SoD-HCER: Using Non-Linear Negotiation to Enable the Design of Robust Open Software Systems

开放软件系统由独立开发的组件组成，这些组件使用商定的协议进行交互，代表了支持应用程序的最有前途的方法之一，在这些应用程序中，各种组织（通常以前没有一起工作过）必须在手边的基础设施（例如，联合军事力量、灾难恢复操作、供应链、协作工程项目）的小时间框架内进行组装和重新配置。以及电子市场)。确保这些系统的可靠性是一项挑战；使开放系统具有吸引力的开放性将它们置于一个潜在故障模式（“异常”）和相关异常处理技术数量众多且往往远不明显的领域。组件可能无法正常工作；他们可能为了获得优势而撒谎，甚至恶意行事。我们不能查看或操作它们的代码或内部状态。由于没有一个组成部分“负责”，我们必须准备好处理非本地原因和影响的紧急问题。各种可能的开放系统交互协议（从约束满足到市场再到群体）加剧了这些问题，每种协议都有自己独特的潜在异常集和相关处理程序。不幸的是，现有的技术对我们设计更可靠的开放系统帮助不大；设计师必须依靠他们的经验和直觉来决定哪些异常适用于他们的特定系统，以及如何最好地处理这些异常。在这个项目中，PI将通过帮助协作的软件设计人员小组快速地在可能的开放系统设计的广阔空间中搜索他们认为对其特定应用程序可靠且有效的设计来解决这一差距。为了做到这一点，他将集成并扩展两个迄今为止尚未在软件工程环境中应用的强大创新。第一个是按分类组织的开放系统协调机制知识库，其中每个机制都与其特征异常相关联，每个异常都与其可能的处理程序相关联。通过描绘一组正交设计维度，这个知识库定义了一个非常大的可能的开放系统设计空间。第二个创新是一系列协商算法，这些算法可以帮助具有不同兴趣的设计师在如此大的非线性设计空间中快速收敛于帕累托最优（双赢）设计协议。到目前为止，关于非线性协商（即，与相互依赖的问题进行协商）的工作还很少，而且这些工作只关注“平面”设计空间（具有一组预定义的设计维度的静态集合）。该项目将推动我们对如何通过分类结构设计空间找到帕累托最优解决方案的理解，这种形式化可能适用于广泛的重要现实生活中的产品和过程设计挑战。更广泛的影响：这项工作将帮助我们更快、更有效地设计健壮的开放系统，并且通过提供开放系统协调和异常处理专业知识的全面、组织良好的知识库，将特别帮助学生和教育者。它将开发复杂合同的协商算法，这是一个涉及从定义电子商务到飞机设计等领域的挑战。调查结果将通过网络软件和传统媒体广泛传播。

Open software systems made up of independently developed components interacting using agreed-upon protocols represent one of the most promising approaches for supporting applications where organizations of all kinds, which often have not previously worked together, must be assembled and reconfigured within small time frames on the infrastructures at hand (e.g., coalition military forces, disaster recovery operations, supply chains, collaborative engineering projects, and electronic marketplaces). Ensuring that such systems are reliable is a challenge; the very openness that makes open systems attractive places them in a realm where the potential failure modes ('exceptions') and associated exception handling techniques are numerous and often far from obvious. Components may not operate correctly; they may lie to get an advantage, even act maliciously. We cannot view or manipulate their code or internal state. And since there is no one component 'in charge', we must be prepared to deal with emergent problems with non-local causes and effects. The problems are exacerbated by the wide range of possible open system interaction protocols, ranging from constraint satisfaction to markets to swarms, each with their own unique set of potential exceptions and relevant handlers. Unfortunately, existing techniques do little to help us design more reliable open systems; designers must rely on their experience and intuition to determine what exceptions apply to their particular system, and how those exceptions can best be addressed. In this project, the PI will tackle this gap by helping groups of collaborating software designers rapidly search through the vast space of possible open system designs for ones that they agree will be reliable and effective for their particular application. To do this, he will integrate and extend two powerful innovations that have not been applied in software engineering contexts heretofore. The first is a taxonomically organized knowledge base of open system coordination mechanisms, with each mechanism linked to its characteristic exceptions and each exception linked to its possible handlers. This knowledge base defines, by delineating a set of orthogonal design dimensions, a very large space of possible open system designs. The second innovation is a family of negotiation algorithms that help designers with diverse interests rapidly converge on pareto-optimal (win-win) design agreements in such large nonlinear design spaces. Very little work has been done to date on nonlinear negotiation (i.e., negotiation with interdependent issues), and this work has focused exclusively on "flat" design spaces (with a static set of predefined design dimensions). This project will push forward our understanding of how to find pareto-optimal solutions with taxonomically structured design spaces, a formalization that is potentially applicable to a wide range of important real-life product and process design challenges.Broader Impacts: This work will help us design robust open systems more quickly and effectively, and will in particular help students and educators by providing a comprehensive and well-organized knowledge base of open system coordination and exception handling expertise. It will develop negotiation algorithms for complex contracts, a challenge relevant to domains ranging from defining electronic commerce to airplane design. The results will be broadly disseminated, via web-accessible software as well as traditional media.