2010
MAS 2010 Proceeding
Coordination of activities: application of some concepts and formalizations to agricultural systems simulation
Authors: Z. Afoutni, Roger Martin-Clouaire, Rémy Courdier, Guerrin François
Abstract
Coordination is defined as the management of dependencies between activities in order to reach an objective. These dependencies generally concern resource sharing and the compliance with temporal (simultaneity, precedence) and spatial constraints. This management is made according to two principal modes explicit and implicit. The explicit mode is based on using ?protocols? (e.g. procedures, plans) explicitly describing how the agents must perform their actions to guarantee the good functioning of the system they are committed to. The implicit mode, characterized by the absence of protocol, is mainly based on using artefacts, implicitly fostering the behaviour of the agents through their interaction with their physical environment (concepts of ?stigmergy? and ?affordance?). In this paper we try to synthesize theories and relevant concepts necessary to represent coordination. Our goal is to propose, at last, a modelling framework to simulate the coordination of human activities in complex agricultural production systems.
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