Haiping Xu - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Haiping Xu

Computer Languages, 1999

The Ada language has been designed to support development of concurrent and distributed software.... more The Ada language has been designed to support development of concurrent and distributed software. While the Ada-83 standard defined the basic mechanisms of rendezvous-based tasking, the Ada-95 standard significantly extended this capability with the introduction of ...

Automated Software Engineering, 2003

The advent of multi-agent systems has brought us opportunities for the development of complex sof... more The advent of multi-agent systems has brought us opportunities for the development of complex software that will serve as the infrastructure for advanced distributed applications. During the past decade, there have been many agent architectures proposed for implementing agent-based systems, and also a few efforts to formally specify agent behaviors. However, research on narrowing the gap between agent formal models and agent implementation is rare. In this paper, we propose a model-based approach to designing and implementing intelligent agents for multi-agent systems (MAS). Instead of using formal methods for the purpose of specifying agent behavior, we bring formal methods into the design phase of the agent development life cycle. Specifically, we use the formalism called agent-oriented G-net model, which is based on the G-net formalism (a type of high-level Petri net), to serve as the high-level design for intelligent agents. Based on the high-level design, we further derived the agent architecture and the detailed design for agent implementation. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we developed the toolkit called ADK (Agent Development Kit) that supports rapid development of intelligent agents for multi-agent systems and we discuss the role of inheritance in agent-oriented development. As a potential solution for automated software development, we summarize the procedure to generate a model-based design of application-specific agents. Finally, to illustrate an application built on ADK, we present an air-ticket trading example.

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are rapidly emerging as a powerful paradigm for modeling and developing... more Multi-agent systems (MAS) are rapidly emerging as a powerful paradigm for modeling and developing distributed information systems. In an open multi-agent system, agents can not only join or leave an agent society at will, but also take or release roles dynamically. Most of existing work on MAS uses role modeling for system analysis; however, role models are only used at conceptual level with no realizations in the implemented system. In this paper, we propose a methodology for role-based modeling of open multiagent software systems. We specify role organization and role space as containers of conceptual roles and role instances, respectively. Agents in an agent society can take or release roles from a role space dynamically. The relationships between agents are deduced through a mechanism called A-R mapping. As a potential solution for automated MAS development, we summarize the procedures to generate a role-based design of open multi-agent software systems.

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2003

Agents are becoming one of the most important topics in distributed and autonomous decentralized ... more Agents are becoming one of the most important topics in distributed and autonomous decentralized systems, and there are increasing attempts to use agent technologies to develop large-scale commercial and industrial software systems. The complexity of such systems suggests a pressing need for system modeling techniques to support reliable, maintainable and extensible design. G-nets are a type of Petri net defined to support system modeling in terms of a set of independent and loosely-coupled modules. In this paper, we customize the basic G-net model to define a so-called "agent-based G-net" that can serve as a generic model for agent design. Then to progress from an agent-based design model to an agent-oriented model, new mechanisms to support inheritance modeling are introduced. To illustrate our formal modeling technique for multi-agent systems, an example of an agent family in electronic commerce is provided.

G-nets are a type of Petri net defined to support the modeling of a system as a set of independen... more G-nets are a type of Petri net defined to support the modeling of a system as a set of independent and loosely-coupled modules. The modular features of G-nets provide support for incremental design and successive modification, however the G-net formalism is not fully object-oriented due to a lack of support for inheritance. We introduce extensions to G-nets to support explicit modeling of inheritance. Bounded buffer examples are used, which we define as subclasses of an unbounded buffer, to illustrate the expressive power of the extended G-net models. Various forms of inheritance are formalized and discussed in the context of concurrent object-oriented design. In addition, the inheritance anomaly problem is examined and discussed

With the increasing importance of complex software systems in the software industry, the need for... more With the increasing importance of complex software systems in the software industry, the need for using agent technologies to develop large-scale commercial and industrial software systems is growing rapidly. Such systems are complex and there is a pressing need for system modeling techniques to support reliable, maintainable and extensible design. G-Nets are a type of Petri net defined to support modeling of a system as a set of independent and loosely-coupled modules. In this paper, we first introduce an extension of G-Nets, agent-based G-Net, as a generic model for agent design. Then to progress from an agent-based design model to an agent-oriented model, new mechanisms to support inheritance modeling are introduced. To illustrate our formal modeling technique for multi-agent systems, an example of an agent family in electronic commerce is provided.

