Semantic Formalisation of Emerging Dynamics of Compositional Agent Systems

  • Frances Brazier
  • Pascal Van Eck
  • Jan Treur
Chapter
Part of the Handbook of Defeasible Reasoning and Uncertainty Management Systems book series (HAND, volume 7)

Abstract

Multi-agent systems often are heterogeneous systems composed of different types of autonomous agents. Each of these agents may be based on a specific design specification, and may have its own semantics. Global dynamics at the level of the entire system emerges from the behaviours of the agents separately, and the manner in which the agents interact. Since the behaviour of each of the agents is specified in a local manner, independent of the global multi-agent system structure, an important semantical question is how global dynamics can be defined, given this variety of heterogeneous individual agents semantics. The question addressed in this chapter is how different behaviours independently defined at the level of individual agents can be composed to obtain emergent global multi-agent system behaviour, without assuming a uniform global semantic model for the system as a whole, and, in particular, without assuming a uniform global time frame.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2002

Authors and Affiliations

  • Frances Brazier
    • 1
  • Pascal Van Eck
    • 1
  • Jan Treur
    • 1
  1. 1.Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamThe Netherlands

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