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2016 | Buch

Social Coordination Frameworks for Social Technical Systems

herausgegeben von: Huib Aldewereld, Olivier Boissier, Virginia Dignum, Pablo Noriega, Julian Padget

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Law, Governance and Technology Series

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Über dieses Buch

This book addresses the question of how to achieve social coordination in Socio-Cognitive Technical Systems (SCTS). SCTS are a class of Socio-Technical Systems that are complex, open, systems where several humans and digital entities interact in order to achieve some collective endeavour. The book approaches the question from the conceptual background of regulated open multiagent systems, with the question being motivated by their design and construction requirements. The book captures the collective effort of eight groups from leading research centres and universities, each of which has developed a conceptual framework for the design of regulated multiagent systems and most have also developed technological artefacts that support the processes from specification to implementation of that type of systems. The first, introductory part of the book describes the challenge of developing frameworks for SCTS and articulates the premises and the main concepts involved in those frameworks. The second part discusses the eight frameworks and contrasts their main components. The final part maps the new field by discussing the types of activities in which SCTS are likely to be used, the features that such uses will exhibit, and the challenges that will drive the evolution of this field.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Preliminaries

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
Currently, software engineering of complex systems regards systems as a collection of systems, composed of technical and social (humans and/or organisations) components. Such systems are characterised by an entanglement of human, software and organisational interactions. More than an integration of technical and social components, the design and analysis of such socio-technical systems must deal with the social coordination of these components. Social coordination refers to the mechanisms and processes mediating the contingent bonds between the individual components, and which are subject to evolution. This requires the technical components of socio-technical systems, to be socio-cognitive technical systems (SCTS), which poses several design challenges. In particular, the design of SCTS must incorporate organisational, normative, cultural and other social elements into the technological design. In recent year, several frameworks have been developed to deal with the design of SCTS, from different perspectives and geared to different areas of application. This book presents a comprehensive overview of these frameworks, provides a thorough comparison of the models and tools that support them, and discusses possible areas of application and the associated challenges.
Huib Aldewereld, Olivier Boissier, Virginia Dignum, Pablo Noriega, Julian Padget
Chapter 2. Conceptual Map for Social Coordination
Abstract
The engineering of applications for complex and dynamic domains with autonomous participants is an increasingly difficult process. Requirements and functionalities are not fixed a priori, components are not designed nor controlled by a common entity, and unplanned or underspecified changes may occur during runtime. There is a need for representing the regulating structures explicitly and independently from the acting components (or agents). Organization computational models, based on Organization Theory, have been advocated to specify such systems. Comprehensive analysis of several agent systems has shown that different design approaches are appropriate for different domain characteristics. In this chapter we present ongoing work on the integration of multi-agent organization frameworks, which will allow for seamless integration in open environments.
Huib Aldewereld, Sergio Álvarez-Napagao, Emilia García, Jorge J. Gomez-Sanz, Jie Jiang, Henrique Lopes Cardoso

