A Unified Graphical Notation for AOSE

Over the last five years several agent system development methodologies have been proposed and developed, with a number of them becoming well established and used beyond the group developing them. They all deal with similar concepts, but the notations used differ substantially. In this work we develop a standardized graphical notation for four prominent agent development methodologies, using principles of graphical notation suggested by Rumbaugh. We briefly illustrate the graphical design views produced in the different methodologies, on a conference management system example, using the standardized notation. We then discuss some of the similarities and differences on the basis of the design artifacts produced - which are now much more readily comparable than previously. This is a first step in being able to readily incorporate steps from different methodologies, depending on the needs of the application. It also helps to make the material more readily accessible to a wider audience.

[1]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  Intelligent Agents VI , 2000 .

[2]  Jörg P. Müller,et al.  Agent-Oriented Software Engineering V, 5th International Workshop, AOSE 2004, New York, NY, USA, July 19, 2004, Revised Selected Papers , 2004, AOSE.

[3]  Oscar Nierstrasz,et al.  A case study in coordination: Conference Management on the Internet , 1998 .

[4]  Brian Henderson-Sellers,et al.  Agent-oriented methodologies , 2005 .

[5]  Manuel Kolp,et al.  Agent-Oriented Information Systems IV, 8th International Bi-Conference Workshop, AOIS 2006, Hakodate, Japan, May 9, 2006 and Luxembourg, Luxembourg, June 6, 2006, Revised Selected Papers , 2008, AOIS.

[6]  James E. Rumbaugh,et al.  Notation Notes: Principles for Choosing Notation , 1996, J. Object Oriented Program..

[7]  Marc-Philippe Huget,et al.  Representing agent interaction protocols with agent UML , 2004, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2004. AAMAS 2004..

[8]  Carlos Angel Iglesias,et al.  A Survey of Agent-Oriented Methodologies , 1998, ATAL.

[9]  Paulo S. C. Alencar,et al.  Software Engineering for Multi-Agent Systems II , 2004 .

[10]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  Developing intelligent agent systems - a practical guide , 2004, Wiley series in agent technology.

[11]  Scott A. DeLoach,et al.  Engineering Organization-Based Multiagent Systems , 2005, SELMAS.

[12]  Franco Zambonelli,et al.  A Study of Some Multi-agent Meta-models , 2004, AOSE.

[13]  Marian H. Nodine,et al.  A Metamodel for Agents, Roles, and Groups , 2004, AOSE.

[14]  Massimo Cossentino,et al.  From Requirements to Code with PASSI Methodology , 2005 .

[15]  Onn Shehory,et al.  A Framework for Evaluating Agent-Oriented Methodologies , 2003, AOIS.

[16]  Paolo Busetta,et al.  Structuring BDI Agents in Functional Clusters , 1999, ATAL.

[17]  Fausto Giunchiglia,et al.  Tropos: An Agent-Oriented Software Development Methodology , 2004, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[18]  Franco Zambonelli,et al.  Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology , 2003, TSEM.

[19]  Salvatore Gaglio,et al.  Method fragments for agent design methodologies: from standardisation to research , 2007, Int. J. Agent Oriented Softw. Eng..

[20]  Dov Dori,et al.  Single-model method for specifying multi-agent systems , 2003, AAMAS '03.

[21]  Jörg P. Müller,et al.  Agent-Oriented Software Engineering IV: 4th International Workshop, AOSE 2003, Melbourne, Australia, July 15, 2003, Revised Papers , 2004 .

[22]  Michael Winikoff,et al.  Simplifying the Development of Intelligent Agents , 2001, Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.

[23]  Scott A. DeLoach.  Modeling Organizational Rules in the Multi-agent Systems Engineering Methodology , 2002, Canadian Conference on AI.

[24]  James E. Rumbaugh,et al.  Packaging a System: Showing Architectural Dependencies , 1996, J. Object Oriented Program..

[25]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages: A Survey , 1995, ECAI Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages.

[26]  Brian Henderson-Sellers,et al.  Method engineering for OO systems development , 2003, CACM.

[27]  Leon G. Higley,et al.  Forensic Entomology: An Introduction , 2009 .

[28]  Markus Stumptner,et al.  AI 2001: Advances in Artificial Intelligence , 2002, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.