Current electronic commerce applications such as online auction systems are not trustworthy due t... more Current electronic commerce applications such as online auction systems are not trustworthy due to a lack of effective trust management mechanisms. A trustworthy online auction system requires a dynamic trust management module that can detect abnormal bidding activities in real-time, notify the involved users, and cancel the corresponding auction immediately. In this paper, we present a general framework for agentbased trust management (ATM) in online auctions. The ATM module consists of three types of agents, namely the monitoring agent, the analysis agent and the security agent. A monitoring agent can monitor a bidder and detect any abnormal bidding behavior; while the analysis agent and the security agent can analyze state-based information and history information of a bidder, and make decisions on shill detection, respectively. We illustrate the communication protocol among various agents, and demonstrate our agent-based trust management approach for online auctions using a prototype ATM module developed with JADE.

Agent based online auctions have not yet become popular because they are not trustable. One of th... more Agent based online auctions have not yet become popular because they are not trustable. One of the major concerns in agent based online auctions is the shilling behavior problem, which makes winners have to pay more than what they should pay for auctioned items. In this paper, we propose a real-time trust management module for agent based online auction systems using rolebased access control mechanisms. As one of the key components of the trust management module, a security agent can actively monitor online auctions in order to detect abnormal bidding behaviors in real-time. To illustrate the feasibility of our approach, we implemented a prototype real-time trust management module for agentbased online auction systems, and demonstrated how shill agents could be efficiently detected.

... (Revised Version) Paper Title: Developing Role-Based Open Multi-Agent Software Systems 1 Auth... more ... (Revised Version) Paper Title: Developing Role-Based Open Multi-Agent Software Systems 1 Authors: Dr. Haiping Xu, Assistant Professor Computer and Information Science Department University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Email: hxu@umassd.edu ...

Computer Systems: Science & Engineering, 2007

Online auctions have become a quite popular and effective approach in the Internet-based eMarketp... more Online auctions have become a quite popular and effective approach in the Internet-based eMarketplace. However, in concurrent online auctions, where multiple auctions for identical items are running simultaneously, bidding behaviors become very complicated and difficult to be verified. Consequently, a shill bidder can easily disguise himself as a legitimate user in order to drive up the bidding price. The goal of this paper is to propose an efficient formal approach to verifying certain bidding behaviors, including shilling behaviors, in order to detect shill suspects in concurrent online auctions. We develop a data-driven auction model based on a model template for concurrent auctions. The auction model can be formally verified using a model checker according to a set of behavioral properties specified in pattern-based linear temporal logic. To illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach, we use a case study to demonstrate how shill suspects can be efficiently detected.

Shilling behaviors are one of the most serious fraud problems in online auctions, which make winn... more Shilling behaviors are one of the most serious fraud problems in online auctions, which make winning bidders have to pay more than what they should pay for auctioned items. In concurrent online auctions, where multiple auctions for the same type of items are running simultaneously, shilling behaviors can be even more severe because detecting, predicting and preventing such fraudulent behaviors become very difficult. In this paper, we propose a formal approach to detecting shilling behaviors in concurrent online auctions using model checking techniques. We first develop a model template that represents two concurrent online auctions in Promela. Based on the model template, we derive an auction model that simulates the bidding processes of two concurrent auctions. Then we use the SPIN model checker to formally verify if the auction model satisfies any questionable behavioral properties that are written in LTL (Linear Temporal Logic) formulas. Thus, our approach simplifies the problem of searching for shilling behaviors in concurrent online auctions into a model checking problem. Finally, we provide a case study to illustrate how our approach can effectively detect possible shill bidders.

