???Agent-based systems are one of the most vibrant and important areas of research and development to have emerged in information technology in the 1990s??? (Luck et al. 2003). The use of agents as a metaphor for designing and constructing software systems represents an innovative movement in the field of software engineering: ???Agent- Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE)??? (Lind 2000; Luck et al. 2003). This research contributes to the evolution of AOSE by proposing a comprehensive ontology-based methodology for the analysis and design of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). The methodology is named MOBMAS, which stands for ???Methodology for Ontology-Based MASs???. A major improvement of MOBMAS over the existing agentoriented MAS development methodologies is its explicit and extensive support for ontology-based MAS development. Ontologies have been widely acknowledged for their significant benefits to interoperability, reusability, MAS development activities (such as system analysis and agent knowledge modelling) and MAS operation (such as agent communication and reasoning). Recognising these desirable ontology???s benefits, MOBMAS endeavours to identify and implement the various ways in which ontologies can be used in the MAS development process and integrated into the MAS model definitions. In so doing, MOBMAS has exploited ontologies to enhance its MAS development process and MAS development product with various strengths. These strengths include those ontology???s benefits listed above, and those additional benefits uncovered by MOBMAS, e.g. support for verification and validation, extendibility, maintainability and reliability. Compared to the numerous existing agent-oriented methodologies, MOBMAS is the first that explicitly and extensively investigates the diverse potential advantages of ontologies in MAS development, and which is able to implement these potential advantages via an ontology-based MAS development process and a set of ontology-based MAS model definitions. Another major contribution of MOBMAS to the field of AOSE is its ability to address all key concerns of MAS development in one methodological framework. The methodology provides support for a comprehensive list of methodological requirements, which are important to agent-oriented analysis and design, but which may not be wellsupported by the current methodologies. These methodological requirements were identified and validated by this research from three sources: the existing agent-oriented methodologies, the existing evaluation frameworks for agent-oriented methodologies and conventional system development methodologies, and a survey of practitioners and researchers in the field of AOSE. MOBMAS supports the identified methodological requirements by combining the strengths of the existing agent-oriented methodologies (i.e. by reusing and enhancing the various strong techniques and model definitions of the existing methodologies where appropriate), and by proposing new techniques and model definitions where necessary. The process of developing MOBMAS consisted of three sequential research activities. The first activity identified and validated a list of methodological requirements for an Agent Oriented Software Engineering methodology as mentioned above. The second research activity developed MOBMAS by specifying a development process, a set of techniques and a set of model definitions for supporting the identified methodological requirements. The final research activity evaluated and refined MOBMAS by collecting expert reviews on the methodology, using the methodology on an application and conducting a feature analysis of the methodology.

???Agent-based systems are one of the most vibrant and important areas of research and development to have emerged in information technology in the 1990s??? (Luck et al. 2003). The use of agents as a metaphor for designing and constructing software systems represents an innovative movement in the field of software engineering: ???Agent- Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE)??? (Lind 2000; Luck et al. 2003). This research contributes to the evolution of AOSE by proposing a comprehensive ontology-based methodology for the analysis and design of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). The methodology is named MOBMAS, which stands for ???Methodology for Ontology-Based MASs???. A major improvement of MOBMAS over the existing agentoriented MAS development methodologies is its explicit and extensive support for ontology-based MAS development. Ontologies have been widely acknowledged for their significant benefits to interoperability, reusability, MAS development activities (such as system analysis and agent knowledge modelling) and MAS operation (such as agent communication and reasoning). Recognising these desirable ontology???s benefits, MOBMAS endeavours to identify and implement the various ways in which ontologies can be used in the MAS development process and integrated into the MAS model definitions. In so doing, MOBMAS has exploited ontologies to enhance its MAS development process and MAS development product with various strengths. These strengths include those ontology???s benefits listed above, and those additional benefits uncovered by MOBMAS, e.g. support for verification and validation, extendibility, maintainability and reliability. Compared to the numerous existing agent-oriented methodologies, MOBMAS is the first that explicitly and extensively investigates the diverse potential advantages of ontologies in MAS development, and which is able to implement these potential advantages via an ontology-based MAS development process and a set of ontology-based MAS model definitions. Another major contribution of MOBMAS to the field of AOSE is its ability to address all key concerns of MAS development in one methodological framework. The methodology provides support for a comprehensive list of methodological requirements, which are important to agent-oriented analysis and design, but which may not be wellsupported by the current methodologies. These methodological requirements were identified and validated by this research from three sources: the existing agent-oriented methodologies, the existing evaluation frameworks for agent-oriented methodologies and conventional system development methodologies, and a survey of practitioners and researchers in the field of AOSE. MOBMAS supports the identified methodological requirements by combining the strengths of the existing agent-oriented methodologies (i.e. by reusing and enhancing the various strong techniques and model definitions of the existing methodologies where appropriate), and by proposing new techniques and model definitions where necessary. The process of developing MOBMAS consisted of three sequential research activities. The first activity identified and validated a list of methodological requirements for an Agent Oriented Software Engineering methodology as mentioned above. The second research activity developed MOBMAS by specifying a development process, a set of techniques and a set of model definitions for supporting the identified methodological requirements. The final research activity evaluated and refined MOBMAS by collecting expert reviews on the methodology, using the methodology on an application and conducting a feature analysis of the methodology.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisors: Sandra M. Carberry and Keith S. Decker, Dept. of Computer & Information Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 297-309). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Florida, 2000. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 81 p.; also contains graphics. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-80).

Thesis (M.S. in Information Technology Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Alex Bordetsky, Gurminder Singh. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: Joydeep Ghosh. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph.D) - University of Karlsruhe, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references and index. Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Neil C. Rowe. Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-67). Also available online.

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy