Supporting high interoperability of components by adopting an agent-based approach

While integrating components into systems, we will be confronted with problems concerned with the interoperability of components due to the interaction mismatches at multiple levels, such as interaction behaviors between components and features imposed by architectural styles. In this paper, we studied the interoperability of components and explored the approach to supporting high interoperability of components involved in mismatching interactions. First, we formalized components involved in different architectural styles in the pi-calculus. Next, we studied the formal foundation of the interoperability of components for reasoning about the conditions under which two heterogeneous components are possible to interoperate and interconnect together properly. Then, we described a wrapper-based solution for integrating components into systems that impose mismatching assumptions about usage of the components. In the end, we presented an agent-based implementation for the solution, in which agents are used to wrap components and can automatically resolve multiple levels of interaction mismatches between components. We also gave a simple example to illustrate our approach.

Hong MeiEmail:

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Wenpin Jiao   received his BA and MS degree in computer science from East China University of Science and Technology in 1991 and 1997, respectively, and Ph.D. degree in computer science from the Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2000. From 2000 to 2002, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Victoria, Canada. Since 2004, he has been an associate professor in the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University. His major research focus is on the autonomous component technology, multi-agent systems, and software engineering. Hong Mei   received his BA and MS degrees in computer science from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1984 and 1987, respectively; and Ph.D. degree in computer science from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1992. From 1992 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Peking University. Since 1997, he has been a professor and Ph.D. advisor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Peking University. He has also served as vice dean of the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science and the Capital Development Institute at Peking University, respectively. His current research interests include: Software Engineering and Software Engineering Environment, Software Reuse and Software Component Technology, Distributed Object Technology, Software Production Technology, and Programming Language. He is a member of the Expert Committee for Computer Science and Technology of State 863 High-Tech Program, a chief scientist of State 973 Fundamental Research Program, a consultant of Bell Labs Research China, the director of Special Interest Group of Software Engineering of China Computer Federation (CCF), a member of the Editorial Board of Sciences in China (Series F), ACTA ELECTRONICA SINICA and Journal of Software, and a guest professor of NUAA. He also served at various Program Committees of international conferences.