Agent-based coordination and negotiation technologies for decentralised service workflow management. This project will enhance the nation's expertise in ICT in general and smart information use in particular. In the real world, process management is a key issue in any workplace organisation which needs to be supported by workflow systems, particularly in this Internet and Web services era. This project will develop an innovative framework and the corresponding technologies for service workflow m ....Agent-based coordination and negotiation technologies for decentralised service workflow management. This project will enhance the nation's expertise in ICT in general and smart information use in particular. In the real world, process management is a key issue in any workplace organisation which needs to be supported by workflow systems, particularly in this Internet and Web services era. This project will develop an innovative framework and the corresponding technologies for service workflow management. The research will assist many organisations to effectively develop and deliver more efficient, reliable, flexible and adaptive business applications. Consequently, this will enhance the ability of many Australian organisations to run more productively and more competitively.Read moreRead less
Analysing and Generating Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Systems. Safety-critical real-time systems are being deployed increasingly in diverse areas such as controlling critical infrastructure like transportation (e.g., railway signalling) as well as in defence applications (e.g., fly-by-wire). Such systems must be dependable and hence must be built using fault-tolerant strategies.
This project is researching frontier ICT technologies for analysing, designing and generating fault-tolerant systems, con ....Analysing and Generating Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Systems. Safety-critical real-time systems are being deployed increasingly in diverse areas such as controlling critical infrastructure like transportation (e.g., railway signalling) as well as in defence applications (e.g., fly-by-wire). Such systems must be dependable and hence must be built using fault-tolerant strategies.
This project is researching frontier ICT technologies for analysing, designing and generating fault-tolerant systems, concentrating on their software control components.Read moreRead less
Verified Emulation of Legacy Mission Computer Systems. Processor obsolescence is a serious maintenance problem for long-lived computer control systems in military aircraft and other critical applications. A promising solution is to interpose an emulator program between the original "legacy" software and a replacement processor. Unfortunately, no techniques exist for accurately verifying that this procedure preserves the original system's functional and timing behaviour. A particular challenge ....Verified Emulation of Legacy Mission Computer Systems. Processor obsolescence is a serious maintenance problem for long-lived computer control systems in military aircraft and other critical applications. A promising solution is to interpose an emulator program between the original "legacy" software and a replacement processor. Unfortunately, no techniques exist for accurately verifying that this procedure preserves the original system's functional and timing behaviour. A particular challenge is that processor emulations involve both legacy code and new subroutines, written in different programming languages. This project will enable verification of safety and mission-critical emulated systems by devising a multilingual modelling and reasoning formalism, based on program refinement theory.Read moreRead less
Ontology-based agent-oriented development methodologies. Establishing an industry strength unified agent-oriented methodology which focuses on interoperability and reusability will create stronger commitment to the new technology and stability in the commercial sector in Australia. Our methodology will create significant potential for Australian software companies, due to the added productivity and long term customer satisfaction through reusability, interoperability and pay-off of the developed ....Ontology-based agent-oriented development methodologies. Establishing an industry strength unified agent-oriented methodology which focuses on interoperability and reusability will create stronger commitment to the new technology and stability in the commercial sector in Australia. Our methodology will create significant potential for Australian software companies, due to the added productivity and long term customer satisfaction through reusability, interoperability and pay-off of the developed systems. This not only brings profits to Australian companies through the exploitation of this frontier technology, but also enhances the standard of living through increased satisfaction of the Australian public in their increasing use of software as they interact with today's computer-controlled world.Read moreRead less
e-Hermes: Context-rich mobile agent technologies to support information needs of financial institutions. How do we achieve flexibility and efficiency of financial services in electronic commerce environment using mobile software agents? To address this question the project will extend a system architecture based on mobile agents, which retrieve, pre-process and deliver relevant information to potentially mobile users. Two major components - information processor and agent mission processor - wil ....e-Hermes: Context-rich mobile agent technologies to support information needs of financial institutions. How do we achieve flexibility and efficiency of financial services in electronic commerce environment using mobile software agents? To address this question the project will extend a system architecture based on mobile agents, which retrieve, pre-process and deliver relevant information to potentially mobile users. Two major components - information processor and agent mission processor - will be researched and developed by two PhD scholars to be supported by this application. The project results could be commercialised by the industry partner. The project is innovative in that it considers the emerging agent paradigm as an integrated distributed system in the e-commerce environment.Read moreRead less
