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Organisational Abstractions for the Analysis and Design of Multi-agent Systems

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Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE 2000)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1957))

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Abstract

The architecture of a multi-agent system can naturally be viewed as a computational organisation. For this reason, we believe organisational abstractions should play a central role in the analysis and design of such systems. To this end, the concepts of agent roles and role models are increasingly being used to specify and design multi-agent systems. However, this is not the full picture. In this paper we introduce three additional organisational concepts-organisational rules, organisational structures, and organisational patterns-that we believe are necessary for the complete specification of computational organisations.We view the introduction of these concepts as a step towards a comprehensive methodology for agent-oriented systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Ingegneria, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via Campi 213-b, 41100, Modena, Italy

    Franco Zambonelli

  2. Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, Southampton, UK

    Nicholas R. Jennings

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZF, UK

    Michael Wooldridge

Authors
  1. Franco Zambonelli
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  2. Nicholas R. Jennings
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  3. Michael Wooldridge
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Science, University of Bologna, Mura Anteo Zamboni 7, 40127, Bologna, Italy

    Paolo Ciancarini

  2. Department of Computer Science, The University of Liverpool, Chadwick Building, Peach Street, L69 7ZF, Liverpool, UK

    Michael J. Wooldridge

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Zambonelli, F., Jennings, N.R., Wooldridge, M. (2001). Organisational Abstractions for the Analysis and Design of Multi-agent Systems. In: Ciancarini, P., Wooldridge, M.J. (eds) Agent-Oriented Software Engineering. AOSE 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1957. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44564-1_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44564-1_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41594-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44564-7

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