# UCD Linked Agents and Intelligence Research Group

> Engineering intelligent, autonomous and multi-agent systems. A research group in the School of Computer Science, University College Dublin.

We study how to design, program and deploy autonomous software agents and the multi-agent systems they form, from agent-oriented programming languages and platforms to hypermedia environments and the integration of large language models into agentic architectures.

The HTML pages are rendered with JavaScript; the Markdown versions linked below contain the same content in a form that is easy to read without running scripts.

## Pages

- [Home](md/index.md): overview, research themes, people and news
- [People](md/people.md): everyone in the group, by role
- [Research](md/research.md): research themes in detail
- [Publications](md/publications.md): 130 publications by year
- [Join us](md/join.md): PhD, project and collaboration enquiries
- [Full content](llms-full.txt): every page above in a single document
- [BibTeX](publications.bib): BibTeX entries for every publication

## People

- [Rem Collier](md/people/rem-collier.md): Associate Professor · Group Co-Director; Agent-oriented programming languages and multi-agent systems
- [Vivek Nallur](md/people/vivek-nallur.md): Assistant Professor · Group Co-Director; Multi-agent modelling, social simulation and machine ethics
- [Hao Mu](md/people/hao-mu.md): PhD Student
- [Mahjabin Siddique](md/people/mahjabin-siddique.md): PhD Student
- [Md Asif Iqbal Fahim](md/people/md-asif-iqbal-fahim.md): PhD Student
- [Dimitrios Kyriakidis](md/people/dimitrios-kyriakidis.md): MSc Student

## Research themes

- [Agent-Oriented Programming & Multi-Agent Systems](md/research/multi-agent-systems.md): Languages, platforms and engineering methods for building rational agents and the multi-agent systems they form, including the ASTRA programming language.
- [Hypermedia & Web-based Agents](md/research/hypermedia-mas.md): Agents that inhabit the Web, discovering and acting on resources through hypermedia and the Web of Things.
- [Agentic AI & Language Models](md/research/llm-agents.md): Combining large language models with structured agent architectures to build dependable agentic systems.
- [Social Simulation & Machine Ethics](md/research/social-simulation-ethics.md): Agent-based models of individual and collective decision-making, and of ethical behaviour in autonomous machines.

## Optional

- [Agent toolkits anno 2025: where we are, where we go](md/publications/2026-agent-toolkits-anno-2025-where.md): 2026. Provides a community-sourced snapshot of current agent toolkits, drawn from tools submitted to a public repository and the accompanying volume, characterising both what the Agent-Oriented Software Engineering community builds and who makes up that community.
- [Fully embedded learning in BDI agents programmed in ASTRA](md/publications/2026-fully-embedded-learning-bdi-agents.md): 2026. Introduces learning templates to the ASTRA agent programming language, allowing BDI agents to acquire new plans at runtime using a choice of machine-learning algorithms, control the learning process through beliefs and internal actions, and share learned plans with other agents.
- [Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Development: Platforms, Toolkits, Technologies](md/publications/2026-agents-multi-agent-systems-development.md): 2026. An edited volume on platforms, toolkits and technologies for developing agents and multi-agent systems.
- [Multi-Agent MicroServices (MAMS): Integrating MAS with microservices](md/publications/2026-multi-agent-microservices-mams-integrating.md): 2026, Distributed AI in the Modern World
- [Emulating Aggregate Human Choice Behavior and Biases with GPT Conversational Agents](md/publications/2026-emulating-aggregate-human-choice-behavior.md): 2026. Shows, in a conversational decision-making experiment with 1,100 participants, that GPT-based agents given participants' demographics and dialogue transcripts reproduce the cognitive biases observed in human choices, with notable differences between models.
- [Predicting Biased Human Decision-Making with Large Language Models in Conversational Settings](md/publications/2026-predicting-biased-human-decision-making-large.md): 2026. A pre-registered study (N = 1,648) showing that cognitive load from more complex chatbot dialogues amplifies the framing effect and status quo bias, and that LLMs predicting individual decisions reproduce these bias patterns, with the GPT-4 family aligning most closely with humans.
- [Guiding Sociotechnical Systems toward Value-Norm Equilibrium](md/publications/2026-guiding-sociotechnical-systems-value-norm-equilibrium.md): 2026. Frames the challenge of keeping sociotechnical systems in value-norm equilibrium, where actors' intrinsic values and the system's norms align, and outlines what systematic methods are needed to detect misalignment and guide systems back towards equilibrium.
- [Large Language Models for Agent-Based Modelling: Current and Possible Uses Across the Modelling Cycle](md/publications/2026-large-language-models-agent-based-modelling.md): 2026. Reviews current uses of LLMs in agent-based modelling and critically examines opportunities and challenges at each stage of the modelling cycle, from problem formulation to documentation and communication of results.
- [Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Hypermedia Multi-Agent Systems (HyperAgents 2025)](md/publications/2025-proceedings-second-international-workshop-hypermedia.md): 2025. Edited proceedings of the second HyperAgents workshop at ECAI 2025, collecting twelve peer-reviewed papers on hypermedia multi-agent systems.
