Loris Penserini

AAMAS Conference 2009 Conference Paper

Operational Semantics of Goal Models in Adaptive Agents

• Mirko Morandini
• Loris Penserini
• Anna Perini

Several agent-oriented software engineering methodologies address the emerging challenges posed by the increasing need of adaptive software. A common denominator of such methodologies is the paramount importance of the concept of goal model in order to understand the requirements of a software system. Goal models consist of goal graphs representing AND/OR-decomposition of abstract goals down to operationalisable leaf-level goals. Goal models are used primarily in the earlier phases of software engineering, for social modelling, requirements elicitation and analysis, to concretise abstract objectives, to detail them and to capture alternatives for their satisfaction. Although various agent programming languages incorporate the notion of (leaf-level) goal as a language construct, none of them natively support the definition of goal models. However, the semantic gap between goal models used at design-time and the concept of goal used at implementation and execution time represent a limitation especially in the development of self-adaptive and fault-tolerant systems. In such systems, design-time knowledge on goals and variability becomes relevant at run-time, to take autonomous decisions for achieving high level objectives correctly. Recently, unifying operational semantics for (leaf) goals have been proposed [15]. We extend this work to define an operational semantics for the behaviour of goals in goal models, maintaining the flexibility of using different goal types and conditions. We use a simple example to illustrate how the proposed approach effectively deals with the semantic gap between design-time goal models and run-time agent implementations.

AAMAS Conference 2007 Conference Paper

A Design Framework for Generating BDI-Agents from Goal Models

• Loris Penserini
• Anna Perini
• Angelo Susi
• Mirko Morandini
• John Mylopoulos

We define a tool-supported design framework that allows to specify an agent goal model and to automatically generate fragments of a BDI agent from it. We devise the design process as a transformation process from platform-independent design models to platformspecific models and then to code. The design framework is demonstrated by referring to the Tropos methodology and to the JADE/Jadex platform. In this short paper, key steps in the process are illustrated through an example.

TAAS Journal 2007 Journal Article

High variability design for software agents

• Loris Penserini
• Anna Perini
• Angelo Susi
• John Mylopoulos

Many classes of distributed applications, including e-business, e-government, and ambient intelligence, consist of networking infrastructures, where the nodes (peers)—be they software components, human actors or organizational units—cooperate with each other to achieve shared goals. The multi-agent system metaphor fits very well such settings because it is founded on intentional and social concepts and mechanisms. Not surprisingly, many agent-oriented software development methods have been proposed, including GAIA, PASSI, and Tropos. This paper extends the Tropos methodology, enhancing its ability to support high variability design through the explicit modelling of alternatives, it adopts an extended notion of agent capability and proposes a refined Tropos design process. The paper also presents an implemented software development environment for Tropos, founded on the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) framework and standards. The extended Tropos development process is illustrated through a case study involving an e-commerce application.

EUMAS Conference 2006 Conference Paper

Agent Capability: Automating the Design to Code Process

• Loris Penserini
• Anna Perini
• Angelo Susi
• John Mylopoulos