PROMAS PROgramming Multi-Agent Systems

1. PROMASPROgramming Multi-Agent Systems Mehdi Dastani mehdi@cs.uu.nl Jorge J. Gomez-Sanz jjgomez@sip.ucm.es

2. Program • 9 speakers in 7 sessions discussing various issues of MAS development • social aspects, coordination, cooperation, decision • reusability, reduce development costs, testing • programming languages, tools, frameworks, libraries • prototypes, experiments, case studies • Session format: • 15 minutes talk + 30-45 Discussion • Joint meeting with AOSE

3. Tuesday 1 March (Afternoon session) Welcome and Round table introduction (14.15-14.30) Session 1(14.30-15.30): AI and MAS- Ana García Serrano, Technical University of Madrid- Gabriel Marchalot, Thalès group, France Session 2(15.30-16.15): Development/Maintenance Costs- Jorge Gomez Sanz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid Break(16.15-16.30) Session 3(16.30-17.15): Imperative and Declarative Programming Languages for Multi-Agent Systems - Joao Leite, Universidade Nova de Lisboa Session 4(17.15-18.15): Formal Methods for Multi-Agent Systems - Rafael Bordini, University of Durham, UK

4. Wednesday 2 March (Morning session) Session 5(09.15-10.30): Multi-Agent Systems and Integrated Developing Environments- Gregory O'Hare, University College Dublin- Juan Manuel Serrano, Universidad Rey Juan Cerlos- Lars Braubach, Universität Hamburg Break(10.30-10.45) Session 6(10.45-12.00): Implementation of Multi-Agent Issues - Birna van Riemsdijk, Utrecht Universiteit - Alessandro Ricci, Universita' di Bologna a Cesena Session 7 (12.00-12.45): Programming Pricinples for Multi-Agent Systems- Amal El Fallah-Seghrouchni, University of Paris 6 Closing: (12.45-13.00)

5. Session 1Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems • How can AI and MAS areas be integrated? • What is the influence of AI concerns in a MAS architecture? • What is the experience in reusing AI libraries and software into MAS? • Does AI really improve MAS? • Can a MAS be built without AI? • What can be learned from implementation and deployment of AI systems? • Did AI need or result in special AI-oriented programming languages? • Can AI-oriented programming languages be used for implementing multi-agent systems? In which way?

6. Session 2 Development and Maintenance Costs • Is developing systems with agents less expensive in time and effort? • How would you expect agent technology to decrease development costs? • By increasing re-usability? • By identifying concrete problems where agents, inherently, are better solution than other alternatives, say object oriented for instance? • By producing more robust systems?

7. Session 3 Imperative and Declarative Programming Languages for Multi-Agent Systems • Imperative languages are chosen by most developers to produce their MAS. • Can generic programming languages such as PROLOG, Oz, Haskell and Scheme be used to develop MAS systems? Is it really more helpful? • What agent developments do you know which are implemented with declarative languages? Pure declarative implementations or hybrid? • How can declarative languages be used together with imperative ones? How can declarative languages facilitate the MAS development? • It seems that declarative languages can be applied to define the high-level behavior of an agent. Where else?

8. Session 4Formal Methods for Multi-Agent Systems • There are significant amount of research in formal methods applied to agents, e.g. model checking approaches, modal logics, situation calculus. • Formal methods are associated with high costs of developments since it requires time and high skilled workers. • Is easier to apply formal methods to MAS than to other paradigms? • what advantages would you remark when applying formal methods to a MAS development? • Can agents be a better way of introducing formal methods deeper into industry? • Are agents more easily accepted by industry due formal methods?

9. Session 5 Multi-Agent Systems andIntegrated Developing Environments • What are possible links between MAS integrated development environments (IDEs) and programming languages? • Usually IDEs use a high level representation of the MAS that are translated later into executable code. What representations are more useful? • what translation mechanism are considered? • In the executable code, which programming language is more appropriate?

10. Session 6Implementation of Multi-Agent Issues • Examples of MAS issues: coordination, communication, mobility, environment, security, ontology, and services. • Examples of single agent issues: mental attitudes, agent roles, role dynamics, deliberation capabilities, adaptation capabilities, social capabilities, and reactive mechanisms. • What are the techniques to implement these issues? • Which languages provide programming constructs to implement them? • How can these issues be implemented in existing programming languages such as Java or C++? • How can existing MAS architectures, which are defined in terms of higher level concepts, be implemented?

11. Session 7Programming Principles for Multi-Agent Systems • MAS development require training in different conventional disciplines, like object oriented programming, distributed systems, structured programming. • Techniques used from other disciplines to MAS, like abstraction, inheritance, modularity, overloading, information hiding, error handling, generic programming, compositionality, and separation of concerns. • What public implementations of MAS you know? • What of the mentioned techniques you would highlight in those implementations? • How would you value the importance or impact of those techniques in a MAS development? • Do they influence more at Agent level or at MAS level?

12. Travel Grant • Make sure your organization is an AgentLink III member • AgentLink needs  actual expenditures (up to maximum) • Original transaction receipts • Send it before 1 April 2005 to AgentLink http://www.agentlink.org/admin/expenses.html

13. Joint Session AOSE and ProMAS • Is MOF a useful starting point for MAS programming languages or vice versa? • Reverse engineering • Which Semantics? • Filling the gap between design & Implementation • Code generators • Special Programming Languages and Platforms • Testing Multi-Agent Systems • Formal Methods • Differences with Object-Oriented Testing • Debugging Tools

14. Joint Session AOSE and ProMAS • What are the following principles in MAS? • abstraction, • inheritance, • modularity, • overloading, • information hiding, • error handling, • generic programming, • compositionality, and • separation of concerns

15. Joint Session AOSE and ProMAS • Environment • Platform, World, Services, resources • Analysis (concepts) versus implementation (constructs) • Coordination Mechanism • Organization structure • Analysis versus implementation • Evaluation • Relationship between Methodologies and Programming languages based on Implementations