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Language Constructs for Multi-agent Programming

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Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems (CLIMA 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 5056))

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Abstract

In this paper we are concerned with proposing, analyzing and implementing simple, yet flexible, constructs for multi-agent programming. In particular, we wish to extend programming languages based on the BDI style of logical agent model with two such constructs, namely constraints and content/context sets. These two aspects provide sufficient expressive power to allow us to represent, simply and with semantic clarity, a wide range of organisational structures for multi-agent systems. We not only introduce this approach, but provide its formal semantics, through modification of an operational semantics based on the core of AgentSpeak, 3APL and MetateM. In addition, we provide illustrative examples by simulating both constraints and content/context sets within the Jason interpreter for AgentSpeak. In summary, we advocate the use of these simple constructs in many logic-based BDI languages, by appealing to their applicability, simplicity and clear semantics.

Work partially supported by EPSRC under grant EP/D052548.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Louise Dennis, Michael Fisher & Anthony Hepple

Authors
  1. Louise Dennis
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  2. Michael Fisher
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  3. Anthony Hepple
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Fariba Sadri

  2. National Institute of Informatics, Sokendai, Japan

    Ken Satoh

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Dennis, L., Fisher, M., Hepple, A. (2008). Language Constructs for Multi-agent Programming. In: Sadri, F., Satoh, K. (eds) Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems. CLIMA 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5056. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88833-8_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88833-8_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-88832-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-88833-8

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