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A Framework for Engineering Agent-oriented Methodologies

Azadbakht, Keyvan | 2013

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 44179 (19)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Computer Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Ramsin, Raman
  7. Abstract:
  8. Agents are autonomous entities that have independent threads of control, and that interact with each other in their environment. Due to the intelligence of agents and their ability as to social interaction, an agent-oriented system exhibits remarkable synergistic traits. Agent-oriented software development facilitates the development of flexible systems that exhibit complex behaviors.Traditional software development methodologies do not sufficiently satisfy the special needs of the agent-oriented paradigm. Therefore, many researchers have focused on developing specialized agent-oriented methodologies, or have worked on extending or adapting existing methodologies so that they can be used for developing multi-agent software systems. As a result, many agent-oriented methodologies (and variants) have been introduced; examples include ASPECS, PASSI, and MOBMAS, to name just a few of the more recent ones. Situational Method Engineering (SME) approaches have already been used for constructing bespoke agent-oriented methodologies (methodologies that best fit the characteristics of specific software development projects); however, the need remains for a generic framework for agent-oriented methodologies that is specifically defined and intended for the instantiation and construction of custom agent-oriented processes. In this research, we have developed a framework for engineering agent-oriented methodologies. As the first step, existing agent oriented methodologies and method engineering frameworks have been reviewed. Based on the results of this analysis, a generic framework has been proposed for agent-oriented methodologies; the framework consists of course-grained and fine-grained process patterns, organized into a hierarchy. The proposed framework has then been validated through Criteria-Based evaluation and a case study: the former has been realized by collecting criteria sets and evaluating different aspects of the framework through applying the criteria; the case study focuses on instantiating the framework to yield a made-to-order methodology, and evaluating the result based on the above-mentioned criteria
  9. Keywords:
  10. Multiagent System ; Agent Oriented Methodologies ; Methodology Creation Framework ; Process Pattern

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