Methodologies for self-organising systems:a SPEM approach

We define ’SPEM fragments’ of five methods for developing self-organising multi-agent systems. Self-organising traffic lights controllers provide an application scenario

Following the Problem Organisation: A Design Strategy for Engineering Emergence

To support the development of self-organising systems, we explain and rationalise the following architectural strategy: directly mapping the solution decomposition on the problem organisation and only relying on the problem abstractions for the design. We illustrate this with an example from swarm robotics

Separating Agent-Functioning and Inter-Agent Coordination by Activated Modules: The DECOMAS Architecture

The embedding of self-organizing inter-agent processes in distributed software applications enables the decentralized coordination system elements, solely based on concerted, localized interactions. The separation and encapsulation of the activities that are conceptually related to the coordination, is a crucial concern for systematic development practices in order to prepare the reuse and systematic integration of coordination processes in software systems. Here, we discuss a programming model that is based on the externalization of processes prescriptions and their embedding in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). One fundamental design concern for a corresponding execution middleware is the minimal-invasive augmentation of the activities that affect coordination. This design challenge is approached by the activation of agent modules. Modules are converted to software elements that reason about and modify their host agent. We discuss and formalize this extension within the context of a generic coordination architecture and exemplify the proposed programming model with the decentralized management of (web) service infrastructures

Updated Design for the ALICE Central Trigger

The trigger and data acquisition systems in the ALICE experiment have undergone significant changes in the last year. Thisis (i) in response to the incorporation of new detectors, (ii) the result of the use of front-end buffering schemes in theALICE sub-detectors and (iii) because of new more pessimistic estimates of the data volume generated by the TimeProjection Chamber (TPC). In this report, we review the specification for the updated ALICE CentralTrigger and examinehow it might be implemented using currently available electronics components. The User Requirement Document and theTechnical Specification for this system are being discussed by the ALICE collaboration.(Abstract only available, full text to follow

Methodological Guidelines for Engineering Self-organization and Emergence

The ASCENS project deals with the design and development of complex self-adaptive systems, where self-organization is one of the possible means by which to achieve self-adaptation. However, to support the development of self-organising systems, one has to extensively re-situate their engineering from a software architectures and requirements point of view. In particular, in this chapter, we highlight the importance of the decomposition in components to go from the problem to the engineered solution. This leads us to explain and rationalise the following architectural strategy: designing by following the problem organisation. We discuss architectural advantages for development and documentation, and its coherence with existing methodological approaches to self-organisation, and we illustrate the approach with an example on the area of swarm robotics

ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems

ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS) is a venue for high quality research contributions addressing foundational, engineering, and technological aspects of complex computing systems exhibiting autonomous and adaptive behavior. TAAS encourages contributions advancing the state of the art in the understanding, development, and control of such systems. Contributions are typically based on sound theoretical models and supported by proper experimentations/validations. Surveys are welcome too. TAAS domains of interest include: complexity and emergence in software systems, self-ware, autonomic computing and communication, multi-agent systems, peer-to-peer systems, biologically and socially inspired computing, swarm intelligence, pervasive and mobile computing, evolutionary computing. The general goal of the journal is to address the wide range of research being undertaken by an interdisciplinary computing community and to provide a common platform under which this work can be published and disseminated