Within Criminology, the process of crime displacement is usually explained by referring to the interaction of three types of agents: criminals, passers-by, and guardians. Most existing simulation models of this process are agent-based. However, when the number of agents considered becomes large, population-based simulation has computational advantages over agent-based simulation. This paper pre...

For half a decade model-based testing has been applied at Microsoft in the internal development process. Though a success story compared to other formal quality assurance approaches like verification, a break-through of the technology on a broader scale is not in sight. What are the obstacles? Some lessons can be learned from the past and will be discussed. An approach to MBT is described which...

The paper reports the approach of our team “711” to recommend Brick-and-Mortar Store with Budget Constraints. By extensive studies, we find that the history data is very effective in this location based service recommendation and we exploit the history data in our recommendation from both the users’ aspect and the merchants’ aspect. Moreover, we extract predicative features from the train set a...

This paper is about explanation-based learning for heuristic problem solvers which "build" solutions using schemata (frames like scripts) as both "bricks" and "mortar". The heart of the paper is a description of a generalization method which is designed to extract as much information as possible from examples of successful problem solving behavior. A' related generalizer, (less powerful but mor...

Argumentation is a well-studied formal model for multiagent interaction that supports exchange of information about agents’ beliefs and reasons why agents hold their beliefs. We describe an argumentation engine, called ArgTrust, that we have implemented in Java, and explain how the underlying logic formalism is translated into a computational framework.

This paper presents first a formal development methodology that enables a specifier to add complexity progressively into the system design, and to formally validate each step wrt client’s requirements. Second, the paper describes the application of this methodology to agent-based systems, as well as development guidelines that help the specifier during the development of such systems. System’s ...

Using formal speciications to represent software components facilitates the determination of reusability because they more precisely characterize the func-tionality of the software, and the well-deened syntax makes processing amenable to automation. This paper presents an approach, based on formal methods, to the modiication of reusable software components. From a two-tiered hierarchy of reusab...

We discuss some of the difficulties and significant issues that we need to consider when developing a formal method for component-based software engineering. We argue that to deal with the challenges, there is a need in research to link existing theories and methods of programming for effective support to component-based software engineering. We then present our initiative on a unified multi-vi...

Software architectural modeling offers a natural framework for designing and analyzing modern large-scale software systems and for composing systems from reusable off-theshelf components. However, the nature of componentbased software presents particularly unique challenges for testing component-based systems. To date there have been relatively few attempts to establish a sound theoretical basi...

Central research questions addressed within Criminology are how the geographical displacement of crime can be understood, explained, and predicted. The process of crime displacement is usually explained by referring to the interaction of three types of agents: criminals, passers-by, and guardians. Most existing simulation models of this process take a ‘local’ perspective, i.e., they are agent-b...