Journal papers of Viviana Mascardi
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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
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
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
Bibtex Entry (TPLP 2004)
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
Bibtex Entry (AIComms 2002)
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Viviana Mascardi mascardi@disi.unige.it
Last Updated: February the 3rd, 2004
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