In: Proc. 30th Annual Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Sciences; Vol. 1: Software Technology and Architecture, 7-10 January 1997, Wailea, HI, pages 349-358. January 1997.
Abstract: Coordination models based on generative communication are well established for modeling interactions between agents in open systems. Because such models focus on shared data spaces and not on the active agents operating on them, they lack adequate modeling power for specifying agent behavior. The presented work is based on Objective Linda coordination model, which exploits generative communication and object-based modeling in order to meet the requirements of open systems. For Objective Linda, a high-level Petri net formalism is presented for agent behavior specification that combines an easily understandable, visual representation with the applicability of formal reasoning on agent behavior. Based on this formalism, a notion of types and subtyping is introduced for active agents. The benefits of the described work is illustrated by an example from open system design.
Keywords: behavior specifications; coordination models; high-level Petri nets; object-orienation; agents; generative communication; formal specification; Linda.