- [Towards an Ontology for Uniform Representations of Agent State for Heterogeneous Inter-Agent Explanations](md/publications/2025-ontology-uniform-representations-agent-state.md): 2025. Proposes Agent Abstraction ontologies that let heterogeneous hypermedia agents describe their internal cognitive state in a shared, Semantic Web-based vocabulary, as a foundation for exchanging explanations between agents.
- [Towards a Distinct Programming Style for AgentSpeak (L)](md/publications/2025-distinct-programming-style-agentspeak-l.md): 2025. Proposes a set of design principles, inspired by Bratman's theory of practical reasoning and clean-code practice, that define a distinct programming style for AgentSpeak(L)-family languages, illustrated with two ASTRA example programs.
- [AgentSpeak (AI): Deliberate Learning Strategies for Plan Acquisition in BDI Agents](md/publications/2025-agentspeak-ai-deliberate-learning-strategies.md): 2025. Defines AgentSpeak(AI), an extension of AgentSpeak(L) that integrates learning processes into the interpreter so that agents can acquire plans at runtime and deliberately control, monitor and reconfigure how they learn.
- [Agency and Generation: Friends or Enemies?](md/publications/2025-agency-generation-friends-or-enemies.md): 2025. Critically compares LLM-driven 'Agentic AI' with BDI agents and proposes a hybrid neuro-symbolic architecture in which a BDI-style controller maintains beliefs, goals and intentions and delegates planning to symbolic or LLM-based decision services, with a meta-cognitive layer that refines strategies over time.
- [Agent Toolkits: Explainable Agency in ASTRA](md/publications/2025-agent-toolkits-explainable-agency-astra.md): 2025. Adds explainability support to ASTRA, allowing agents to store explanatory content and generate explanations with configurable algorithms, as a first step towards inter-agent explanation in BDI multi-agent systems.
- [Engineering multi-agent systems and generative AI: report from the agent toolkits 2025 community session](md/publications/2025-engineering-multi-agent-systems-generative.md): 2025. Summarises and integrates position statements from senior members of the EMAS community on how Generative AI and Agentic AI relate to traditional multi-agent systems engineering, and outlines key research directions.
- [astra-langchain4j: Experiences Combining LLMs and Agent Programming](md/publications/2025-astra-langchain4j-experiences-combining-llms.md): 2025. Reports on building a prototype LLM integration for the ASTRA agent programming language, using three example applications to draw lessons about how traditional agent toolkits and new LLM-based agentic platforms can inform each other.
- [Engineering inter-agent explainability in BDI agents](md/publications/2025-engineering-inter-agent-explainability-bdi.md): 2025. Surveys work on explainability in BDI agents and examines how it applies to agents exchanging explanations with each other, setting out a roadmap for engineering inter-agent explainability and the applications it could support.
- [Nudging Using Autonomous Agents: Risks and Ethical Considerations](md/publications/2025-nudging-autonomous-agents-risks-ethical.md): 2025. A position paper proposing a risk-driven question-and-answer approach, rather than a single normative framework, for designing autonomous agents that nudge people transparently and safely.
- [Virtue Ethics for Ethically Tunable Robotic Assistants](md/publications/2025-virtue-ethics-ethically-tunable-robotic.md): 2025. Proposes character-based tuning of robots, inspired by virtue ethics, so that a robot's behaviour can be adapted to the ethical requirements of each deployment, demonstrated in a simulated elder-care environment and reviewed with ethicists.
- [Can Robots Care and Be Trusted?](md/publications/2025-can-robots-care-be-trusted.md): 2025. Describes a cross-disciplinary workshop on what qualities care robots need in order to be trusted, and how tasks should be shared between humans and machines in care settings.
- [Different Facets for Different Experts: A Framework for the Integration of Qualitative Insights into Agent-Based Model Development](md/publications/2025-different-facets-different-experts-framework.md): 2025. Presents a tool architecture that separates an agent's programmed functions from how it acquires capabilities and behaviour, so that experts from different disciplines can add qualitative insights to agent-based models without changing code.
- [The Influence of Prior Discourse on Conversational Agent-Driven Decision-Making](md/publications/2025-influence-prior-discourse-conversational-agent-driven.md): 2025. Investigates, with 756 participants, how the complexity of a preceding dialogue task affects status-quo bias in decisions facilitated by conversational agents, informing the design of conversational nudges.
- [The role of multi-agents in digital twin implementation: Short survey](md/publications/2024-role-multi-agents-digital-twin.md): 2024. Surveys how multi-agent systems are used in Digital Twin implementations, identifying common usage scenarios, gaps and future directions, and outlines a multi-agent architecture for a smart-agriculture digital twin.
- [CommonHealth: Multi-agent Evaluation of Blockchain-Based Patient-Centred Health Networks](md/publications/2024-commonhealth-multi-agent-evaluation-blockchain.md): 2024. Presents CommonHealth, a framework for building and testing blockchain-based, patient-centred health networks, and shows how multi-agent simulation can be used to evaluate incentive design, scalability and safety before real-world deployment.
