Chapter 9: A Language for Specifying Agent Systems in E-Learning Environments

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Hong Lin
University of Houston-Downtown, USA

Abstract

In this chapter, we use the Chemical Reaction Metaphor (Banatre & Le Metayer, 1990, 1993, 1996) to model the interactions among program units, including the agents, clients, servers, and databases, in a multiagentbased e-learning system. Through case studies, we demonstrate that the Gamma language (Banatre & Le Metayer, 1990; Le Metayer, 1994) is suitable for specifying a multiagent system, particularly, because an agent’s properties, such as autonomy and mobility, can be captured concisely. The use of the high-level specification paves the way for solving architectural-design issues in building an e-learning environment. The Gamma specification of an agent system can be implemented in a hierarchical running environment, which is composed of nodes in different levels of a tree. Interactions among agents can be implemented in a unified mechanism for synchronization.

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