Towards Group Decision Support in the Software Maintenance Process

Software maintenance is an element-key of the life cycle of software. However,the techniques of software maintenance do not consider the diversity and the complexity of decisions which do not stop increasing. So, there are at present a few tools, susceptible to insure the relevance and the efficiency of the decision-making in this phase. The work presented in this paper aims to eliminate or at least to reduce the effect to fall in an expensive change by reducing the time to find a compromise on the adequate change. The development of the decision support system for software maintenance is an answer to the problem. The developed tool allows:-to make a fast diagnosis on the software by using the coupling metrics;-to help the decision-makers of the maintenance, according to their preferences often conflicting, to adopt a change among several proposed. To answer this group decision where various points of view are considered, we propose a negotiation protocol. This protocol try to find a compromise that suits best all the decision-makers.

AN ANALYSIS OF TRANSACTIONS IN E-PAYMENT SYSTEM USING MOBILE AGENTS

Commercial interactions between merchants and customers pose a significant concern as they are associated with a large volume of data and complex information, especially when there is a need for switching requirements. This paper presents an agent-based analysis of e-payment transactions with the switching operations. The model adopts an inter-bank transaction network and consists of a terminal point of sale (POI) and three essential players in e-payment: customer, bank (merchant), and the Switch. This study analyses the various payment interactions using agent technology. The agent coordinates movement while the negotiation protocol serves as an internal control of the payment agreements, while the interactive hosts are the platforms that determine the status of transactions. Each agent host is equipped with a Certification Authority (CA) to secure communication between the merchant and the customer. Different transactions that agents could make are examined with formal descriptions. The implementation is achieved in Jade and compares with the object serialization mechanism. The simulation results show higher quality adaptation of agent systems and evidence of agentisation of e-transaction with Switch.

Efficient Discovery of Provider Services in a Cloud-Based Supply Chain

This paper proposes a framework of services selection and classification for an efficient provider's services discovery in a cloud-based supply chain. This framework combines the advantages of the web service technology and agent paradigm to select dynamically the best services among those that operated in a supply chain. It is based on two levels: the UDDI cloud level and the agent one. The UDDI cloud level allows web services, which represent providers' business functionalities, to be classified, discovered, selected, and invoked by agents that are applied to the supply chain construction. The agent level contains an agent society that manages the different steps of cooperation and negotiation between the different business entities in a supply chain, as business-to-business and business-to-customer transactions. On the basis of the characteristics of supply chain, a negotiation protocol between agents has been proposed.

An Overview of Current Multi-Attribute Techniques in Double Auction Frameworks

Double auction is becoming the preferred negotiation protocol for cloud service negotiation due to its economic efficiency, capability in facilitating dynamic pricing, and suitability for handling a large number of customers and service providers. However, as far as this research work is concerned, there is no framework using double auction that simultaneously and comprehensively addresses the heterogeneity of cloud services in multi-attributes negotiation. Before such a framework can be designed, suitable multi-attributes negotiation techniques and its attributes should be identified. Therefore, this paper’s objective is to distinguish and provide an overview of multi-attributes techniques used in double auction negotiations. The sources are from the Scopus Database. It is found that the current multi-attributes techniques lacked in addressing the preferential dependency, selective attributes and utility optimization simultaneously in double auction frameworks. These concerns need to be addressed in order to devise a practical framework. The future direction for double auction framework in multi-attributes negotiation is suggested.

Towards a Group Decision Support System

This research focuses on the design and development of an interactive multi-criteria group decision support system (GDSS). This system comprises a set of agents communicating through messages. They aim to find an adequate area that can best address certain criteria among a set of variants (e.g. localization of new infrastructure, shopping mall, hospital, etc.). A GDSS is designed and relies mainly on the presentation of the territory through the functionalities of geographic information system (GIS), and the representation of the multiplicity and diversity of decision makers through the functionalities of a multi-agents system (MAS). Moreover, an argumentation-based negotiation protocol MAS module is provided. This approach is justified by the argumentative nature of the process by which participants justify their choices in order to reach a collective decision. This is achieved by exploiting the multi-criteria methods with an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and Electre III.