- [Do you want to play a game? Learning to play Tic-Tac-Toe in hypermedia environments](md/publications/2024-do-you-want-play-game.md): 2024. Demonstrates hypermedia agents built with the MAMS architectural style that use RDF knowledge and reinforcement learning to learn to play Tic-Tac-Toe via a web API, forming advisor–advisee relationships to transfer knowledge and accelerate learning.
- [Multi-Agent Systems: 21st European Conference, EUMAS 2024, Dublin, Ireland, August 26–28, 2024, Proceedings](md/publications/2024-multi-agent-systems-21st-european.md): 2024. Edited proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (EUMAS 2024), held in Dublin.
- [Anxiety Among Migrants - Questions for Agent Simulation](md/publications/2024-anxiety-among-migrants-questions.md): 2024. A discussion paper arguing that anxiety among migrants is important enough to model, reviewing emotion modelling, and asking how emotions can be incorporated into agent-based models independently of agents' goals and capabilities.
- [I’m Not Like the Others, I’m Your Friend](md/publications/2024-im-not-like-others-im.md): 2024. Reviews how ethics has been implemented in AI-enabled devices such as social robots, focusing on robot nudging and its implications for four ethical values that underpin trust, with questions designers should ask before and after building such systems.
- [Flexible simulation of traffic with microservices, agents & REST](md/publications/2023-flexible-simulation-traffic-microservices-agents.md): 2023. Describes the implementation of a prototype hypermedia multi-agent traffic simulation in which the environment is a set of linked hypermedia resources implemented as microservices, and reports the lessons learned.
- [Using multi-agent microservices (mams) for agent-based modelling](md/publications/2023-multi-agent-microservices-mams-agent.md): 2023. Applies the Multi-Agent MicroServices (MAMS) style to agent-based modelling through a traffic simulator in which agents and environment are deployed as separate microservices communicating over REST, gaining loose coupling, elasticity and polyglot implementation, with the linked environment forming a simulation-wide knowledge graph.
- [Exploiting service-discovery and openapi in multi-agent microservices (MAMS) applications](md/publications/2023-exploiting-service-discovery-openapi-multi.md): 2023. Presents a tool that lets MAMS agents discover and interact with microservices from their OpenAPI descriptions, and identifies limitations of current service descriptions that Linked Data vocabularies such as Hydra and HCTL could address.
- [Hypermedia multi-agents, semantic web, and microservices to enhance smart agriculture digital twin](md/publications/2023-hypermedia-multi-agents-semantic-web.md): 2023. Proposes building agricultural digital twins from collections of microservices combined with hypermedia agents, Semantic Web technologies and multi-agent microservices (MAMS) to add cognitive decision-making.
- [A Small Set of Ethical Challenges for Elder-Care Robots](md/publications/2023-small-set-ethical-challenges-elder-care.md): 2023. Proposes a set of ethical 'whetstones', challenge scenarios against which elder-care robots can be tested, to encourage ethically sensitive robot design and help organisations understand robot behaviour before deployment.
- [Implementing Pro-social Rule Bending in an Elder-Care Robot Environment](md/publications/2023-implementing-pro-social-rule-bending-elder-care.md): 2023. Implements pro-social rule bending, a hybrid of rule-based and situational ethical reasoning observed in people, in elder-care robots, and shows in simulation that it better upholds values such as autonomy without sacrificing beneficence.
- [Socially Assistive Robots as Decision Makers: Transparency, Motivations, and Intentions](md/publications/2023-socially-assistive-robots-as-decision.md): 2023. Proposes a CHI workshop on how socially assistive robots should communicate their roles, motivations and intentions as they take on more autonomous decision-making.
- [A Partially Synthesized Position on the Automation of Machine Ethics](md/publications/2023-partially-synthesized-position-automation-machine.md): 2023. Four machine-ethics researchers set out their individual positions on automating machine ethics and work towards a shared, partly synthesised position to guide future work.
- [Integration of Hypermedia-Agents, Microservices and Digital Twin for Smart Agriculture](md/publications/2022-integration-hypermedia-agents-microservices-digital.md): 2022. Proposes a digital-twin architecture for smart agriculture that combines hypermedia MAS, MAMS and semantic microservices, and describes initial steps towards implementing it.
- [Towards the Use of Hypermedia MAS and Microservices for Web Scale Agent-Based Simulation](md/publications/2022-use-hypermedia-mas-microservices-web.md): 2022. Sets out a vision for web-scale agent-based simulations built from loosely coupled, reusable components, drawing on hypermedia multi-agent systems, the Semantic Web and affordances to achieve scalability.
- [Towards a new architecture: Multi-agent based Cloud-Fog-Edge computing and digital twin for smart agriculture](md/publications/2022-new-architecture-multi-agent-based.md): 2022. Introduces an architecture for smart agriculture that combines Cloud, Fog and Edge computing with multi-agent systems and digital twins to address resource allocation and scheduling challenges.
