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Correctness of Multi-Agent Programs: A Hybrid Approach

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Specification and Verification of Multi-agent Systems

Abstract

This chapter proposes a twofold approach for ensuring the correctness of BDI-based agent programs. On the one hand, we advocate the alignment of the semantics of agent programming languages with agent specification languages such that for an agent programming language it can be shown that it obeys specific desirable properties expressed in the corresponding agent specification language. In this way, one can guarantee that specific properties expressed in the specification language are satisfied by any program implemented in the programming language. On the other hand, we introduce a debugging framework to find and resolve possible defects in such agent programs. The debugging approach consists of a specification language and a set of debugging tools. The specification language allows a developer to express cognitive and temporal properties of multi-agent program executions. The debugging tools allow a developer to verify if a specific multi-agent program execution satisfies a desirable property.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Birna van Riemsdijk for her contribution to work on which this chapter is partly based.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    M. Dastani & J.-J. Ch. Meyer

Authors
  1. M. Dastani
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  2. J.-J. Ch. Meyer
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Correspondence to M. Dastani .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Information & Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Padualaan 14, Utrecht, 3584 CH, Netherlands

    Mehdi Dastani

  2. Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, Delft, 2628 CD, Netherlands

    Koen V. Hindriks

  3. Dept. Information & Computer Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

    John-Jules Charles Meyer

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Dastani, M., Meyer, JJ.C. (2010). Correctness of Multi-Agent Programs: A Hybrid Approach. In: Dastani, M., Hindriks, K., Meyer, JJ. (eds) Specification and Verification of Multi-agent Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6984-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6984-2_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-6983-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-6984-2

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