We investigate the formulation of a formal semantics for the industrial software architecture Splice. In this paper, we present a set of basic Splice interaction primitives that is both powerful and easy to implement. We define a semantics for this language based on a conceptual global dataspace. It is shown that the semantics is equivalent to an implementation-biased semantics where each process has its own local dataspace and communication is established by means of asynchronous message passing. Hence, our language allows both convenient reasoning using a global dataspace and efficient implementation by means of distributed dataspaces. The equivalence result is checked mechanically by means of the interactive theorem prover PVS.

Experience in applicative fields, above all deriving from the development of multidisciplinary parallel applications, seems to suggest a model where an outer coordination level is provided to allow data parallel tasks to run concurrently and to cooperate each other. The inner computational level of this coordination model can easily be expressed with HPF, a high-level data-parallel language. According to this model, we devised COLT, a coordination architectural layer that supports dynamic creation and concurrent execution of HPF tasks, and permits these tasks to cooperate though message passing. This paper proposes the exploitation of COLT by means of a simple skeleton-based coordination language and the associated source-to-source compiler. Differently from other related proposals, COLT is portable and can exploit commercial, standard-compliant, HPF compilation systems. We used a physics application as a test-case for our approach, and we present the results of several experiments conducted on a cluster of Linux SMPs.

This paper presents MARS X, a programmable coordination architecture for Internet applications based on mobile agents. In MARS X, derived from the MARS coordination architecture, agents coordinate through programmable XML dataspaces, accessed by agents in a Linda-like fashion. This suits very well the characteristics of the Internet environment, because MARS X enforces open and uncoupled interactions and offers all the advantages of XML in terms of standard interoperability. In addition, coordination in MARS X is made more flexible and secure by the capability of programming the behaviour of the XML dataspaces in reaction to the agents' accesses. An application example related to the management of on-line academic courses shows the suitability and the effectiveness of the MARS X architecture.

We describe a language providing concepts for modeling autonomous entities (agents) and cooperating entities (groups). Agents are the execution units of a GroupLog program. Each agent possesses a hidden internal behavior and a well-defined communications interface and its behavior is defined by a set of logical rules. Groups are important to model agent cooperation in a flexible and well-structured manner and to hide low-level management of coordination activities. In the paper we give an informal presentation of the GroupLog language and illustrate its use through an example.

This paper put forth the argument that processes in work activities coordination software, like workflows, process centered software engineering environments (PSEE), and so on, should be represented in a logic language. This allows for a unified representation of processes, constraints, and policies, and allows for many modes of interactions with the work activity coordination software, as appropriate for manufacturing, workflow applications, software processes application, and scientific applications. This paper discusses mainly the temporal aspects of a logic representation language for processes.

Tasks like supply chain management, design of interorganizational workflow and design of virtual organizations or consortia, require mechanisms to analyze interaction requirements spanning across autonomous organizations. While existing means of analysis would help in identifying pertinent actors and interactions among them, properties which could manifest by virtue of the interactions themselves may go undetected. In this paper, we present an approach that looks for properties of a given problem domain which manifest due to the interactions that take place in the domain. As a specific application, we use data mining to look for knowledge about emergent properties from transaction data among a set of autonomous organizations, so as to design inter-organizational workflow and logistics among the organizations.