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Separation of Concerns in Multi-agent Systems: An Empirical Study

  • Conference paper
Software Engineering for Multi-Agent Systems II (SELMAS 2003)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 2940))

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Abstract

With multi-agent systems (MASs) growing in size and complexity, the separation of their concerns throughout the different development phases is crucial to MAS engineers. Separation of concerns is a well-known principle in software engineering to achieve improved reusability and maintainability of complex software. Hence it is necessary to investigate systematically whether abstractions from object-oriented (OO) software engineering are able to isolate explicitly MAS concerns. This paper presents an empirical study that evaluates the degree to which abstractions associated with two OO techniques enable modularization of MAS concerns. The selected techniques involve basic OO abstractions, such as classes and objects, and more sophisticated ones, namely design patterns and aspects. The gathered results shown that the use of aspects allowed the construction of a MAS with a significant improvement in the modularization of different concerns. Also, the use of aspects resulted in: (i) fewer lines of code, (ii) fewer design and implementation components, and (iii) lower coupling between the components. However, the aspect-oriented approach produced lower cohesion in the MAS components. Finally, an important finding of this empirical study is that aspects supported a better alignment with higher-level abstractions from agent-oriented design models.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. PUC-Rio, Computer Science Department, LES, SoC+Agents Group, Rua Marques de São Vicente, 225, 22453-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Alessandro Garcia, Cláudio Sant’Anna, Viviane Torres da Silva, Carlos J. P. de Lucena & Arndt von Staa

  2. Computer Science Department, UFBA, Av. Adhemar de Barros, s/n, 40170-110, Salvador, BA, Brazil

    Christina Chavez

Authors
  1. Alessandro Garcia
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  2. Cláudio Sant’Anna
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  3. Christina Chavez
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  4. Viviane Torres da Silva
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  5. Carlos J. P. de Lucena
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  6. Arndt von Staa
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Carlos Lucena

  2. Computer Science Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rua Marques de Sao Vicente, 225, 22453-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Alessandro Garcia

  3. Computer Science School, Newcastle University, UK

    Alexander Romanovsky

  4. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brasil

    Jaelson Castro

  5. School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Paulo S. C. Alencar

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Garcia, A., Sant’Anna, C., Chavez, C., da Silva, V.T., de Lucena, C.J.P., von Staa, A. (2004). Separation of Concerns in Multi-agent Systems: An Empirical Study. In: Lucena, C., Garcia, A., Romanovsky, A., Castro, J., Alencar, P.S.C. (eds) Software Engineering for Multi-Agent Systems II. SELMAS 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2940. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24625-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24625-1_4

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