=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-494/paper-18
|storemode=property
|title=Norms, Organisations and Semantic Web Services: The ALIVE approach
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-494/coinpaper9.pdf
|volume=Vol-494
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/mallow/Alvarez-NapagaoCPV09
}}
==Norms, Organisations and Semantic Web Services: The ALIVE approach==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-494/coinpaper9.pdf
Norms, Organisations and Semantic Web Services:
The ALIVE approach
Sergio Alvarez-Napagao∗ , Owen Cliffe† , Javier Vazquez-Salceda∗ and Julian Padget†
∗ Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, ES
† Department of Computer Science, University of Bath, BATH BA2 7AY, UK
Abstract—ALIVE is an EU FP7 STREP whose goal is the
convergence of organisational and normative modelling with
and service-oriented architectures (SOAs) using model-driven
software engineering. The project provides a framework for
designing and implementing systems, taking into account organ-
isational, coordination and service perspectives. A key project
aspect is the integration of normative systems with live SOAs,
through the distributed monitoring of normative state. Here we
give a brief overview of the project, explore of the domain from
a service context, outline the architecture under construction and
sketch the use-cases that illustrate and inform the project.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Recent developments in service-oriented architectures, in-
cluding the proliferation of web services (both in a con-
ventional context and in the context of the semantic web)
have opened up the possibility for a new class of loosely
coupled, open system. The software engineering methodol-
Fig. 1. ALIVE Multi-Level Architecture
ogy employed however constrains the resulting system and
approaches such as UML lack the means both to capture high-
level, abstract whole-system properties and to maintain them defining three levels in the design and management of dis-
at run time of systems without explicit (user) specification. tributed systems: the Service, Coordination and Organisation
In the context of socially-situated systems organisational Levels, illustrated in Fig. 1, and explained below.
models provide a way to model the relationships between The Service Level extends existing service models, to
users and system components as roles. In addition norms make components aware of their social context and of the
allow designers to specify succinctly the regulations that rules of engagement with other components and services, by
govern actors playing given roles and the expectations on means of semantic Web technologies. This “semantification”
their behaviour. These relationships may be maintained as the is particularly useful when highly dynamic and frequently
normative state of a system either explicitly or implicitly at changing services (the WSs in Fig. 1) are present, as the meta-
run time, allowing designers to identify quickly where given information in each service description (stored in a service
system behaviours (specified as norms) are being upheld or directory) aids tasks such as finding substitute services (either
violated. The ALIVE project aims to link existing work in via a matchmaker or manually) when the original fails.
modelling organisational structures and norms with the state The Coordination Level provides the means to specify, at a
of the art in service-oriented computing, allowing designers to high level, the patterns of interaction among services, using
build service oriented architectures that enact organisational a variety of powerful coordination techniques from recent
interactions in a natural way. The process of engineering the agent research [2], [5]. These are represented by agentified
systems themselves remains very complex, so the project takes services, that are organisationally-aware, meaning they are
advantage of model-driven development methodology to assist aware of system objectives and manage task allocation and
in the development of tools and software by offering the workflow generation and agreement. Also, at the coordination
potential for verifiable automation of key translation processes. level agreed workflows can be adapted while the system is
running—essential when the system has to react to failures or
II. T HE ALIVE C ONTEXT
exceptions (e.g., failing payment or booking systems).
The ALIVE architecture combines model driven develop- The Organisational Level provides a social context for the
ment (MDD) [6] with coordination and organisational mecha- Coordination and Service levels, specifying the organisational
nisms, providing support for live and open systems of services. rules that govern interaction and using recent developments in
ALIVE’s approach extends current trends in engineering by organisational dynamics [7] to allow the structural adaptation
of systems over time. This is important when frequent changes at the service level the focus is on low-level interaction with
of rules and restrictions are expected. the underlying services (e.g. via game APIs, or SMS gateways)
The ALIVE architecture can be seen as a service-oriented and composing services to interchange information contained
middleware supporting the combination, reorganisation and within communications, such as transcribing voice-mail mes-
adaptation of services at both design- and run-time. These sages to text for delivery within a text-only environment.
activities follow organisational patterns and adopt coordination IV. C URRENT S TATUS
techniques. Furthermore, the MDD paradigm offers significant
The key to the success of the project is integrating state-of-
developer assistance, through semi-automated transformations
the art approaches and tools from each of the areas of interest
between models of the three levels, as well as the capacity
(organisations, coordination and services). To date, the project
for multiple target platforms and representation languages.
has focused on developing an end-to-end methodology and
More details of the theoretical and methodological aspects
meta-model which unifies and relates concepts as follows:
are available as public deliverables on the ALIVE website
(i) Using the OPERA [1] organisational model and corre-
(http:www.ist-alive.eu).
sponding Operetta tool organisational concepts (Roles, Inter-
III. P ROJECT USE - CASES actions, and Norms) can be specified. (ii) These concepts are
We now outline the three use cases on which we draw to reified as coordination actions and agents, which in turn may
demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of the approach. be used to build coordination plans (using the GPGP/TÆMS
Intelligent tourism: The first use case (from TMT Factory coordination framework [3]) for groups of agents enacting
(http://tmtfactory.com), a company selling smart displays for roles within the organisation. (iii) Actions in coordination
urban tourist environments) focuses on providing assistance plans link to the provision or consumption of semantic web
and advice to tourists through a variety of devices (including services, by matchmaking tasks to existing semantic service
static displays). At the organisational level the use case applies descriptions and services using a hybrid matchmaker derived
models of city, regional and national laws to tune the types from OWL-S MX [4]. We are developing tools to assist in the
of services which are offered to customers (for instance process of semantic annotation of services. (iv) Agents enact
night clubs not being recommended to under 18s), at the their roles within the (either autonomously or via human con-
coordination it negotiates connected services (such as transport trollers) organisation, by direct communication or by invoking
and activities) and at the service level it interacts with existing the selected services, maintaining relevant state. (v) Monitors
providers (such as cinema booking services and transport observe agent interactions, normative and organisational state
planning services). (e.g. the status of agents’ obligations, permissions, powers and
Disaster Management: The second use case (from Thales D- the roles currently being assumed), and the agents interact
CIS laboratory (http://www.decis.nl/)) extends existing work with these monitors allowing them reason about the normative
on the modelling and simulation of urban disasters (here the effects of their actions and re-plan after service failures.
Planned project deliverables include a comprehensive de-
flooding of the Rotterdam harbour area). At an organisational
velopment methodology and a suite of Eclipse-based devel-
level we model the structure and roles of the services (e.g. city
opment tools (design and run time user assistance tools and
councils, local and national disaster centres and emergency
programming libraries for system development).
services) involved in handling a disaster at various scales
(from simple localised flooding to a city-wide flood) and Acknowledgement: This work has been supported in part by the
European Commission, project FP7-215890 (ALIVE).
the regulations relating to how those parties interact. At the
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