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High variability design for software agents: Extending Tropos

Published: 01 November 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Many classes of distributed applications, including e-business, e-government, and ambient intelligence, consist of networking infrastructures, where the nodes (peers)—be they software components, human actors or organizational units—cooperate with each other to achieve shared goals. The multi-agent system metaphor fits very well such settings because it is founded on intentional and social concepts and mechanisms. Not surprisingly, many agent-oriented software development methods have been proposed, including GAIA, PASSI, and Tropos. This paper extends the Tropos methodology, enhancing its ability to support high variability design through the explicit modelling of alternatives, it adopts an extended notion of agent capability and proposes a refined Tropos design process. The paper also presents an implemented software development environment for Tropos, founded on the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) framework and standards. The extended Tropos development process is illustrated through a case study involving an e-commerce application.

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems  Volume 2, Issue 4
November 2007
106 pages
ISSN:1556-4665
EISSN:1556-4703
DOI:10.1145/1293731
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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 November 2007
Published in TAAS Volume 2, Issue 4

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Author Tags

  1. Agent capability design
  2. agent-oriented software engineering
  3. early requirements
  4. goal-oriented requirements engineering

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