On observing and constraining active systems

Abstract

While agents have emphasised the notion of active software components, they are not likely to be the only active components in agent-based systems. In this paper, we first discuss the general notion of active system, and show how it relates with the issue of the consistent observation of distributed and heterogeneous multi-component systems. Then, we introduce the concept of boundary interface as a methodological abstraction for the engineering of a society's environment composed by active systems, allowing observer agents to be provided with three different kinds of consistent environment views, featuring observable, controlled, and constrained consistency, respectively. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.