International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=174&year=2011&vol=4&issue=4 Inderscience Publishers Ltd en-uk International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering 1746-1375 1746-1383 © 2011 Inderscience Publishers Ltd editor@inderscience.com https://www.inderscience.com/images/files/coverImgs/ijaose_scoverijaose.jpg http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=174&year=2011&vol=4&issue=4 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43642 Agent-oriented methodologies, as they have been proposed so far, mainly try to suggest a clean and disciplined approach to analyse, design and develop MASs by using specific methods and techniques. Moreover, different studies have been proposed for the evaluation of agent-oriented methodologies adopting specific types of evaluation and criteria. However, little effort has been devoted to the comparison among such different evaluations. Comparison techniques may help in finding out new information from the existing studies, consolidating the results from the available evaluations, and consequently, in obtaining greater reliability from the evaluation results and their acceptance. With the aim of improving the acceptability of agent-oriented methodologies evaluation in the agent community, among the existing comparative techniques, the paper proposes the profile analysis technique for comparing evaluations carried out by different authors (perhaps using different evaluation frameworks). To exemplify the proposal, we present the application of the profile analysis technique on a case study. Improving comparative analysis for the evaluation of AOSE methodologies
Luca Cernuzzi; Franco Zambonelli
International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2011) pp. 331 - 352
Agent-oriented methodologies, as they have been proposed so far, mainly try to suggest a clean and disciplined approach to analyse, design and develop MASs by using specific methods and techniques. Moreover, different studies have been proposed for the evaluation of agent-oriented methodologies adopting specific types of evaluation and criteria. However, little effort has been devoted to the comparison among such different evaluations. Comparison techniques may help in finding out new information from the existing studies, consolidating the results from the available evaluations, and consequently, in obtaining greater reliability from the evaluation results and their acceptance. With the aim of improving the acceptability of agent-oriented methodologies evaluation in the agent community, among the existing comparative techniques, the paper proposes the profile analysis technique for comparing evaluations carried out by different authors (perhaps using different evaluation frameworks). To exemplify the proposal, we present the application of the profile analysis technique on a case study.

]]> 10.1504/IJAOSE.2011.043642 International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2011) pp. 331 - 352 Luca Cernuzzi; Franco Zambonelli Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica e Informática, Universidad Católica 'Nuestra Señora de la Asunción', Campus Universitario, C.C. 1683, Asunción, Paraguay. ' Dipartimento di Scienze e Metodi dell' Ingegneria, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via Amendola 2, 42100 Reggio Emilia, Italy agent-oriented methodologies evaluation profile analysis agent-oriented software engineering multi-agent systems MAS agent-based systems. 2011-11-12T23:20:50-05:00 4 4 331 352 2011-11-12T23:20:50-05:00 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43643 Many modern software systems have autonomous, open, context-aware and highly-interactive properties. The agent abstraction with its autonomous and pro-active characteristics and the related discipline of agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) are promising paradigms to address these types of systems. Even though agents are frequently being adopted, little effort has been directed in AOSE methodologies toward extensive software reuse techniques, which can provide both reduced time-to-market and lower development costs. Multi-agent system product lines (MAS-PLs) are the result of the integration of AOSE with software product lines (SPLs). SPLs bring many reuse benefits to the agent domain through the exploitation of common characteristics among family members. In this context, this paper presents a domain engineering process for developing MAS-PLs. It defines activities and work products, whose purposes include supporting agent variability and providing agent feature traceability, both not addressed by current SPL and AOSE approaches. Developing multi-agent system product lines: from requirements to code
Ingrid Nunes; Carlos J.P. De Lucena; Donald Cowan; Uirá Kulesza; Paulo Alencar; Camila Nunes
International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2011) pp. 353 - 389
Many modern software systems have autonomous, open, context-aware and highly-interactive properties. The agent abstraction with its autonomous and pro-active characteristics and the related discipline of agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) are promising paradigms to address these types of systems. Even though agents are frequently being adopted, little effort has been directed in AOSE methodologies toward extensive software reuse techniques, which can provide both reduced time-to-market and lower development costs. Multi-agent system product lines (MAS-PLs) are the result of the integration of AOSE with software product lines (SPLs). SPLs bring many reuse benefits to the agent domain through the exploitation of common characteristics among family members. In this context, this paper presents a domain engineering process for developing MAS-PLs. It defines activities and work products, whose purposes include supporting agent variability and providing agent feature traceability, both not addressed by current SPL and AOSE approaches.

]]> 10.1504/IJAOSE.2011.043643 International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2011) pp. 353 - 389 Ingrid Nunes; Carlos J.P. De Lucena; Donald Cowan; Uirá Kulesza; Paulo Alencar; Camila Nunes Department of Informatics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro 22451-900, Brazil. ' Department of Informatics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro 22451-900, Brazil. ' David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo 721302, Canada. ' Department of Informatics and Applied Mathematics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Natal 59078-970, Brazil. ' David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo 721302, Canada. ' Department of Informatics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro 22451-900, Brazil multi-agent systems MAS software product lines SPLs domain engineering software process software reuse agent-based systems agent-oriented software engineering. 2011-11-12T23:20:50-05:00 4 4 353 389 2011-11-12T23:20:50-05:00 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43644 Currently, distributed applications are mainly based on the client-server model and its variants. The growing use of the internet and the development of mobile communication technologies yield more needs in terms of performance, reliability and security. By its synchronous nature, the client-server model no longer seems to be able to meet these new demands. The mobile agents' paradigm is one of the approaches that have been proposed, and this technology holds great promises with regard to questions related to reliability and security. In this paper, we present the market-place architecture, a secure mobile agents-based framework. The main idea is to generalise the market mechanisms to non-market systems through an extended mobile agents' model, the seller-buyer model. This architecture provides developers with the opportunity to build efficient and safe mobile agents-based distributed applications. We give the outline for designing applications according to the MP architecture and propose a Jade implementation. The MP architecture: towards a secure framework for mobile agents
Djamel Eddine Menacer; Habiba Drias; Christophe Sibertin-Blanc
International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2011) pp. 390 - 414
Currently, distributed applications are mainly based on the client-server model and its variants. The growing use of the internet and the development of mobile communication technologies yield more needs in terms of performance, reliability and security. By its synchronous nature, the client-server model no longer seems to be able to meet these new demands. The mobile agents' paradigm is one of the approaches that have been proposed, and this technology holds great promises with regard to questions related to reliability and security. In this paper, we present the market-place architecture, a secure mobile agents-based framework. The main idea is to generalise the market mechanisms to non-market systems through an extended mobile agents' model, the seller-buyer model. This architecture provides developers with the opportunity to build efficient and safe mobile agents-based distributed applications. We give the outline for designing applications according to the MP architecture and propose a Jade implementation.

]]> 10.1504/IJAOSE.2011.043644 International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2011) pp. 390 - 414 Djamel Eddine Menacer; Habiba Drias; Christophe Sibertin-Blanc Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique, ESI, BP 68M Oued Smar, 16309, Algiers, Algeria. ' Université des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumediene (USTHB), BP 32, El-Alia, Bab-Ezzouar, Algiers, Algeria. ' IRIT, Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, 2 place du doyen G. Marty, F-31042 Toulouse cedex, France mobile agents seller-buyer models marketplace architecture distributed applications security Jade multi-agent systems MAS agent-based systems security. 2011-11-12T23:20:50-05:00 4 4 390 414 2011-11-12T23:20:50-05:00