Open Agent Architectures for Intelligent Distributed Decision Making. Sophisticated software systems are part of the essential infrastructure of our daily lives. Complex systems such as the internet, finance, or telecommunications software cannot have a centralised point of control or a single developer. The aim of this project is to develop an architecture and support infrastructure enabling intelligent agents to locate and use services in such open systems. The fundamental questions that must ....Open Agent Architectures for Intelligent Distributed Decision Making. Sophisticated software systems are part of the essential infrastructure of our daily lives. Complex systems such as the internet, finance, or telecommunications software cannot have a centralised point of control or a single developer. The aim of this project is to develop an architecture and support infrastructure enabling intelligent agents to locate and use services in such open systems. The fundamental questions that must be addressed include issues such as how agents will find and use newly added services and how services will communicate with each other, given that they are developed independently.Read moreRead less
Efficient Web Services Discovery in Peer-to-Peer Networks. The most direct application of this research will be in the area of applying Web services technologies and discovery techniques for building enterprise-strength, B2B and B2G solutions for the Australian SMEs. Economic benefits are applicable to the Australian SMEs, major government organizations, large cooperations and universities who are considering Web services-based dynamic integration of their IT systems in the near future. The outc ....Efficient Web Services Discovery in Peer-to-Peer Networks. The most direct application of this research will be in the area of applying Web services technologies and discovery techniques for building enterprise-strength, B2B and B2G solutions for the Australian SMEs. Economic benefits are applicable to the Australian SMEs, major government organizations, large cooperations and universities who are considering Web services-based dynamic integration of their IT systems in the near future. The outcomes of this project have potential commercial value for Beacon Software Innovations Pty Ltd, which will put the company in competitive advantage in the budget management software industry. Read moreRead less
High-performance real-time OS framework for low-power applications. Wireless network adapters, as they are being developed by Cisco, will find widespread use in the near future, as they are the basis of all mobile or otherwise disconnected intelligent devices. These devices must process data very rapidly, yet operate with minimal power consumption. We will develop operating system kernels that will support the secure, efficient and protected execution of the core processing firmware, and provide ....High-performance real-time OS framework for low-power applications. Wireless network adapters, as they are being developed by Cisco, will find widespread use in the near future, as they are the basis of all mobile or otherwise disconnected intelligent devices. These devices must process data very rapidly, yet operate with minimal power consumption. We will develop operating system kernels that will support the secure, efficient and protected execution of the core processing firmware, and provide application frameworks for the controlling higher software layers. We will also investigate and design hardware mechanisms that support the software while keeping power consumption minimal.Read moreRead less
Towards Invisibly Intelligent Appliances via Experience-based Computing. As computers become more pervasive, people will inevitably interact with a wide range of networked appliances. This proposal aims to develop prototype enabling technology to allow appliances to operate cooperatively and seamlessly with minimum human input - 'invisible intelligence'. Experience-based computing is the key concept underlying the technology. A prototype 'operating experience' will be developed to sit on top of ....Towards Invisibly Intelligent Appliances via Experience-based Computing. As computers become more pervasive, people will inevitably interact with a wide range of networked appliances. This proposal aims to develop prototype enabling technology to allow appliances to operate cooperatively and seamlessly with minimum human input - 'invisible intelligence'. Experience-based computing is the key concept underlying the technology. A prototype 'operating experience' will be developed to sit on top of existing operating systems that will allow appliances to join and leave networks, and interact with other appliances. Also to be developed are a modeling framework, language and methodology for specifying appliance behaviour, and allow learning from experience.Read moreRead less
Advanced Software Engineering Support for Intelligent Agent Systems. Software Agents are an important technology for developing the complex software systems that are increasingly required to meet the needs of society. A crucial obstacle to the widespread adoption of agent technology is the lack of an appropriate software engineering methodology. This project proposes to explore support for design processes addressing advanced issues in agent systems, such as goal-based requirements, debugging ....Advanced Software Engineering Support for Intelligent Agent Systems. Software Agents are an important technology for developing the complex software systems that are increasingly required to meet the needs of society. A crucial obstacle to the widespread adoption of agent technology is the lack of an appropriate software engineering methodology. This project proposes to explore support for design processes addressing advanced issues in agent systems, such as goal-based requirements, debugging using design artefacts, component-based design, and reuse. We will also extend the methodology to support teamwork and open systems. We will be building on successful work we have already done in establishing a basic agent oriented software design methodology.Read moreRead less