Computer Languages, 1999

The Ada language has been designed to support development of concurrent and distributed software.... more The Ada language has been designed to support development of concurrent and distributed software. While the Ada-83 standard defined the basic mechanisms of rendezvous-based tasking, the Ada-95 standard significantly extended this capability with the introduction of ...

Automated Software Engineering, 2003

The advent of multi-agent systems has brought us opportunities for the development of complex sof... more The advent of multi-agent systems has brought us opportunities for the development of complex software that will serve as the infrastructure for advanced distributed applications. During the past decade, there have been many agent architectures proposed for implementing agent-based systems, and also a few efforts to formally specify agent behaviors. However, research on narrowing the gap between agent formal models and agent implementation is rare. In this paper, we propose a model-based approach to designing and implementing intelligent agents for multi-agent systems (MAS). Instead of using formal methods for the purpose of specifying agent behavior, we bring formal methods into the design phase of the agent development life cycle. Specifically, we use the formalism called agent-oriented G-net model, which is based on the G-net formalism (a type of high-level Petri net), to serve as the high-level design for intelligent agents. Based on the high-level design, we further derived the agent architecture and the detailed design for agent implementation. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we developed the toolkit called ADK (Agent Development Kit) that supports rapid development of intelligent agents for multi-agent systems and we discuss the role of inheritance in agent-oriented development. As a potential solution for automated software development, we summarize the procedure to generate a model-based design of application-specific agents. Finally, to illustrate an application built on ADK, we present an air-ticket trading example.

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are rapidly emerging as a powerful paradigm for modeling and developing... more Multi-agent systems (MAS) are rapidly emerging as a powerful paradigm for modeling and developing distributed information systems. In an open multi-agent system, agents can not only join or leave an agent society at will, but also take or release roles dynamically. Most of existing work on MAS uses role modeling for system analysis; however, role models are only used at conceptual level with no realizations in the implemented system. In this paper, we propose a methodology for role-based modeling of open multiagent software systems. We specify role organization and role space as containers of conceptual roles and role instances, respectively. Agents in an agent society can take or release roles from a role space dynamically. The relationships between agents are deduced through a mechanism called A-R mapping. As a potential solution for automated MAS development, we summarize the procedures to generate a role-based design of open multi-agent software systems.

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2003

Agents are becoming one of the most important topics in distributed and autonomous decentralized ... more Agents are becoming one of the most important topics in distributed and autonomous decentralized systems, and there are increasing attempts to use agent technologies to develop large-scale commercial and industrial software systems. The complexity of such systems suggests a pressing need for system modeling techniques to support reliable, maintainable and extensible design. G-nets are a type of Petri net defined to support system modeling in terms of a set of independent and loosely-coupled modules. In this paper, we customize the basic G-net model to define a so-called "agent-based G-net" that can serve as a generic model for agent design. Then to progress from an agent-based design model to an agent-oriented model, new mechanisms to support inheritance modeling are introduced. To illustrate our formal modeling technique for multi-agent systems, an example of an agent family in electronic commerce is provided.

G-nets are a type of Petri net defined to support the modeling of a system as a set of independen... more G-nets are a type of Petri net defined to support the modeling of a system as a set of independent and loosely-coupled modules. The modular features of G-nets provide support for incremental design and successive modification, however the G-net formalism is not fully object-oriented due to a lack of support for inheritance. We introduce extensions to G-nets to support explicit modeling of inheritance. Bounded buffer examples are used, which we define as subclasses of an unbounded buffer, to illustrate the expressive power of the extended G-net models. Various forms of inheritance are formalized and discussed in the context of concurrent object-oriented design. In addition, the inheritance anomaly problem is examined and discussed

With the increasing importance of complex software systems in the software industry, the need for... more With the increasing importance of complex software systems in the software industry, the need for using agent technologies to develop large-scale commercial and industrial software systems is growing rapidly. Such systems are complex and there is a pressing need for system modeling techniques to support reliable, maintainable and extensible design. G-Nets are a type of Petri net defined to support modeling of a system as a set of independent and loosely-coupled modules. In this paper, we first introduce an extension of G-Nets, agent-based G-Net, as a generic model for agent design. Then to progress from an agent-based design model to an agent-oriented model, new mechanisms to support inheritance modeling are introduced. To illustrate our formal modeling technique for multi-agent systems, an example of an agent family in electronic commerce is provided.

