Statecharts: A visual formalism for complex systems
Science of Computer Programming
Verifying Compliance with Commitment Protocols
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
ESAW '00 Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agent World: Revised Papers
CEEMAS '01 Revised Papers from the Second International Workshop of Central and Eastern Europe on Multi-Agent Systems: From Theory to Practice in Multi-Agent Systems
Using Components for Modeling Intelligent and Collaborative Mobile Agents
WETICE '98 Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises
ROPE: Role Oriented Programming Environment for Multiagent Systems
COOPIS '99 Proceedings of the Fourth IECIS International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems
Protocol Moderators as Active Middle-Agents in Multi-Agent Systems
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Architecting for reuse: a software framework for automated negotiation
AOSE'02 Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Agent-oriented software engineering III
The MOCA platform: simulating the dynamics of social networks
MABS'02 Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Multi-agent-based simulation II
Engineering a protocol server using strategy-agents
CEEMAS'03 Proceedings of the 3rd Central and Eastern European conference on Multi-agent systems
Safe Adaptation of Component Coordination
Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS)
Dynamic Execution of Coordination Protocols in Open and Distributed Multi-Agent Systems
KES-AMSTA '09 Proceedings of the Third KES International Symposium on Agent and Multi-Agent Systems: Technologies and Applications
A unification-based approach to configure generic protocols into agent interaction models
International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering
Achieving competence by argumentation on rules for roles
ESAW'04 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Engineering Societies in the Agents World
Producing enactable protocols in artificial agent societies
PRIMA'11 Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Agents in Principle, Agents in Practice
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An autonomous agent in a MAS involves in a protocol – more exactly in a conversation following the rules of a protocol – in order to reach objectives, some ones shared with all other participants, some others specific and private. We assume a MAS architecture where each conversation is monitored by a middleware component – a conversation moderator – that guarantees that the shared objectives will be reached. This paper addresses the means an agent requires to be able to exercise its autonomy and reach its own objectives in the course of conversations. The first step is to define these objectives and this leads to distinguish the strategic and tactic levels in agents' behaviours. The strategic level must be handled by the agent itself; the required capabilities are abstract and relevant for larges categories of similar protocols. Once a strategy is set for a conversation, its application at the tactic level can be delegated to a middleware component, called a participation, that intervenes in the conversation on the behalf of the agent. This component is specific to the role held by the agent and it is tailored to make the best use of the subtleties of the protocol's rules. This approach brings many engineering benefits.