I wrote this paper as a student of the course of Software Engineering at Politecnico di Milano taught by Prof. Carlo Ghezzi. The following is the abstract of the article:
Factors like the interconnection, the heterogeneity and the high dynamism characterize ICT systems like software, services or nets. The management of such systems, consequently, becomes particularly complex and expensive. The autonomic computing defines an architecture which promises to pull down costs of maintenance of ICT systems defining an architecture in which each entity can self-repair, self-configure, self-optimize and self-protect itself. This paper represents an overview of the new paradigm, in which we go through the definition of the conceptual elements of the architecture, the standards, the technologies available and some examples of applications.
Sorry this article is available only italian.

Autonomic Computing

I wrote this paper as a student of the ASP (Alta Scuola Politecnica, link). The following is the abstract of the article:
Traffic congestion is nowadays one of the biggest problems of livability of cities. The continuous growth of number of vehicles and the difficulty to use funds effectively to improve the capacity of the road is bringing bad times to the local administrators. Mobility managers are in crisis while they are choosing which prohibition to apply to improve the fluidness of cars’ flow. The motorists, as usual, are not happy with the continuous rise of new constraints to their freedom. Consequently, new models that act to control the demand rather than to eliminate the demand are rising up. This paper describes methods for the demand control, in particular road pricing and the recent credit-based mobility system that promise to create a virtuous circle that self-adjusts the demand while it preserves the motorists’ freedom.

Credit-based mobility system

I wrote this paper as a student of the ASP (Alta Scuola Politecnica, link). The following is the abstract of the article:
Nowadays the marketplace is extremely dynamic and competitive, the continuous requests of innovation and the following creative destruction is bringing bad times to the management. The corporate leaders are in crisis while they are tackling the problem of human resources reorganisation and if the profits of corporations are increasing, the stress caused by high level of work is rising too. Consequently, the model of the worker is crossing a new era; it is changing from a single manual-worker entity to a networked knowledge-worker entity. This paper describes how the organisations are trying to address this process, analysing different approaches to the management of organisation it presents real case studies augmented by mean of historical perspective. A proper conception of the organisation can foster and promote valuable changing and innovation inside firms while it preserves the human dimension.

Download the paper.

The organisation in the era of knowledge workers

I completed a presentation for the course of Robotics 1 at Politecnico di Milano with the Prof. Gini Giuseppina. I worked on an implementation of the Q-Learning for the Lego Mindstorms.


Download the slides in english!

Robotics 1 Cioffi

Me and my friend (Guglielmo Roelfsema) have presented a seminar for the course of Robotics II, with Prof. Gini Giuseppina at Politecnico di Milano.
In this work, we have used Lego Mindstorms to realise a robot that can stand-up using dynamic control theory, balancing the gravity force using motors. It was really cool and very funny to see that our robot moves without falling down. Anyway, this is only a prototype…

Download the slides and the video!

	Robotics Cioffi-Roelfsema
	Robotics Cioffi-Roelfsema (DivX video)

The primary measure of success of a software system is the degree to which it meets the purpose for which it was intended.
(Nuseibeh&Easterbrook ‘00)

If you look the toon you notice that it is dramatically true. I think that this picture could be used as a metaphor for each course of software engineering, and it is a very good example of the first cause of software failure: the poor requirements.

In an hypothetical model, the process of software production goes over two distinct phases.
In the first one, called verification, we find an answer for the question “Are we doing the product right?” (is our software bug-free?). In the second one, called validation, we find an answer for the question “Are we doing the right product?” (is our software what the user asked for?).
The two phases are ideally distincts but they can merge and iterate several times, at every step, or at every release.

Finally, I think that languages for specification are a good tool to solve this problem, but they are so heavy to be used in common projects. As examples I suggest you to visit the “Petri Nets World” (link) portal and the “Alloy” website (link).

This is the project for the course of Software Engineering II, with Prof. Carlo Ghezzi at Politecnico di Milano. In this article, I explain the differences and the analogies between two kinds of paradigms, the Agent-Oriented paradigm and the Service-Oriented paradigm. I sketch also the two main instances of each paradigm, FIPA for Agent-Oriented and Web Services for Service-Oriented.

The main claim is that, in the modern era of on-line composition and orchestration of Web Services, we need some paradigm that can fit very well in dynamic and impredictable situations; in shorts if we want to achieve a high degree of autonomy and intelligence of services maybe we can use the Agent-Paradigm to models these situations.

