Towards filling the gap between AOSE

Towards filling the gap between AOSEmethodologies and infrastructures:

requirements and meta-model

Fabiano Dalpiaz¹, Ambra Molesini², Mariachiara Puviani³, Valeria Seidita⁴

¹ Università degli Studi di Trento² Alma Mater Studiorum³ Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia⁴ Università degli Studi di Palermo

WOA08 - Palermo

Outline

• Introduction to MEnSA• Our approach– Assembling a Metamodel– Requirements– Selection of fragments– Conceptual map– Metamodel

• Conclusions and future work

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The MEnSA project: why?

• The development of complex systems requires a new software engineering paradigm– Agent-oriented methodologies – Paradigmatic shift (from OO) at conceptual and technical

level– No need to reinvent the wheel– There are many agent-oriented methodologies– Each methodology has different specificities and

application areas

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The MEnSA project: what?• MEnSA

– “Methodology for the Engineering of complex Software systems: Agent based approach”

– Filling the gap – analysis and design, and implementation – methodologies and infrastructures

– Metamodel-based approach– Integration of existing fragments

• 3+1 partners– Alma Mater Studiorum (Cesena), Università degli Studi di Modena e

Reggio Emilia, Università degli Studi di Trento, ICAR-CNR Palermo e Università degli Studi di Palermo.

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Our Approach

1. Definition of a set of requirements for the methodology– Generic requirements– Specific requirements derived from the selected

methodologies

2. Elicitation and analysis of a set of fragments that satisfy the requirements– starting from Tropos, GAIA, SODA and PASSI

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Our Approach

3. Definition of a semantic conceptual map– To find out synonyms and inter-level relations between

concepts from different abstraction levels

3. Assembly of an integrated metamodel on the base of the selected fragments

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General Requirements

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• Transformational approach: from high-level abstraction to low-level concrete entities

• Support for traceability• Support for functional and non-functional

requirements• Support for goal-oriented and functional-oriented

analysis• Precise and compact modeling constructs for the

concept of agency – Agent, Agent’s rationale, Situated agent, Social Agent

Specific Requirements (1)

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• Transformational process– Requirement agent → Design agent → Implementation

agent

• Layering (supported by SODA)– Zooming and Projection mechanisms

• Goal oriented analysis (Tropos) before functional-oriented analysis (Passi)

• Interaction– Semantic communication + Ontology + compliance with

FIPA ACL

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Specific Requirements (2)

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• Organizational Rules (Supported by GAIA)• Environment and topology modeling– SODA artifact and workspace

• Modeling of non-functional requirements – Tropos soft-goals

• Modeling of Agent Plan– Should not constrain to a specific kind of agent

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Assembling a meta-model• Composition patterns:– Elements from existing meta-models present the same

name but have different meanings– Elements have the same meaning but different names– Elements present totally disjoint names and definitions,

requiring just a simple composition

• Additional concepts and relations act as glue• Outcome: Conceptual map + Glossary of term

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The Conceptual Map

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MEnSA metamodel

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MEnSA metamodel: requirements

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MEnSA metamodel: design

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Conclusion

• A process to define an integrated agent-oriented meta-model– Identification of the requirements for the target

methodology – Selection of a list of fragments from the four considered

methodologies. – Construction of a glossary– Definition of a conceptual map of methodologies

abstractions

• Initial version of the meta-model

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Future Work

• Definition of the meta-model’s implementation phase, extracted from a set of MAS infrastructures

• Refine the metamodel – as a result of the work on the methodological aspects and

the validation phase over a case study – splitting the two phases into different and more detailed

sub-phases

1616F. Dalpiaz, A. Molesini, M. Puviani, V. Seidita

Thanks for your attention

dalpiaz@disi.unitn.itambra.molesini@unibo.it

mariachiara.puviani@unimore.itseidita@dinfo.unipa.it