T3 - HALF DAY

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Framing Coordination

Andrea Omicini, Alessandro Ricci

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In Multi-Agent Systems as in today complex systems in general, the
problem of making the components of a system work together fruitfully
and effectively is perhaps the most critical one. For this very reason,
a huge number of different approaches, models and technologies have
been proposed and introduced under a wide range of distinct names and
"brands" -- from interoperability to communication, from coordination
to cooperation, from negotiation to orchestration.  And, despite of
many attempts to provide an unified view, this huge variety is
basically increasing over time, in response to the ever-growing
complexity of system asking for new, powerful, multi-faceted models,
technologies and methodologies at many different levels of abstractions.

In this tutorial, the presenters will provide the audience with a novel
and general view over coordination that should make it possible to
frame all the many different approaches from diverse research fields.
Theories like Activity Theory and Organisation Theory, models like
Linda and agent negotiation, infrastructures like TuCSoN and RETSINA,
technologies like Web Services and FIPA ACL, application fields like
WfMS and CSCW, are re-interpreted and fitted in the framework, so that
they can be more easily related and compared. The modelling and
engineering of non-trivial MAS can then be re-formulated around the
concept of

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INTENDED AUDIENCE

As a result of this tutorial, attendants should
be provided with a quite general overview over the many
multi-disciplinary and inter-related fields that in any way deal with
coordination, with a particular focus over MAS coordination, but also
with a careful look to new notions like service-oriented architectures
and orchestration, and emerging fields like pervasive computing and
ambient intelligence.
Therefore, any delegate interested in coordination models and
techniques can fruitfully attend the tutorial.


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BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED

Attendants to the tutorial are required to be knowledgeable in any of
the related approaches, and to have some general idea about agent-based
metaphors and systems. 


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DETAILED OUTLINE


0) Introduction
    - Different views, different issues
    - A "survey by sample" over the literature and available tecnologies
    - Preparing the shelves: a first overview

1) Meta-models of coordination
    - Ontologies for coordination
    - Examples
      - Activity Theory
      - Organisation Theory
      - Coordination Theory
      - Coordination Context, Agent Coordination Context
    - "Artifact" as the core notion for modelling agent societies

2) Models & Languages
    - Subjective vs. Objective Coordination
    - DAI Coordination Mechanisms
      - negotiation
      - ACL
      - middle agents
    - Coordination Models
      - Linda & extensions
      - ReSpecT and related models
      - GVMS
    - Coordination artifacts for agent societies

3) Infrastructures & Tools
    - Coordination as a service
    - Coordination within infrastructures
      - Jini
      - Jade
      - Web Services
    - Coordination Run-times
      - TuCSoN & MARS
      - others
    - Peer-to-Peer approaches
    - Tools for Coordination
      - Engineering the interaction space
    - Unveiling coordination abstractions: from design to run-time
through development

4) Systems & Applications
    - Pervasive Computing
    - Ambient Intelligence
    - Web Intelligence
    - CSCW
    - WfMS
    - Abstacting out models and meta-models
    - The role of artifacts in systems

5) Conclusions
    - Back on the overview
    - Filling the shelves
    - Artifacts, coordination, and AOSE: the role of methodologies
    - Visions

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BIOGRAPHY OF PRESENTERS

Andrea Omicini
DEIS, Università di Bologna a Cesena
47023 Cesena, Italy
tel: +39 0547 614552
mailto:andrea.omicini@acm.org

ANDREA OMICINI has been co-organizer of AAMAS 2002 in Bologna. In the
past few years he has organized and chaired several major events,
including national and international conferences, workshops, tracks and
panels, and he is going to chair CIA'03 and ESAW'03. He has edited
several international volumes (books and journal special issues) on
coordination and agent-related topics, as well as one international
volume on declarative models and technologies. He has also published
over 60 articles over coordination and agent-related topics in
international conferences, journals and books.  He has held several
tutorials, talks and seminars on coordination and agents at national
and international conferences in the last years.  He is member of the
AAMAS 2003 Program Committee.


Alessandro Ricci (CONTACT PERSON)
DEIS, Università di Bologna a Cesena
47023 Cesena, Italy
tel: +39 0547 614542
mailto:aricci@deis.unibo.it

ALESSANDRO RICCI is a PhD student at DEIS, Università diBologna in
Cesena.  His main research topic is the engineering of interaction and
coordination in multiagent systems, with particular focus on
infrastructures and tools.
The result of this work has been presented in the last years in several
international workshops and conferences concerning
coordination and agent systems, and in articles appeared in
international journals. 

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