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Formal Specification and Enactment of Security Policies through Agent Coordination Contexts

Andrea Omicini, Alessandro Ricci, Mirko Viroli
Our research moves from three fundamental considerations that concern the modelling and engineering of complex systems. First, organization, coordination and security are strictly related issues that should be modelled in a uniform and coherent framework. Second, models, technologies and methodologies should come hand in hand, so that abstractions used in the analysis and design stages should be still “alive and kicking” at development and execution time. Third, the general non-formalisability of complex systems should not prevent us from using formal tools whenever useful, such as in proving or ensuring properties of limited but meaningful portions of a system.

By focussing on multi-agent systems, we discuss the notion of Agent Coordination Context (ACC) as an abstraction that (i) works as an organization and security abstraction, (ii) integrates well with abstractions provided by coordination infrastructures, and (iii) covers the engineering process from design to deployment. In particular, in this paper we study the syntax and semantics of a language for ACCs specification, exploiting typical process algebra techniques. Accordingly, we show that process algebras are a suitable tool for both specification and enactment of security and coordination policies through ACCs.

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science 85(3), pages 17-36, August 2003.
Riccardo Focardi, Gianluigi Zavattaro (eds.), Elsevier Science B.V.
1st International Workshop "Security Issues in Coordination Models, Languages and Systems'' (SecCo 2003), Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 28-29 June 2003. Proceedings 
@article{acc-entcs85,
	Author = {Omicini, Andrea and Ricci, Alessandro and Viroli, Mirko},
	Doi = {10.1016/S1571-0661(04)80682-0},
	Editor = {Focardi, Riccardo and Zavattaro, Gianluigi},
	Isbn = {0-444-50916-X},
	Issn = {1571-0661},
	Journal = {Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science},
	Month = aug,
	Note = {1st International Workshop ``Security Issues in Coordination Models, Languages and Systems'' (SecCo 2003), Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 28--29~} # jun # {~2003. Proceedings},
	Number = 3,
	Pages = {17--36},
	Publisher = {Elsevier Science B.V.},
	ScopusId ={2-s2.0-2442460553},
	Title = {Formal Specification and Enactment of Security Policies through {A}gent {C}oordination {C}ontexts},
	Volume = 85,
	Year = 2003}