@PhdThesis{o-gutknecht-thesis2001,
  author = 	 {Olivier Gutknecht},
  title = 	 {Proposition d'un mod\`ele g\'en\'erique de syst\`emes multi-agents - Examen de ses cons\'equences formelles, impl\'ementatoires et m\'ethodologiques},
  school = 	 {Universit\'e Montpellier 2},
  year = 	 2001,
  month =	 {September},
  abstract = "This work investigates the use of organizational abstractions in multi-agent 
          systems. The thesis shows how adopting a social-based
          point of view on these systems, instead of a classic individual-based
          assumption, may be an answer to increasing needs in heterogeneity,
          adaptation and control in large-scale agent systems. The main
          proposition is a generic model of agent organizations, based on the
          concepts of agent, group and role. We show how a structural and
          functional decomposition can federate multi-agent system. We focus on
          agents with highly heterogeneous internal architectures, possibly
          antagonist goals and with different interaction models. The model is
          then formally expressed in a pi-calculus variant. We illustrate its
          operational semantics through an overview of meta-level
          design. Implementation aspects are also discussed through the
          presentation of MadKit, a generic agent infrastructure toolkit, based
          on our organization model and designed to host multiple
          architectures. Empirical results validate our contribution, through
          architecture-specific evaluations and real-world applications."
}