Current electronic commerce applications such as online auction systems are not trustworthy due t... more Current electronic commerce applications such as online auction systems are not trustworthy due to a lack of effective trust management mechanisms. A trustworthy online auction system requires a dynamic trust management module that can detect abnormal bidding activities in real-time, notify the involved users, and cancel the corresponding auction immediately. In this paper, we present a general framework for agentbased trust management (ATM) in online auctions. The ATM module consists of three types of agents, namely the monitoring agent, the analysis agent and the security agent. A monitoring agent can monitor a bidder and detect any abnormal bidding behavior; while the analysis agent and the security agent can analyze state-based information and history information of a bidder, and make decisions on shill detection, respectively. We illustrate the communication protocol among various agents, and demonstrate our agent-based trust management approach for online auctions using a prototype ATM module developed with JADE.

Agent based online auctions have not yet become popular because they are not trustable. One of th... more Agent based online auctions have not yet become popular because they are not trustable. One of the major concerns in agent based online auctions is the shilling behavior problem, which makes winners have to pay more than what they should pay for auctioned items. In this paper, we propose a real-time trust management module for agent based online auction systems using rolebased access control mechanisms. As one of the key components of the trust management module, a security agent can actively monitor online auctions in order to detect abnormal bidding behaviors in real-time. To illustrate the feasibility of our approach, we implemented a prototype real-time trust management module for agentbased online auction systems, and demonstrated how shill agents could be efficiently detected.

... (Revised Version) Paper Title: Developing Role-Based Open Multi-Agent Software Systems 1 Auth... more ... (Revised Version) Paper Title: Developing Role-Based Open Multi-Agent Software Systems 1 Authors: Dr. Haiping Xu, Assistant Professor Computer and Information Science Department University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Email: hxu@umassd.edu ...

Computer Systems: Science & Engineering, 2007

Online auctions have become a quite popular and effective approach in the Internet-based eMarketp... more Online auctions have become a quite popular and effective approach in the Internet-based eMarketplace. However, in concurrent online auctions, where multiple auctions for identical items are running simultaneously, bidding behaviors become very complicated and difficult to be verified. Consequently, a shill bidder can easily disguise himself as a legitimate user in order to drive up the bidding price. The goal of this paper is to propose an efficient formal approach to verifying certain bidding behaviors, including shilling behaviors, in order to detect shill suspects in concurrent online auctions. We develop a data-driven auction model based on a model template for concurrent auctions. The auction model can be formally verified using a model checker according to a set of behavioral properties specified in pattern-based linear temporal logic. To illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach, we use a case study to demonstrate how shill suspects can be efficiently detected.

Shilling behaviors are one of the most serious fraud problems in online auctions, which make winn... more Shilling behaviors are one of the most serious fraud problems in online auctions, which make winning bidders have to pay more than what they should pay for auctioned items. In concurrent online auctions, where multiple auctions for the same type of items are running simultaneously, shilling behaviors can be even more severe because detecting, predicting and preventing such fraudulent behaviors become very difficult. In this paper, we propose a formal approach to detecting shilling behaviors in concurrent online auctions using model checking techniques. We first develop a model template that represents two concurrent online auctions in Promela. Based on the model template, we derive an auction model that simulates the bidding processes of two concurrent auctions. Then we use the SPIN model checker to formally verify if the auction model satisfies any questionable behavioral properties that are written in LTL (Linear Temporal Logic) formulas. Thus, our approach simplifies the problem of searching for shilling behaviors in concurrent online auctions into a model checking problem. Finally, we provide a case study to illustrate how our approach can effectively detect possible shill bidders.