Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT

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  • Publication
    Modelling actor evolution in agent-based simulations
    ( 2009)
    Roesli, A.
    ;
    Schmitz, D.
    ;
    Lakemeyer, G.
    ;
    Jarke, M.
    Agent-based simulations have proven to be suitable to investigate many kinds of problems, especially in the field of social science. But to provide useful insights, the behaviour of the involved, simulated actors needs to reflect relevant features of the real world. In this paper, we address one particular aspect in this regard, namely the correct reflection of an actor's evolution during a simulation. Very often some knowledge exists about how an actor can evolve, for example, the typical development stages of entrepreneurs when investigating entrepreneurship networks. We propose to model this knowledge explicitly using evolution links between roles enriched with suitable conditions and extend i*, an agent- and goal-oriented modelling framework, thereby. We provide a mapping to the simulation environment ConGolog that serves as an intermediary approach between not providing change of behaviour at all and very open approaches to behaviour adaptation such as learning.
  • Publication
    Continuous, requirements-driven support for organizations, networks and communities
    ( 2008)
    Jarke, M.
    ;
    Klamma, R.
    ;
    Lakemeyer, G.
    ;
    Schmitz, D.
    Next to requirements engineering, business process reengineering and organizational impact analysis have been discussed in Yu's original thesis as application areas of i*. In our research, we elaborate and combine these three fields by aiming at continuous, requirements-driven support for organizations, networks, and communities. While i* is well suited to capture the static relationships and rationales in these cases, extensions have been introduced to cope with the dynamics of these forms of organization, such as delegation discussions, evolution, the growth (or shrinkage) of trust, etc. We integrate a dedicated speech act perspective and provide a mapping to ConGolog, a logic-based high-level process modelling environment, to enable simulations. Analysis means are extended furthermore to include dynamic social network analysis.
  • Publication
    Comparing three formal analysis approaches of the Tropos family
    ( 2008)
    Schmitz, D.
    ;
    Lakemeyer, G.
    ;
    Jarke, M.
    Tropos is a software development methodology founded on concepts used to model early requirements, the i* framework. In addition to a methodological framework, research addresses also formal analysis support. In previous work, we proposed the prototype environment SNet based on the Trust-Confidence-Distrust (TCD) approach for the representation and dynamic evaluation of agent-based designs for inter-organizational networks. There are two major ingredients: i* for modeling the domain statically and ConGolog for analysing it dynamically via simulations. In this paper, we compare our approach with two other approaches that enrich i*/Tropos models to allow for more formal analyses, Formal Tropos and Secure Tropos. While the intended use of these is quite different from SNet, there are a number of commonalities, which will be highlighted as well as the differences that suggest a combined use, including complementary forms of analysis such as model checking versus simulation.
  • Publication
    How to model inter-organisational networks to enable dynamic analyses via simulations
    ( 2007)
    Schmitz, D.
    ;
    Lakemeyer, G.
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    Jarke, M.
    ;
    Karanfil, H.
  • Publication
    Comparing TCD/SNet with two other formal analysis approaches based on i*
    ( 2006)
    Schmitz, D.
    ;
    Lakemeyer, G.
    ;
    Jarke, M.
    In previous work, we proposed the prototype environment SNet based on the Trust-Confidence-Distrust (TCD) approach for the representation and dynamic evaluation of agent-based designs for inter-organizational networks. There are two major ingredients: i* for modeling the domain statically and ConGolog for analysing it dynamically via simulations. In the context of i*, several other approaches that try to enrich i* models to allow for more formal analyses exist. In this paper, we compare our approach with two of them, Formal Tropos and Secure Tropos. While the intended use of these is quite different from SNet, there are a number of commonalities, which will be highlighted in this paper as well as the differences, including complementary forms of analysis such as model checking versus simulation.
  • Publication
    SNet reloaded: Roles, monitoring and agent evolution
    ( 2005)
    Gans, G.
    ;
    Schmitz, D.
    ;
    Arzdorf, T.
    ;
    Jarke, M.
    ;
    Lakemeyer, G.
    In previous work, we proposed the prototype environment SNet for the representation and dynamic evaluation of agent-based designs for inter-organizational networks. A key feature of SNet is the automatic translation of extended i* models into the action language ConGolog. In order to run realistic simulations, the resulting agents are deliberative in that they can choose between different courses of action according to some utility measure. When applying SNet to modelling an existing entrepreneurship network, we discovered a number of deficiencies of our current proposal, in particular, the lack of a role concept, the ability to monitor the execution of plans that depend on other agents' contributions and the ability to model agents that evolve over time. In this paper we will sketch the example domain and discuss how these new features can be incorporated in the SNet framework.
  • Publication
    Using BPEL process descriptions for building up strategic models of inter-organizational networks
    ( 2004)
    Schmitz, D.
    ;
    Lakemeyer, G.
    ;
    Gans, G.
    ;
    Jarke, M.
    In previous work, we proposed the prototype environment SNet for the representation and dynamic evaluation of agent-based designs for inter-organizational networks. A key feature of SNet is the automatic translation of extended i* models into the action language Con-Golog. An issue we have not yet considered is how to arrive at the foundational and hopefully realistic i* model. Currently there is no support to incorporate information from already existing descriptions of business processes in an enterprise. BPEL is expected to play an important role in the future by enabling interoperability of different partners' business processes - not only in the web service domain. Once standardized a wide-spread availability of BPEL-based process descriptions can be expected. In this paper we suggest how to map BPEL descriptions into i* descriptions, thus opening the door to generating SNet simulations of business processes from BPEL descriptions.