We propose a logic-based rendition of electronic institutions – these are means to specify open agent organisations. We employ a simple notation based on first-order logic and set theory to represent an expressive class of electronic institutions. We also provide a formal semantics to our constructs and present a distributed implementation of a platform to enact electronic institutions specifie...

To cope with formal verification issues within the ModelDriven Engineering (MDE) paradigm, a separation of duties between software developers is usually proposed: MDE experts define models and transformations, while formal verification experts conduct the verification process. This is often aided by (semi)automatic translations form the MDE elements to their formal representation in the semanti...

Conventional models of ‘transitions to democracy’ are incomplete and insufficient for the analysis of the regime changes in Russia and other post-Soviet societies, which go beyond the usual textbook cases. This article reconsiders conceptual frameworks for the analysis of democracy and democratization in the light of the experience of postSoviet political developments. The distinction between t...

In this paper we analyze the characteristics of the Virtual Worlds technology and present a need for formal software methodologies for the development of Virtual Worlds. The proposed methodology, 3D Electronic Institutions separates the development into specification of constraints of the interactions of participants, design and visualization of the 3D environment and programming the basic beha...

Purposes: This study investigates the role of formal and informal leaders in the diffusion of external reforms into schools and to teachers’ practices. Formal leaders are designated by their roles in the formal organization of the school (e.g., principals, department chairs, and instructional coaches) and informal leaders refer to those who do not have any formal leadership roles but are nomina...

The specification of open interaction systems, which may be dynamically entered and left by autonomous agents, is widely recognized to be a crucial issue in the development of distributed applications on the internet. The specification of such systems involves two main problems: the first is the definition of a standard way of specifying a communication language for the interacting agents and t...

Data Types, volume 655 of Lecture Notes in Computer Sci-ence, pages 66–91. Springer, 1993.[Mos96] T. Mossakowski. Using limits of parchments to systematically con-struct institutions of partial algebras. In M. Haveraaen, O.-J. Dahl,and O. Owe, editors, Recent Trends in Data Type Specifications. Se-lected Papers, 11th Workshop on Specification of Abstract Data TypesADT’95...