Distributed interpretation: a model and experiment
Distributed Artificial Intelligence
Designing behaviors for information agents
AGENTS '97 Proceedings of the first international conference on Autonomous agents
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AGENTS '98 Proceedings of the second international conference on Autonomous agents
Evaluation of modeling techniques for agent-based systems
Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Autonomous agents
Introduction to Multiagent Systems
Introduction to Multiagent Systems
Towards requirements-driven information systems engineering: the Tropos project
Information Systems - The 13th international conference on advanced information systems engineering (CAiSE*01)
Assessing the Suitability of a Standard Design Method for Modeling Software Architectures
WICSA1 Proceedings of the TC2 First Working IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA1)
Determining When to Use an Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Paradigm
AOSE '01 Revised Papers and Invited Contributions from the Second International Workshop on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering II
Towards Modeling and Reasoning Support for Early-Phase Requirements Engineering
RE '97 Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering
Mobile Agents for Telecommunication Applications
Mobile Agents for Telecommunication Applications
Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM)
Tropos: An Agent-Oriented Software Development Methodology
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Agent technology in communications systems: an overview
The Knowledge Engineering Review
Challenges and Research Directions in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Using Adaptive Multi-Agent Systems to Simulate Economic Models
AAMAS '04 Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 1
Human-Robot Teaming for Search and Rescue
IEEE Pervasive Computing
Expectations and deployment of agent technology in manufacturing and defence: case studies
Proceedings of the fourth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems
Self-organization in multi-agent systems
The Knowledge Engineering Review
Making a strong business case for multiagent technology
AAMAS '06 Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems
MOBMAS: A methodology for ontology-based multi-agent systems development
Information and Software Technology
Taxonomy of architectural style usage
Proceedings of the 2006 conference on Pattern languages of programs
Industrial deployment of multi-agent technologies: review and selected case studies
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Location-Based Software Modeling and Analysis: Tropos-Based Approach
ER '08 Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling
When to Use a Multi-Agent System?
PRIMA '08 Proceedings of the 11th Pacific Rim International Conference on Multi-Agents: Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
A security-aware metamodel for multi-agent systems (MAS)
Information and Software Technology
Motivation for a new formal framework for agent-oriented software engineering
International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering
FAML: A Generic Metamodel for MAS Development
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
ASPECS: an agent-oriented software process for engineering complex systems
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
ADELFE: a methodology for adaptive multi-agent systems engineering
ESAW'02 Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Engineering societies in the agents world III
Agent oriented software engineering with INGENIAS
CEEMAS'03 Proceedings of the 3rd Central and Eastern European conference on Multi-agent systems
An agent-based market platform for Smart Grids
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: Industry track
Eclipse-based Prometheus design tool
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: volume 1 - Volume 1
Negotiation on data allocation in multi-agent environments
AAAI'97/IAAI'97 Proceedings of the fourteenth national conference on artificial intelligence and ninth conference on Innovative applications of artificial intelligence
AOSE'10 Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Agent-oriented software engineering
AOSE'04 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering
Multi-agent patient representation in primary care
AIME'05 Proceedings of the 10th conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Developing and evaluating a generic metamodel for MAS work products
Software Engineering for Multi-Agent Systems IV
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Context: A common distributed intelligent system architecture is Multi Agent Systems (MASs). Creating systems with this architecture has been recently supported by Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) methodologies. But two questions remain: how do we determine the suitability of a MAS implementation for a particular problem? And can this be determined without AOSE expertise? Objective: Given the relatively small number of software engineers that are AOSE experts, many problems that could be better solved with a MAS system are solved using more commonly known but not necessarily as suitable development approaches (e.g. object-oriented). The paper aims to empower software engineers, who are not necessarily AOSE experts, in deciding whether or not they should advocate the use of an MAS technology for a given project. Method: The paper will construct a systematic framework to identify key criteria in a problem requirement definition to assess the suitability of a MAS solution. The criteria are first identified using an iterative process. The features are initially identified from MAS implementations, and then validated against related work. This is followed by a statistical analysis of 25 problems that characterise agent-oriented solutions previously developed to group features into key criteria. Results: Key criteria were sufficiently prominent using factor analysis to construct a framework which provides a process that identifies within the requirements the criteria discovered. This framework is then evaluated for assessing suitability of a MAS architecture, by non-AOSE experts, on two real world problems: an electricity market simulation and a financial accounting system. Conclusion: Substituting a software engineer's personal inclination to (or not to) use a MAS, our framework provides an objective mechanism. It can supplant current practices where the decision to use a MAS architecture for a given problem remains an informal process. It was successfully illustrated on two real world problems to assess the suitability of a MAS implementation. This paper will potentially facilitate the take up of MAS technology.