Social Coordination Frameworks

Frontmatter
Chapter 3. ANTE: A Framework Integrating Negotiation, Norms and Trust
Abstract
This chapter presents the ANTE framework for Social Coordination. In multi-agent systems, social coordination is related with a number of agreement technologies: negotiation as a means of reaching agreements; organizational or normative structures as social constructs to regulate interactions; trust as a mechanism to assess agent performance when acting while subject to norms. The ANTE framework addresses the issue of social coordination from a comprehensive perspective, exploring negotiation as a mechanism for establishing some normative coordination infrastructure, based on the notion of a contract. Contracts are monitored for compliance, and their enactment phase enables the collection of behavioral data that can be used by computational trust models.
Henriquec Lopes Cardoso, Joana Urbano, Ana Paula Rocha, António J. M. Castro, Eugénio Oliveira
Chapter 4. Electronic Institutions: The EI/EIDE Framework
Abstract
The notion of electronic institution draws inspiration from traditional institutions. Both can be seen as “coordination artefacts that serve as an interface between the internal decision making of individuals and their (collective) goals”. However, electronic institutions, unlike the conventional ones, are intended to work on-line and may involve the participation of humans as well as software agents. The EI/EIDE framework that we present in this chapter includes the formal metamodel (EI) for electronic institutions (EI), and a particular development environment (EIDE) for implementing EI-based models. One models an electronic institution as a network of scenes where agents establish and discharge commitments, through “conversations” that are constrained by procedural and functional conventions. The EI metamodel includes the formal languages used to specify an institution and the data structure, operations and operational semantics that need to be supported by a technological environment to run it
Pablo Noriega, Dave de Jonge
Chapter 5. INGENIAS
Abstract
This chapter presents the INGENIAS framework for Social Coordination. INGENIAS is an agent-oriented methodology that comprehends a modeling language, a development process, and a set of tools. The modeling language captures the MAS specification as well as the requirements of the system to be developed. The development process is an iterative process producing the necessary artifacts based on the elements captured by the modeling language. The tools conform the INGENIAS Development Kit. It includes, among others, a specification editor and a code generator. Key features of INGENIAS are the extensive use of visual diagrams for modeling, grounding on the BDI concepts of agents, and translation to a JADE based architecture called the INGENIAS Agent Framework.
Jorge J. Gomez-Sanz, Rubén Fuentes Fernández
Chapter 6. InstAL: An Institutional Action Language
Abstract
InstAL denotes both a declarative domain-specific language for the specification of collections of interacting normative systems and a framework for a set of associated tools. The computational model is realized by translating the specification language to AnsProlog (Baral 2003), a logic programming language under the answer set semantics (ASP) (Gelfond and Lifschitz 1991), and is underpinned by a set-theoretic formal model and a formalized translation process.
Julian Padget, Emad ElDeen Elakehal, Tingting Li, Marina De Vos
Chapter 7. The JaCaMo Framework
Abstract
This chapter presents the JaCaMo framework for Social Coordination. JaCaMo is a development and execution platform that provides programming constructs that match the abstractions used at the levels of a multi-agent system for expressing social coordination. More precisely, JaCaMo defines a uniform and consistent programming model seamlessly integrating concepts from programming dimensions developed within separate communities in the Multi-Agent research domain: 1) agents, 2) environment, 3) interaction languages and protocols, and 4) multi-agent organisations and norms. The applications and example presented in this chapter show the added value of this seamless integration of each dimension for the development of complex and distributed applications.
Olivier Boissier, Jomi F. Hübner, Alessandro Ricci
Chapter 8. ROMAS-Magentix2
Abstract
As shown in Fig. 8.1, ROMAS is a set of technics and tools for analyzing, designing and implementing normative open systems. ROMAS integrates the analysis, design and verification of these systems by means of a metamodel, a methodology that includes specific development guidelines and a model-driven CASE tool.
Emilia García, Soledad Valero, Adriana Giret
Chapter 9. OperA/ALIVE/OperettA
Abstract
Comprehensive models for organizations must, on the one hand, be able to specify global goals and requirements but, on the other hand, cannot assume that particular actors will always act according to the needs and expectations of the system design. Concepts as organizational rules (Zambonelli 2002), norms and institutions (Dignum and Dignum 2001; Esteva et al. 2002), and social structures (Parunak and Odell 2002) arise from the idea that the effective engineering of organizations needs high-level, actor-independent concepts and abstractions that explicitly define the organization in which agents live (Zambonelli 2002).
Huib Aldewereld, Sergio Álvarez-Napagao, Virginia Dignum, Jie Jiang, Wamberto Vasconcelos, Javier Vázquez-Salceda
Chapter 10. Specifying and Executing Open Multi-agent Systems
Abstract
An ‘open’ Multi-Agent System (MAS) is a system in which the member agents are developed by different parties and serve different, often competing interests. In open MAS, the behaviour of an agent cannot be predicted in advance (Hewitt 1991). Furthermore, an agent may choose not to conform to the MAS specification in order to achieve its individual goals, or it may fail to conform to the MAS specification due to, say, a bug in its code (Sergot 2004). Agents may also fail to behave as intended because of factors beyond their control. This is commonplace when open MAS are deployed on distributed environments with unreliable communication channels. A few examples of this type of MAS are electronic marketplaces, virtual organisations and digital media rights management applications.
Alexander Artikis, Marek Sergot, Jeremy Pitt, Dídac Busquets, Régis Riveret
Chapter 11. Frameworks Comparison
Abstract
This chapter presents a comparison of the frameworks described in the previous chapters of this book (see Chaps. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10). The comparison is drawn across the metamodel and the technology platforms that support each framework. By metamodel we mean the abstract or formal representation that serves to model an arbitrary Model for Social Coordination (M4SC); i.e., the model describing the elements of each of the frameworks, as presented in the previous chapters. By platform we mean the collection of technological constructs that are used to implement a model of a framework.
Olivier Boissier, Virginia Dignum, Emilia García

Applications and Challenges

Frontmatter
Chapter 12. Application Domains
Abstract
The subject of this chapter is the application of models for social coordination (M4SC). Deriving from and extending multiagent systems (MAS), applications of M4SC inherit the attributes of MAS, such as multiple actors, distribution, and heterogeneity, but bring characteristics of their own that are essential to social coordination over and above conventional MAS. In this chapter, we first discuss these differentiating properties of M4SC, identifying essential and non-essential (but commonly occurring) characteristics. This we follow with a wide-ranging (but not exhaustive or exclusive) discussion of classes of M4SC applications, which are supported by structured, illustrative summaries of noteworthy examples of applications, created using the frameworks described elsewhere in this volume. Finally, we give an overview of a broader range applications developed with the frameworks, with links to further reading.
Julian Padget, Huib Aldewereld, Pablo Noriega, Wamberto Vasconcelos
Chapter 13. Challenges for M4SC
Abstract
The preceding chapters have addressed the motivation for the use of models of social coordination (M4SC), described a range of models for the specification of M4SC, an initial version of a unifying meta-model and an overview of application domains. In doing so we have put forward arguments for the benefits arising from the use of M4SC and identified essential characteristics of M4SC application domains. In this final chapter we consider some of the challenges and open issues that lie ahead for M4SC research.
Julian Padget, Huib Aldewereld, Wamberto Vasconcelos
Metadaten
Titel
Social Coordination Frameworks for Social Technical Systems
herausgegeben von
Huib Aldewereld
Olivier Boissier
Virginia Dignum
Pablo Noriega
Julian Padget
Copyright-Jahr
2016
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-33570-4
Print ISBN
978-3-319-33568-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33570-4