JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science 15(13): 2676-2700, doi: 10.3217/jucs-015-13-2676
Analyzing Cooperation in Iterative Social Network Design
Guido Boella‡, Leendert Van Der Torre§, Serena Villata‡‡ University of Turin, Turin, Italy§ University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Corresponding author: Guido Boella ( guido@di.unito.it ) © Guido Boella, Leendert Van Der Torre, Serena Villata. This article is freely available under the J.UCS Open Content License. Citation:
Boella G, Van Der Torre L, Villata S (2009) Analyzing Cooperation in Iterative Social Network Design. JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science 15(13): 2676-2700. https://doi.org/10.3217/jucs-015-13-2676 |  |
Abstract
We introduce an approach to iteratively design `small' social networks used in software engineering together with methods analyzing the cooperation in the system. The degree of cooperation is measured by the emergence of coalitions and their stability over time. At the most abstract level, which we call the coalition view, coalitions are abstract entities that may dominate or attack other coalitions. During iterative design, these abstract entities are refined with agents and their dependencies constituting the coalitions (dependence view), the powers of sets of agents to see to goals (power view) and finally the beliefs, plans, tasks and goals of agents (agent view). The analysis methods predict the emergence of coalitions based on reciprocity and argumentation theory.
Keywords
coalitions, multiagent systems, argumentation, dependence networks