- [Simulating traffic with agents, microservices and REST](md/publications/2022-simulating-traffic-agents-microservices-rest.md): 2022. Describes a prototype hypermedia multi-agent traffic simulation in which the environment is modelled as linked hypermedia resources, and reports lessons learned.
- [Immune moral models? Pro-social rule breaking as a moral enhancement approach for ethical AI](md/publications/2022-immune-moral-models-pro-social-rule.md): 2022. Argues that AI agents need a mechanism for knowing when to break their designers' rules for pro-social reasons, and reports a study of a COVID-19 vaccination dilemma whose results neither deontological nor utilitarian ethics fully explain.
- [Empathetic AI for ethics-in-the-small](md/publications/2022-empathetic-ai-ethics-in-the-small.md): 2022, AI & Society 38 (2)
- [Pro-Social Rule Breaking as a Benchmark of Ethical Intelligence in Socio-Technical Systems](md/publications/2022-pro-social-rule-breaking-as-benchmark.md): 2022. Argues that implementing and validating pro-social rule breaking can overcome weaknesses in mainstream approaches to ethical intelligence in socio-technical systems, and introduces a sample validation scenario.
- [What Do We Really Want? - Looking for Nuance in Eldercare Situations](md/publications/2022-what-do-we-really-want.md): 2022. Outlines the questions needed to establish a relationship framework for eldercare robots, and proposes two experiments to test whether answering them helps establish trust.
- [Building Management using the Semantic Web and Hypermedia Agents](md/publications/2021-building-management-semantic-web-hypermedia.md): 2021. An All The Agents Challenge entry in which a team of MAMS-based agents manages per-room lighting levels according to occupancy in a Linked Data building-management server.
- [Collaborative Route Finding in Semantic Mazes](md/publications/2021-collaborative-route-finding-semantic-mazes.md): 2021. An All The Agents Challenge entry in which reinforcement-learning agents collaboratively discover routes through semantically described mazes by sharing knowledge of the maze layout.
- [Harnessing Hypermedia MAS and Microservices to Deliver Web Scale Agent-based Simulations](md/publications/2021-harnessing-hypermedia-mas-microservices-deliver.md): 2021. Proposes a new approach to scalable agent-based simulation that builds simulations from suites of loosely coupled web components, inspired by hypermedia multi-agent systems.
- [A Computational Architecture for a Pro-Social Rule Bending Agent](md/publications/2021-computational-architecture-pro-social-rule-bending.md): 2021. Work in progress on implementing pro-social rule bending, inspired by virtue ethics, in an artificial agent so that its decisions better match human intuitions of the right thing to do.
- [Automation: An Essential Component of Ethical AI?](md/publications/2021-automation-essential-component-ethical-ai.md): 2021, 14th International Conference on ICT, Society and Human Beings (ICT 2021)
- [Towards An Ethics-Audit Bot](md/publications/2021-ethics-audit-bot.md): 2021, 15th Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (MCCSIS 2021)
- [Delivering multi-agent microservices using CArtAgO](md/publications/2020-delivering-multi-agent-microservices-cartago.md): 2020. Presents a language-agnostic implementation of Multi-Agent MicroServices in which agents expose parts of their state as REST resources implemented as CArtAgO artifacts, and formally models passive and active resource-management strategies.
- [Encapsulating Reactive Behaviour in Goal-Based Plans for Programming BDI Agents](md/publications/2020-encapsulating-reactive-behaviour-goal-based.md): 2020. Extends the plan model of BDI programming languages so that goal-based plans can encapsulate both proactive and reactive behaviour, and evaluates the approach through implementations in Jason and ASTRA.
- [Explicit modelling of resources for multi-agent microservices using the cartago framework](md/publications/2020-explicit-modelling-resources-multi-agent.md): 2020. Describes the first language-agnostic implementation of MAMS, in which agents expose aspects of their state as REST-accessible virtual resources realised as CArtAgO artifacts.
- [Landscape of Machine Implemented Ethics](md/publications/2020-landscape-machine-implemented-ethics.md): 2020. Surveys the ethical theories and implementation techniques used in machine ethics, discusses the dilemmas used to validate implementations, and suggests domain-specific ethics as a stepping stone towards ethical machines.
- [“EHLO WORLD”: Checking If Your Conversational AI Knows Right from Wrong](md/publications/2020-ehlo-world-checking-if-your.md): 2020. Discusses top-down regulatory and bottom-up approaches to validating the ethical claims of conversational AI, and proposes a hybrid framework illustrated with a customer-service chatbot.
- [Ethics by agreement in multi-agent software systems](md/publications/2019-ethics-by-agreement-multi-agent.md): 2019, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Software Technologies
- [MAMS: Multi-Agent MicroServices](md/publications/2019-mams-multi-agent-microservices.md): 2019. Introduces Multi-Agent MicroServices (MAMS), a new approach to building multi-agent systems at the intersection of agents and microservices, illustrated with a Vickrey auction implemented as a microservice.
- [Towards a programmable framework for agent game playing](md/publications/2018-programmable-framework-agent-game-playing.md): 2018. Describes a framework for studying agents that do not know in advance which game they will play, such as switching between the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, Public Goods and Minority games, enabling research on strategy under uncertainty and limited resources.
- [AgentSpeak (ER): Enhanced encapsulation in agent plans](md/publications/2018-agentspeak-er-enhanced-encapsulation-agent.md): 2018. Presents AgentSpeak(ER), an extension of AgentSpeak(L) that improves encapsulation in agent plans, supporting better modularity, readability, failure handling and combined reactive and goal-based reasoning, and reports a case study.
- [AgentSpeak(ER): An Extension of AgentSpeak(L) Improving Encapsulation and Reasoning about Goals](md/publications/2018-agentspeak-er-extension-agentspeak-l.md): 2018. Introduces AgentSpeak(ER), an extension of AgentSpeak(L) that supports encapsulation to improve the modularity, readability, failure handling and goal reasoning of BDI agent programs.
- [Developing Android applications using agent-oriented programming](md/publications/2017-developing-android-applications-agent-oriented.md): 2017. Presents a system that uses the high-level abstractions of agent-oriented programming to simplify building context-sensitive applications for Android devices.
- [Clonal plasticity: an autonomic mechanism for multi-agent systems to self-diversify](md/publications/2017-clonal-plasticity-autonomic-mechanism-multi-agent.md): 2017. Proposes clonal plasticity, a decentralised technique that lets homogeneous agents diversify themselves autonomically, and shows it is competitive with manual diversification for efficient and fair resource allocation.
- [Decentralised Detection of Emergence in Complex Adaptive Systems](md/publications/2017-decentralised-detection-emergence-complex-adaptive.md): 2017. Presents DETect, a distributed algorithm in which agents monitor changes in their relationship with the environment and use distributed consensus to collaboratively detect emergent events in complex adaptive systems.
- [Clonal plasticity](md/publications/2016-clonal-plasticity.md): 2016. Introduces clonal plasticity, a plant-inspired mechanism for decentralised adaptation that acts on every individual in a population without a MAPE loop or central control, with a case study of its feasibility.
- [Algorithm Diversity: A Mechanism for Distributive Justice in a Socio-Technical MAS](md/publications/2016-algorithm-diversity-mechanism-distributive-justice.md): 2016. Introduces algorithmic diversity as a decentralised way to nudge socio-technical multi-agent systems towards fairer reward distribution, using the minority game as a model of a city transport network.
- [Agent-Oriented Programming Languages as a High-Level Abstraction Facilitating the Development of Intelligent Behaviours for Component-Based Applications](md/publications/2015-agent-oriented-programming-languages-as.md): 2015. Evaluates agent-oriented programming languages as a high-level abstraction for programming behaviour in component-based systems; participants completed more tasks and found the approach easier than the equivalent Java.
- [Exploring AOP from an OOP perspective](md/publications/2015-exploring-aop-from-oop-perspective.md): 2015. Maps object-oriented programming and threading concepts onto the AgentSpeak(L) family of languages to narrow the conceptual gap for mainstream developers, and uses the mapping to design the ASTRA programming language.
- [Reflecting on agent programming with AgentSpeak (L)](md/publications/2015-reflecting-agent-programming-agentspeak-l.md): 2015. Uses a conceptual mapping between mainstream programming concepts and AgentSpeak(L) to motivate the design of the ASTRA language, which is then evaluated with experienced software engineers.
- [A feature model of actor, agent, functional, object, and procedural programming languages](md/publications/2015-feature-model-actor-agent-functional.md): 2015, Science of Computer Programming 98
- [Increasing Information in Socio-Technical MAS Considered Contentious](md/publications/2015-increasing-information-socio-technical-mas-considered.md): 2015. Shows that in socio-technical multi-agent systems, where human traits such as irrationality act as noise, giving agents more information, memory or computational power does not necessarily help the system achieve its goals.
- [Multiple inheritance in AgentSpeak (L)-style programming languages](md/publications/2014-multiple-inheritance-agentspeak-l-style.md): 2014. Defines an abstract model of multiple inheritance for AgentSpeak(L)-style languages, decomposing agent programs into related agent classes, and introduces ASTRA through a case study of an agent-based chat system.
- [An agent-based approach to component management](md/publications/2014-agent-based-approach-component-management.md): 2014. Details a framework instance of the SoSAA integration strategy that adds reasoning and self-awareness to a component-based framework, and demonstrates its benefits by re-engineering an existing multi-agent information-retrieval system.
- [Towards Decentralised Detection of Emergence in Complex Adaptive Systems](md/publications/2014-decentralised-detection-emergence-complex-adaptive.md): 2014. Shows that emergence in complex adaptive systems can be detected without a central controller, because macro-to-micro feedback creates new correlations between agents' internal variables and their local environment, demonstrated on five multi-agent systems.
- [It's Good to Be Different: Diversity, Heterogeneity, and Dynamics in Collective Systems](md/publications/2014-its-good-be-different-diversity.md): 2014. Identifies heterogeneity and dynamics as two forms of diversity in engineered collective systems, shows through three case studies that both can be beneficial, and offers recommendations for designers.
- [Evaluation of a conversation management toolkit for multi agent programming](md/publications/2012-evaluation-conversation-management-toolkit-multi.md): 2012. Evaluates the Agent Conversation Reasoning Engine (ACRE) through experiments with two groups of students, finding that it prevents common problems in conversation-handling code, and compares it with best-practice communication code in Jason.
- [Programming Multi-Agent Systems: 8th International Workshop, ProMAS 2010, Toronto, ON, Canada, May 11, 2010. Revised Selected Papers](md/publications/2012-programming-multi-agent-systems-8th.md): 2012. Edited proceedings of ProMAS 2010, the 8th International Workshop on Programming Multi-Agent Systems, held in Toronto.
- [Facilitating ubiquitous interaction using intelligent agents](md/publications/2012-facilitating-ubiquitous-interaction-intelligent-agents.md): 2012. Discusses how intelligent agents can integrate diverse interface and interaction modalities across heterogeneous devices to deliver consistent, intuitive ubiquitous user interfaces.
- [Embedding agents within ambient intelligent applications](md/publications/2012-embedding-agents-within-ambient-intelligent.md): 2012. Examines the challenges of deploying Ambient Intelligence applications and presents a software stack that supports embedded intelligent agents on ambient devices.
- [Af-raf: an agent-oriented programming language with algebraic data types](md/publications/2011-af-raf-agent-oriented-programming.md): 2011. Presents AF-RAF, an agent-oriented programming language that uses algebraic data types to dynamically check beliefs and messages.
- [A feature model of actor, agent, and object programming languages](md/publications/2011-feature-model-actor-agent-object.md): 2011. Takes first steps towards a feature model for comparing actor-, agent- and object-oriented programming languages, validated against Erlang, Jason and Java, to help practitioners choose a language for a task.
- [Agent factory: a framework for prototyping logic-based AOP languages](md/publications/2011-agent-factory-framework-prototyping-logic.md): 2011. Presents the Common Language Framework in Agent Factory, a set of reusable interpreter components and adaptable tools for rapidly prototyping logic-based agent-oriented programming languages.
- [Reuse by inheritance in agent programming languages](md/publications/2011-reuse-by-inheritance-agent-programming.md): 2011. Proposes language extensions that add reuse by inheritance to agent programming languages, designed to be implemented as a preprocessor with little or no change to the underlying interpreter.
- [Supporting agent systems in the programming language](md/publications/2011-supporting-agent-systems-programming-language.md): 2011. Argues that the organisation of agent systems should be supported directly by the programming language, and proposes three features for doing so: algebraic data types, roles and sessions.
- [Bogtrotters in space](md/publications/2011-bogtrotters-space.md): 2011. Describes UCD's entry to the Multi-Agent Programming Contest, built entirely in the AF-TeleoReactive and AF-AgentSpeak languages on Agent Factory, and reflects on the team's experience.
- [From bogtrotting to herding: a UCD perspective](md/publications/2011-from-bogtrotting-herding-ucd-perspective.md): 2011. Describes UCD's third Multi-Agent Programming Contest entry, built with AF-TeleoReactive and AF-AgentSpeak on Agent Factory using a SoSAA-inspired hybrid architecture that separates low-level behaviours from high-level strategy.
- [Separation of concerns in hybrid component and agent systems](md/publications/2011-separation-concerns-hybrid-component-agent.md): 2011. Discusses SoSAA, a methodology combining agent-oriented and component-based software engineering, analyses how it improves separation of concerns such as adaptation, concurrency and fault tolerance, and evaluates it on a distributed information-retrieval case study.
- [Agent-Oriented Software Engineering](md/publications/2010-agent-oriented-software-engineering.md): 2010. An encyclopedia entry giving a practical perspective on agent-oriented software engineering, covering an industrial-strength platform, two development methodologies, communication and quality issues, and two real-world case studies.
- [Augmenting agent platforms to facilitate conversation reasoning](md/publications/2010-augmenting-agent-platforms-facilitate-conversation.md): 2010. Introduces ACRE, which adds reasoning about complex interaction protocols to agent programming languages to support agent conversations, and describes a prototype implementation in Agent Factory.
- [AF-ABLE in the multi agent contest 2009](md/publications/2010-af-able-multi-agent-contest.md): 2010. Describes UCD's second Multi-Agent Contest entry, built with AFAPL on Agent Factory using a SoSAA-inspired hybrid control architecture.
- [Evaluating agent-oriented programs: Towards multi-paradigm metrics](md/publications/2010-evaluating-agent-oriented-programs-multi.md): 2010. Proposes paradigm-independent structural metrics for coupling and cohesion that apply to both agents and their object-oriented environments, demonstrated on a Jason program.
- [Call graph profiling for multi agent systems](md/publications/2009-call-graph-profiling-multi-agent.md): 2009. Extends the AgentSpotter profiler for multi-agent systems with a Call Graph View that relates system performance to inter-agent communication.
- [Practical development of hybrid intelligent agent systems with soSAA](md/publications/2009-practical-development-hybrid-intelligent-agent.md): 2009. Gives a practical account of developing intelligent multi-agent systems with SoSAA, in which component-based systems implement low-level agent capabilities, illustrated by managing backchannel transport services.
- [Towards pervasive intelligence: Reflections on the evolution of the agent factory framework](md/publications/2009-pervasive-intelligence-reflections-evolution-agent.md): 2009. Reflects on the evolution of the Agent Factory framework since the mid-1990s, explaining the motivations for its revisions, comparing it with related platforms and including a tutorial.
- [Space-time diagram generation for profiling multi agent systems](md/publications/2009-space-time-diagram-generation-profiling.md): 2009. Introduces AgentSpotter, a performance-analysis tool that maps conventional profiling concepts onto multi-agent systems, and describes its integration into Agent Factory.
- [SoSAA: a framework for integrating components & agents](md/publications/2009-sosaa-framework-integrating-components-agents.md): 2009. Proposes SoSAA, a strategy that integrates component-based and agent-oriented software engineering into a single software framework, using each to address the other's shortcomings.
- [Modeling and Programming by Commitment Rules in Agent Factory](md/publications/2009-modeling-programming-by-commitment-rules.md): 2009. Introduces the Agent Factory Agent Programming Language (AFAPL), a practical rule-based language based on commitment rules, places it within the state of the art in agent-oriented programming, and discusses future trends.
- [Dublin bogtrotters: Agent herders](md/publications/2008-dublin-bogtrotters-agent-herders.md): 2008. Describes UCD's entry to the 2008 Multi-Agent Programming Contest, which extended Agent Factory with lessons from its use in robotics.
- [Sadaam: Software agent development-an agile methodology](md/publications/2007-sadaam-software-agent-development-agile.md): 2007. Presents SADAAM, an agile methodology for developing multi-agent systems, illustrated through a supply-chain management example implemented in Agent Factory.
- [IUMELA: A lightweight multi-agent systems based mobile learning assistant using the ABITS messaging service](md/publications/2007-iumela-lightweight-multi-agent-systems.md): 2007. Presents a lightweight multi-agent architecture for IUMELA, a mobile assistant that helps students make informed choices within a modular degree programme.
- [Evaluating communication strategies in a multi agent information retrieval system](md/publications/2007-evaluating-communication-strategies-multi-agent.md): 2007. Investigates two alternative strategies by which HOTAIR, a scalable autonomic multi-agent information-retrieval system, can configure itself, with a focus on self-configuring and self-optimising behaviour.
- [Agent factory micro edition: A framework for ambient applications](md/publications/2006-agent-factory-micro-edition-framework.md): 2006. Presents Agent Factory Micro Edition (AFME), a framework for running intentional agents on resource-constrained devices such as mobile phones, designed to reduce performance and memory overheads.
- [Debugging agents in agent factory](md/publications/2006-debugging-agents-agent-factory.md): 2006. Examines support for debugging agent-oriented applications in Agent Factory, going beyond message-level debugging of agent interactions.
- [A role-based approach to reuse in agent-oriented programming](md/publications/2005-role-based-approach-reuse-agent.md): 2005. Extends the ALPHA agent programming language with roles as run-time constructs, enabling OOP-style reuse mechanisms, illustrated with an auction example.
- [Realising reusable agent behaviours with ALPHA](md/publications/2005-realising-reusable-agent-behaviours-alpha.md): 2005. Describes how roles are used to support reuse of agent behaviours in the ALPHA agent programming language.
- [ACCESS: An agent based architecture for the rapid prototyping of location aware services](md/publications/2005-access-agent-based-architecture-rapid.md): 2005. Describes ACCESS, an open agent-based architecture for developing and deploying heterogeneous location-aware, context-sensitive services, illustrated by a visitor using a PDA to find accommodation in a city.
- [A self-configuring agent-based document indexing system](md/publications/2005-self-configuring-agent-based-document.md): 2005. Describes an extensible, scalable, self-configuring approach to document indexing within the HOTAIR multi-agent information-retrieval architecture.
- [Ambient intelligence through agile agents](md/publications/2005-ambient-intelligence-through-agile-agents.md): 2005. Argues for mobile intentional agents as a key enabler of Ambient Intelligence, delivering unobtrusive, proactive support through natural interaction modalities.
- [Alpha a language for programming hybrid agents](md/publications/2004-alpha-language-programming-hybrid-agents.md): 2004, Second European Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems (EUMAS 04
- [AFDM: A UML-based Methodology for engineering intelligent agents](md/publications/2004-afdm-uml-based-methodology-engineering.md): 2004. Presents the Agent Factory Development Methodology (AFDM) for building agent-oriented applications, demonstrated through the design and implementation of agent cloning to avoid system overload.
- [Decision-making of BDI agents, a fuzzy approach](md/publications/2004-decision-making-bdi-agents-fuzzy.md): 2004. Extends the BDI model with agent fuzzy decision-making, using a matrix model of quantified fuzzy judgements to make BDI decision-making and persistence more practical and controllable.
- [Self-organisation in agent-based mobile computing](md/publications/2004-self-organisation-agent-based-mobile.md): 2004. Describes two self-optimisation techniques for agent-based mobile systems: agent cloning for scalability in Gulliver's Genie, and collaborative agent tuning, in which agents on a PDA negotiate to optimise their collective performance.
- [Agents as catalysts for mobile computing](md/publications/2004-agents-as-catalysts-mobile-computing.md): 2004. Reviews Agent Factory in the context of deploying strong intentional agents on mobile devices, demonstrated through two mobile computing applications.
- [AF-APL–bridging principles and practice in agent oriented languages](md/publications/2004-af-apl-bridging-principles-practice.md): 2004. Presents AF-APL, the Agent Factory agent programming language, focusing on its experience-driven features such as commitment management, a rich plan-operator set and asynchronous execution, and discusses lessons learned from implementing it.
- [A UML-based software engineering methodology for Agent Factory](md/publications/2004-uml-based-software-engineering-methodology.md): 2004. Presents the Agent Factory Development Methodology, which combines UML and Agent UML to support multi-agent system development, and compares it with other AOSE methodologies.
- [Sos: Accommodation on the Fly with ACCESS](md/publications/2004-sos-accommodation-fly-access.md): 2004. Introduces Sos, a location-aware, context-sensitive service built on ACCESS that helps travellers find and book the most suitable hotel on arrival.
- [VIPER: A visual protocol editor](md/publications/2004-viper-visual-protocol-editor.md): 2004. Introduces VIPER, a graphical editor for designing agent interaction protocols with a subset of Agent UML, which are then realised as AF-APL agents in Agent Factory.
- [ACCESS: an agent-based membrane for the rapid deployment of context sensitive services](md/publications/2004-access-agent-based-membrane-rapid.md): 2004. Describes ACCESS, an open agent-based architecture that provides a common core of functionality for rapidly deploying location-aware, context-sensitive services.
- [Demonstrating social error recovery with agentfactory](md/publications/2004-demonstrating-social-error-recovery-agentfactory.md): 2004. Introduces Social Error Recovery, an exception-handling approach in which agents draw on other agents to resolve unplanned failures, and extends Agent Factory and AF-APL to support it.
- [Access: An agent architecture for ubiquitous service delivery](md/publications/2003-access-agent-architecture-ubiquitous-service.md): 2003. Introduces ACCESS, an agent architecture for context-sensitive u-commerce services comprising a run-time system for agents and a development environment for creating and visualising services.
- [Beyond prototyping in the factory of agents](md/publications/2003-beyond-prototyping-factory-agents.md): 2003. Introduces Agent Factory, a framework and accompanying methodology for developing and deploying agent-oriented applications, featuring visual design, design reuse, behaviour enactment, migration and ubiquity.
- [An Agent-Based Architecture for Wireless Bus Travel Assistants](md/publications/2003-agent-based-architecture-wireless-bus.md): 2003. Extends the Bus Catcher bus travel assistant with a multi-agent architecture based on generic context-sensitive service agents, adding user profiling and monitoring of hardware and service characteristics.
- [Agent factory: A framework for the engineering of agent-oriented applications](md/publications/2002-agent-factory-framework-engineering-agent.md): 2002, University College Dublin
- [Mobile BDI agents](md/publications/2000-mobile-bdi-agents.md): 2000
- [Reality & virtual reality in mobile robotics](md/publications/1999-reality-virtual-reality-mobile-robotics.md): 1999. Presents the Virtual Reality Workbench, which uses the Social Robot Architecture and Agent Factory to integrate virtual reality and robotics for prototyping and visualising social robot communities.
- [Agent factory: A revised agent prototyping environment](md/publications/1999-agent-factory-revised-agent-prototyping.md): 1999, 10th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Cognitive Science
- [Agent factory: towards social robots](md/publications/1999-agent-factory-social-robots.md): 1999, KSSESE
- [Social robotics: reality and virtuality in agent-based robotics](md/publications/1999-social-robotics-reality-virtuality-agent.md): 1999, Bar-Ilan Symposium on the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence: Bridging
- [The social robot architecture: towards sociality in a real world domain](md/publications/1999-social-robot-architecture-sociality-real.md): 1999
- [Agent factory: An environment for constructing and visualising agent communities](md/publications/1998-agent-factory-environment-constructing-visualising.md): 1998
- [The Realisation of AgentFactory: An Environment for the Rapid Prototyping of Intelligent Agents](md/publications/1996-realisation-agentfactory-environment-rapid-prototyping.md): 1996, MPhil Thesis, University College Dublin