Journal papers of Viviana Mascardi

An agent-based framework for sketched symbol interpretation

G. Casella, V. Deufemia, V. Mascardi, G. Costagliola, M. Martelli

Journal of Visual Language and Computing (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jvlc.2007.04.002

Recognizing hand-sketched symbols is a definitely complex problem. The input drawings are often intrinsically ambiguous, and require context to be interpreted in a correct way. Many existing sketch recognition systems avoid this problem by recognizing single segments or simple geometric shapes in a stroke. However, for a recognition system to be effective and precise, context must be exploited, and both the simplifications on the sketch features, and the constraints under which recognition may take place, must be reduced to the minimum. In this paper, we present an agent-based framework for sketched symbol interpretation that heavily exploits contextual information for ambiguity resolution. Agents manage the activity of low- level hand-drawn symbol recognizers, that may be heterogeneous for better adapting to the characteristics of each symbol to be recognized, and coordinate themselves in order to exchange contextual information, thus leading to an efficient and precise interpretation of sketches. We also present AgentSketch, a multi-domain sketch recognition system implemented according to the proposed framework. A first experimental evaluation has been performed on the domain of UML Use Case Diagrams to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

The pdf version of this paper is available here

West2East: exploiting WEb Service Technologies to Engineer Agent-based SofTware

G. Casella V. ,Mascardi

Int. J. of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Inderscience Publishers, Vol. 1, No.3/4, pp. 396-434, 2007.

This paper describes West2East, a computer-aided Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) toolkit aimed at supporting the implementation of Multiagent Systems (MASs). West2East exploits languages for Web Services (WSs) for sharing Agent Interaction Protocols (AIPs), modelled using AUML, across the web, and Computational Logic to reason about them. In particular, West2East offers libraries for the translation of AIPs represented in AUML into 1) a textual notation proposed by Winikoff; 2) an XML notation proposed by ourselves; 3) a couple of WS-BPEL and WSDL documents; and 4) a Prolog term. It also offers 5) a mechanism for allowing agents that read a published AIP to reason about it before engaging in a dialogue with its publisher, and 6) libraries for the automatic generation of an executable program compliant with the original interaction protocol.

The pdf version of this paper is available here

Logic-Based Specification Languages for Intelligent Software Agents

V. Mascardi, M. Martelli, L. Sterling

Theory and Practice of Logic Programming Journal (TPLP), 4(4), Cambridge University Press, pagg. 429 -- 494, 2004.

Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) is the research field aiming at finding abstractions, languages, methodologies and toolkits for modeling, verifying, validating and prototyping complex applications conceptualized as Multi-Agent Systems (MASs). A very lively research area studies how formal methods can be used for AOSE; the ARPEGGIO open framework belongs to this area and aims at developing an open framework where logic-based formal specification languages and logic-based executable languages can be integrated to provide the means for specifying and prototyping a MAS choosing the most suitable language for each feature to model and implement. This paper presents a detailed survey of six logic-based executable agent specification languages that have been chosen for their possibility to be integrated in the ARPEGGIO framework: ConGolog, Agent-0, the IMPACT agent programming language, DyLog, Cuncurrent Metatem and Ehhf. For each executable language, the logic foundations are described and an example of use is shown. A comparison of the six languages and a survey of similar approaches complete the paper, together with considerations on the advantages of using logic-based languages in MAS modeling and prototyping.

The compressed postscript version of this paper is available through anonymous ftp at ftp.disi.unige.it, in /pub/person/MascardiV/Papers/TPLP03.ps.gz

Comparing Environments for Developing Software Agents

T. Eiter, V. Mascardi

AI Communications 15(4), pages 169-197, 2002

In the last years, dozens of environments for modeling, testing and finally implementing multi-agent systems have been developed. Unfortunately, no standard criteria for understanding what kind of application profile a particular development environment is good for have been individuated yet, and the question "How should I choose an existing environment which best suits the features and requirements of my application?" is still difficult to answer. This paper addresses this question, and aims at helping the multi-agent system developer to solve this problem. It provides a set of criteria for evaluating development environments, and then applies these criteria to five selected tools and multi-agent systems prototypes. Furthermore, some application-driven guidelines are described to help identifying the features of a suitable environment for developing an implementation of the given application. The features we identify can be used to find the right development framework among the frameworks we evaluate for doing the right application.

The compressed postscript version of this paper is available through anonymous ftp at ftp.disi.unige.it, in /pub/person/MascardiV/Papers/AIComms02.ps.gz