Skip to main content

MAS Organization within a Coordination Infrastructure: Experiments in TuCSoN

  • Conference paper
Engineering Societies in the Agents World IV (ESAW 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3071))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Organisation and coordination are strictly related issues in the engineering of agent societies, and some important issues such as security can be suitable modelled only considering their synergy. Accordingly, in this paper we show how to extend a MAS coordination infrastructure for agent-based systems (namely, TuCSoN) toward the specification and support of MAS organisation. To this end, we adopt the notion of agent coordination context (ACC) as a first-class abstraction that defines the organisation structures and rules, and makes them accessible and manageable at execution time. Then, we show how ACC provides the conceptual framework to model the presence of an agent inside the organisation and the environment, as well as the means to face MAS organisation, coordination, and even security issues in a coherent and uniform way.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Divitini, M., Hanachi, C., Sibertin-Blanc, C.: Inter–organizational workflows for enterprise coordination. In: Omicini, A., Zambonelli, F., Klusch, M., Tolksdorf, R. (eds.) Coordination of Internet Agents: Models, Technologies, and Applications, pp. 369–398. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Tripathi, A., Ahmed, T., Kumar, R., Jaman, S.: A coordination model for secure collaboration. In: Marinescu, D., Lee, C. (eds.) Process Coordination and Ubiquitous Computing, pp. 1–20. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Giampapa, J.A., Sycara, K.: Team-oriented agent coordination in the RETSINA multi-agent systems. In: 1st International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2002) Proceedings, Bologna, Italy, ACM Press, New York (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Ciancarini, P., Omicini, A., Zambonelli, F.: Multiagent system engineering: the coordination viewpoint. In: Jennings, N.R., Lespérance, Y. (eds.) ATAL 1999. LNCS, vol. 1757, pp. 250–259. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Ferber, J., Gutknecht, O., Michel, F.: From agents to organisations: an organizational view of multi-agent systems. In: 2nd International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2003) Proceedings, Melbourne, Australia, ACM Press, New York (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Zambonelli, F., Jennings, N.R., Wooldridge, M.: Organisational rules as an abstraction for the analysis and design of multi-agent systems. International Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering 11, 303–328 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Parunak, H.V.D., Odell, J.: Representing social structures in uml. In: Wooldridge, M.J., Weiß, G., Ciancarini, P. (eds.) AOSE 2001. LNCS, vol. 2222, pp. 1–16. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Kendall, E.A.: Role modelling for agent systems analysis, design and implementation. IEEE Concurrency 8, 34–41 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Ferber, J., Gutknecht, O.: A meta-model for analysis and design of organizations in multi-agent systems. In: 3rd International Conference on MultiAgent Systems (ICMAS 1998) Proceedings, Paris, France, September 3-7, pp. 128–135. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Omicini, A., Zambonelli, F.: Coordination for Internet application development. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 2, 251–269 (1999); Special Issue: Coordination Mechanisms for Web Agents

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Omicini, A.: Towards a notion of agent coordination context. In: Marinescu, D., Lee, C. (eds.) Process Coordination and Ubiquitous Computing, pp. 187–200. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Biddle, B.J., Thomas, E.J.: Role Theory: Concepts and Research. Krieger Publishing Company (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Sandhu, R.S., Coyne, E.J., Feinstein, H.L., Youman, C.E.: Role-based access control models. IEEE Computer 29, 38–47 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Durfee, E.H.: Practically coordinating. AI Magazine 20, 99–116 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Karageorgos, A., Thompson, S., Mehandjiev, N.: Semi-automatic design of agent organisations. In: 2002 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2002) Proceedings, Madrid, Spain, March 11-14, pp. 306–313. ACM Press, New York (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Mintzberg, H.: The Structuring of Organizations. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Omicini, A.: SODA: Societies and infrastructures in the analysis and design of agent-based systems. In: Ciancarini, P., Wooldridge, M.J. (eds.) AOSE 2000. LNCS, vol. 1957, pp. 185–193. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Ricci, A., Omicini, A., Denti, E.: Activity Theory as a framework for MAS coordination. In: Petta, P., Tolksdorf, R., Zambonelli, F. (eds.) ESAW 2002. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2577, pp. 96–110. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Ferraiolo, D.F., Sandhu, R., Gavrila, S., Kuhn, D.R., Chandramouli, R.: Proposed NIST standard for role-based access control. ACM Transactions on Information and System Security (TISSEC) 4, 224–274 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Castelfranchi, C.: Engineering social order. In: Omicini, A., Tolksdorf, R., Zambonelli, F. (eds.) ESAW 2000. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1972, pp. 1–18. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Noriega, P., Sierra, C.: Electronic institutions: Future trends and challenges. In: Klusch, M., Ossowski, S., Shehory, O. (eds.) CIA 2002. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2446, pp. 14–17. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. Cremonini, M., Omicini, A., Zambonelli, F.: Multi-agent systems on the Internet: Extending the scope of coordination towards security and topology. In: Garijo, F.J., Boman, M. (eds.) MAAMAW 1999. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1647, pp. 77–88. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Omicini, A., Ricci, A., Viroli, M.: Formal specification and enactment of security policies through Agent Coordination Contexts. In: Focardi, R., Zavattaro, G. (eds.) Security Issues in Coordination Models, Languages and Systems. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, vol. 85(3), Elsevier Science, B.V. (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Omicini, A., Denti, E.: From tuple spaces to tuple centres. Science of Computer Programming 41, 277–294 (2001)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Dignum, V., Meyer, J.J., Weigand, H., Dignum, F.: An organization-oriented model for agent society. In: International Workshop “Regulated Agent-Based Social Systems: Theories and Applications”, RASTA 2002 (2002); Proceedings AAMAS 2002, Bologna, Italy, July 16 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Cabri, G.: Role-based infrastructures for agents. In: 8th IEEE Workshop on Future Trends of Distributed Computing Systems (FTDCS 2001), Bologna, Italy, October 31-November 2. Proceedings, pp. 210–214. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Cabri, G., Ferrari, L., Leonardi, L.: Enabling mobile agents to dynamically assume roles. In: 2003 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC), Melbourne, FL, USA, March 9-12. Proceedings, pp. 56–60. ACM, New York (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Minsky, N.H., Ungureanu, V.: Law-governed interaction: a coordination and control mechanism for heterogeneous distributed systems. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) 9, 273–305 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Tambe, M., Pynadath, D.V., Chauvat, N., Das, A., Kaminka, G.A.: Adaptive agent architectures for heterogeneous team members. In: 4th International Conference on MultiAgent Systems (ICMAS 2000), Boston, MA, USA, pp. 301–308 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Ricci, A., Omicini, A., Denti, E.: Virtual enterprises and workflow management as agent coordination issues. International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems 11, 355–379 (2002) (Special Issue: Cooperative Information Agents – Best Papers of CIA 2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Omicini, A., Ricci, A. (2004). MAS Organization within a Coordination Infrastructure: Experiments in TuCSoN . In: Omicini, A., Petta, P., Pitt, J. (eds) Engineering Societies in the Agents World IV. ESAW 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3071. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25946-6_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25946-6_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-22231-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-25946-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics