AOIS @ ER 2003
Bringing Multi-Agent Systems into human organizations: application to an Information Multi-Agent System
Emmanuel ADAM, René MANDIAU
Monday, October 13th, 2003
Plan 1. Industrial Context 3. AMOMCASYS : Adaptable MOdeling Method for Complex Administrative SYStems 5. CIASCOTEWA : Cooperative Information Agent Systems for Cooperative Technological Watch 7. IMAS Design 9. First Results 11. Perspectives and Conclusion
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Industrial and Social Context • Current Administrative systems : – from bureaucracy to a more process centred organisation [Schael]
AOIS 2003 - Chicago
“more holonic ” [Koestler 69]
order communications functional unity hierarchy relationships
objective communications process unity responsibility relationships
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Characterisation of Holonic Systems [Koestler 69]
Cognition strategy
objective communication
stability
action Reaction AOIS 2003 - Chicago
autonomy - co-operation balance
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Application context Internet
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-> technological watch department of a large company (SOLVAY S.A.) Information Agent Users of the technological watch department
-> have a coherence in a group of distributed users -> Use of Multi-Agent Systems
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Proposition of AMOMCASYS • Comparison of several methods (MERISE, OMT, (UML), SADT, OSSAD, CISAD, MKSM) • Conclusion : No method fulfils all our needs => integration of pertinent parts of these methods • AMOMCASYS : Adaptable MOdeling Method for Complex Administrative SYStems
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– Methodology: evolutionary approach, integrating the actors in the stages of analysis, modeling and specification – Organization: holonic organization, based on exchanges of documents – Representation : accessible models of data, dataflow, processing and a dynamic model – Co-operation : use of the dynamic model and of a simulator
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Steps of AMOMCASYS Actors of the department
Data
Data model
Analysis Activity
Processing
Dynamic Modelling Processing Model
& Simulation
Modelling Analysts
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Modeller
Design Designer
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Pages of the AMOMCASYS workbench Data flow model 4
5
1
2
3
Activities-Roles matrix Presentation page
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Processing model Data model
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Dynamic model
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CIASCOTEWA • Cooperative Information Agent System for COoperative TEchnological WAtch • Why? – Economical issue of technological watch – Allow a group to search information, without redundancies
• How?
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– Dedicated an information multi-agent system to each actor of the technological watch department
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CIASCOTEWA Cooperative working of agents and users
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CIASCOTEWA Architecture
CIASTEWA
C
C
It
It
IR
R
IR
R
S
R
S
R
S
S
R
S
S S
S
S
Internet It: Interface Agent C
C: Coordinator Agent IR: Information Responsible Agent
It
IR
R: Request Agent S: Search Engine Agent
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R
S
S
S
S
: communication links between CIASTEWAs communication links between CIASTEWA agents
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CIASCOTEWA Design • Reuse of a methodology that we have built in HOMASCOW project
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(Holonic Multi Agent System for helping COoperative Work)
– First, design individual competences of the different agents – Secondly, design of cooperative working of the CIASCOTEWA agents
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Individual general specification Coordinator Role
Information Responsible Role
Request Responsible Role
Interface Role
Search Engine Role
Dimensions Social
Environmental
Personal
Functions Representation of the group (of the other roles)
Representation of the world
Representation of itself, of its capacities
Planning of social actions, communications
Planning of actions in the environment
Planning control, meta-planning
Interaction
society interaction, performative
mechanisms in relation to the environment
Productive
Management, coordination and negotiation tasks
Representational
Organisational
Conservative AOIS 2003 - Chicago
For co-operative behaviour : reusing of AMOMCASYS Description agentPerception and action Analysis, modification and creation tasks
Preservation of the Preservation of resources, defense society, the relations, and maintenance of territory the network of contacts
Auto-communication, Auto-action
Auto-modification, learning
Self-preservation, repair, maintenance
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Cooperative specification
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Cooperative specification Use of the MAGIQUE platform
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CIASTEWA Screen Copy
Inform user that other users have received the result encourage cooperation
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Some components actors.xml
agent data
gui
requests.xml
searchEngines.xml
skills util
results.xml
interaction
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agent-config.xml
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Perspective: Automatic deployment • Static description of a MAS by XML File
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(XML Schema)
- - bossAdam Coordinator - agent.CoordinatorSkill 192.168.6.67 5555
[email protected]:5555
[email protected]:4444
[email protected]:4444 + +
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Perspectives for Cooperation • Objective: identify groups of actors having same interests centres to encourage them to cooperate • Use of the Kohonen algorithm that regroups elements according to their distance from a null vector [Kohonen 91] • Definition of an interest distance from the keywords used in the requests
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Conclusion • We use AMOMCASYS method to integrate an agents organization into a human organization – Future : • use of UML diagrams or A-UML in addition of AMOMCASYS
• Integration of users in the setup of the project is important
• Other project : proposition of a third part application from the CIASCOTEWA, with notion of security AOIS 2003 - Chicago
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AOIS @ ER 2003
Bringing Multi-Agent Systems into human organizations: application to a Multi-Agent Information System
Thank you for your attention…
Emmanuel ADAM, René MANDIAU
Monday, October 13th, 2003