Download the article

Web Services and Agents

Wireless Sensor Networks 2004, Palace Hotel @ Como
I have took part at this conference, it was so interesting.
I would like to investigate about the intersection among this field and the agent-oriented area. In particular how the concepts from the agent-area can drive the development of a wireless sensor network.
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I have bought a chep p800 from ebay, and then I have repaired the display. I hope you will find the information on this page useful.

I plan to do experiments with the P800 at both technical level (programming, ecc..) and psychological/social level (how a medium like that can change our interactions?). Stay tuned..
:-)

For more information about screen hacking.. (more…)

I hacked my wireless card d-link dwl-650 and, using a pineapple can I built an antenna with 8/10 dB gain..it’s amazing! (more…)

A copy of my curriculum vitae is available online in Adobe Acrobat version.

Curriculum - Marco Cioffi

If you cannot view the file please download the Adobe Acrobat reader from here

Today I can say that I’m an engineer.. I’m graduated in “computer engineering” at the University of Bologna - Cesena with 110/110 cum laude the thesis title is “Melting agent infrastructures from foundation to implementation”

A. Omicini, A. Ricci, M. Viroli, M. Cioffi, G. Rimassa
Multi-agent Infrastructures for Objective and Subjective Coordination
Journal of Applied Artificial Intelligence 18(9/10). Taylor & Francis, October/December 2004.

Abstract:
Coordination in MAS can be conceived as either an agent activity (the subjective viewpoint) or an activity over agents (the objective viewpoint). The two viewpoints have generated two diverging and often contrasting lines of research, as well as different and non-compatible technologies: however, their integration is mandatory for modelling and engineering complex MAS. In this paper, we explore the issue of integration at both the model and the technology levels.
First, by taking FIPA agents and coordination artifacts as reference notions for subjective and objective approaches, respectively, we sketch a framework where agent interactions with coordination artifacts are modelled as physical acts, deliberated and executed by agents analogously to communicative actions. Then, we show how the JADE infrastructure for FIPA-compliant agents, and the TuCSoN infrastructure providing agents with coordination artifacts can be integrated at the technology level, allowing JADE agents to access TuCSoN tuple centres through JADE services.

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M. Cioffi
Kernel-Service Ontology in JADE
JADE Board Representative @ Whitestein.

This document defines an ontology for kernel-services. The aim is to enable agents to obtain information about services without using direct API. ACL-Messages can be used for this aim therefore a consistent ontology is needed. This foundation is particularly important under the management point of view: a possible application can involve an extention of RMA agent for querying information/activate/deactivate services in a defined container.

Software Engineering is the branch of computer science which deals with methodologies in the process of “software system” construction. We avoid the use of the term “program”, because it refers to a specific kind of system. Nowadays “software systems” interact through the net and through different processors. The complexity emerges from that interaction and the only way to deal with it is to define methodologies that constrain the software architect to follow a set of rules.
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The primarily aim of this project is to study the integration between the Tuple Centre ("a Tuple Space whose behaviour can be defined by means of reactions to communication events” [1]) and JADE ("a software framework that simplifies the implementation of multiagent systems through a middle-ware that complies with the FIPA specifications” [2]).

[1] Tucson Website

[2] JADE Website
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The italian newspaper named “Corriere Romagna” talks about my teaching experience at High School. The article was writed by Gian Paolo Castagnoli. To see the complete article click here

I presented three seminars of three hours each, title: “Programmazione robotica con mattoncini LEGO Mindstorms", (Programming and design with LEGO Mindstorms, an introduction to robotics).
Brief:
Using Lego Mindstorms robots (LEGO Mindstorms website) the students can learn robotics with fun, the seminars range over hardware and software, going through advanced topic like motion recognition, voice recognition, wireless communication (802.11b and palm device), behaviour based design and QLearning
Now you can download the slides (only italian version is available):

Hello, I’m Marco Cioffi, a graduated student of Computer Engineering at the University of Bologna, II Faculty of Cesena, Cesena, Italy. I love computer science: my interest range over artificial intelligence, software agents, cognitive science, languages, security and many others technology related arguments… I also love philosophy, particularly its connection with AI and its attempt to explain how human society and the human brain work.
Feel free to interact with me!