domains on small, mid-sized, and end-to-end e-commerce scenarios to analyze and compare the level of complexity of microservice Orchestration and Choreography using Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). Objective: Comparing the complexity of the two leading composition techniques on small, mid-sized, and end-to-end e-commerce scenarios, using complexity metrics from the software engineering and business process literature. More specifically, we use the metrics to assess the complexity of BPMN-based models representing the abovementioned e-commerce scenarios. Method: This research follows a five-step process for conducting a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology to define, develop and evaluate BPMN-based models for microservice compositions. Results: A series of BPMN workflows are designed as artifacts to investigate microservice Choreography and Orchestration. The results derived from the complexity evaluation of our proposed models show a higher level of complexity in orchestrating microservices for e-commerce applications given the number of services used in modeling Orchestration compared to Choreography. Conclusion: This research uncovers insights on modeling microservice Choreography and Orchestration and discusses the impacts of complexity on the modifiability and understandability of the proposed models. Keywords: Microservice, Microservice Composition, Choreography, Orchestration, Complexity Metric, BPMN

Live Streaming: Its Relevant Concepts and Literature Review

Live streaming is a new form of social applications involving video content, consumption and real-time human interaction to facilitate users’ ability to interact with each other. Despite the increasing popularity of live streaming and its influence on business and society, relatively little research has been conducted to understand what we know and what we need to know about it. Therefore, a systematic review of the existing literature was carried out to synthesize the research findings. Accordingly, we systematically reviewed 133 useable papers published across 52 academic journals and 10 conferences with regards to research trends, topics, methodology, and contexts. This study offers a thorough understanding of current practices in live streaming, which may help businesses to better realize their live streaming deployment objectives

Towards an Architecture for Data Monetization as a Service

Data monetization as a service (DMaaS) is a new term in both academia and practice. DMaaS seeks to marry data monetization with servitization and has become important with the advent of technologies such as big data, cloud computing and blockchain. As organizations seek to stand up infrastructure for data monetization, an architecture for DMaaS provides them with a starting point to develop data monetization platforms. This is an area that has been largely unexplored. Therefore, in this paper we leverage the service dominant logic perspective and research on data related services architecture to develop a tentative design for DMaaS. This study is among the first that explore architecture for DMaaS, thus identifying platform layers and services as a base for further architecture development and refinement

A Model-Driven Approach for the Rapid Development of ENegotiation Systems

Abstract: Most of today’s e-marketplaces support a single negotiation protocol. The protocol is usually built into the e-marketplace infrastructure, therefore if a new one is introduced then a time consuming and complex process of implementing it takes place. Moreover, participants in the e-marketplace need to adapt their interfaces to the new protocol, especially if they make use of automated means such as software agents to interact with the e-marketplace. This paper reports on a model-driven approach and a framework for rapid and user-friendly development of configurable e-marketplaces and automated e-negotiation systems. A designer on the e-marketplace specifies negotiation protocols using Statecharts and feeds them to a mapping system that transforms them into web service orchestrations. Participants use automated negotiation systems to interact with the e-marketplace. An automated negotiation entity capable of interacting with the emarketplace is generated based on the negotiation protocol implemented on the emarketplace. The automated negotiation entity is provided with negotiation strategies and tactics specified in a declarative format. We propose a mapping algorithm to transform Statechart models of negotiation protocols into web service orchestrations.