SDML: A Multi-Agent Language for Organizational Modelling

  • Authors:

  • Scott Moss;Helen Gaylard;Steve Wallis;Bruce Edmonds

  • Affiliations:

  • Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Manchester M1 3GH, United Kingdom. E-mail: s.moss@mmu.ac.uk, h.gaylard@mmu.ac.uk, s.wallis@mmu.ac.uk, b.edmonds@m ...;Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Manchester M1 3GH, United Kingdom. E-mail: s.moss@mmu.ac.uk, h.gaylard@mmu.ac.uk, s.wallis@mmu.ac.uk, b.edmonds@m ...;Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Manchester M1 3GH, United Kingdom. E-mail: s.moss@mmu.ac.uk, h.gaylard@mmu.ac.uk, s.wallis@mmu.ac.uk, b.edmonds@m ...;Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Manchester M1 3GH, United Kingdom. E-mail: s.moss@mmu.ac.uk, h.gaylard@mmu.ac.uk, s.wallis@mmu.ac.uk, b.edmonds@m ...

  • Venue:
  • Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

A programming language which is optimized for modellingmulti-agent interaction within articulated social structures such asorganizations is described with several examples of itsfunctionality. The language is SDML, a strictly declarative modellinglanguage which has object-oriented features and corresponds to afragment of strongly grounded autoepistemic logic. The virtues ofSDML include the ease of building complex models and the facility forrepresenting agents flexibly as models of cognition as well asmodularity and code reusability. Two representations of cognitiveagents within organizational structures are reported and aSoar-to-SDML compiler is described. One of the agent representationsis a declarative implementation of a Soar agent taken from theRadar-Soar model of Ye and Carley (1995). The Ye-Carley results arereplicated but the declarative SDML implementation is shown to bemuch less computationally expensive than the more procedural Soarimplementation. As a result, it appears that SDML supports moreelaborate representations of agent cognition together with moredetailed articulation of organizational structure than we have seenin computational organization theory. Moreover, by representingSoar-cognitive agents declaratively within SDML, that implementationof the Ye-Carley specification is necessarily consistent and soundwith respect to the formal logic to which SDML corresponds.