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Medee Method Framework: a situational approach for organization-centered MAS

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Abstract

This paper presents a situational approach, called Medee Method Framework, which allows the development of organization-centered MAS in a disciplined way, even though some agent organizational (AO) models are not currently incorporated into agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) methods. In order to do that, such a method framework proposes the composition of MAS situational methods out of method fragments according to a given project situation, by applying the principles proposed by situational method engineering. The proposed approach provides a high degree of reuse and flexibility, allowing the composition of new methods as well as the reengineering of AOSE methods based on the standards proposed by SPEM. Furthermore, it allows the user to leverage advantages of both AOSE methods and AO models in order to develop organization-centered MAS. The Medee Method Framework offers a method repository that covers different development phases, such as requirements, analysis, design, implementation, as well as the main components of a MAS application, like agents, environments, interactions, and organizations. This repository has been sourced from several AOSE methods and AO models, as Gaia, Tropos, Ingenias, PASSI, MOISE, and OperA.

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Notes

  1. In order to improve readability, the Comic Sans font is used in this paper from hereon in to designate SPEM concepts.

  2. This is made by creating a new method library using the following sequence of commands from the EPF Composer toolbar: File\(>\)Import\(>\)Library Configuration. See EPF Composer Help and EPF Composer Tutorial for more information about this feature.

  3. http://www.medee.poli.usp.br/.

  4. In order to improve readability, hereon in this paper uses the Arial Narrow font to show Medee concepts, and continues to show SPEM concepts using Comic Sans font.

  5. MPS stands for MAS work Product Slot.

  6. An Activity diagram illustrates how the process elements (e.g. activities, phases, iterations) flow together. Such diagrams are defined by SPEM and provided by the EPF Composer.

  7. http://multiagentcontest.org/2010.

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Acknowledgments

This research has been mostly supported by FAPESPRegular research project 2009/10121-4 and international cooperation FAPESP-CNRS project 2009/54773-5., Brazil. Jaime Sichman is partially supported by CNPq, Brazil. Sara Casare was partially supported by CAPES, Brazil. Zahia Guessoum is partially supported by CNRS, France. We would like to thank the invaluable work from the reviewers that helped us to improve the paper quality and readability.

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Correspondence to Jaime S. Sichman.

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Casare, S.J., Brandão, A.A.F., Guessoum, Z. et al. Medee Method Framework: a situational approach for organization-centered MAS. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 28, 430–473 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-013-9228-y

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