We describe a framework for top-down centralized self-adaptive MASs where adaptive agents are “protocol-driven” and adaptation consists in runtime protocol switch. Protocol specifications take a global, rather than a local, perspective and each agent, before starting to follow a new (global) protocol, projects it for obtaining a local version. If all the agents in the MAS are driven by the same...

The notion of ‘appropriate technology’ (AT) is universally seen as emanating from the writing and activities of the economist Fritz Schumacher. In fact, the term that Schumacher himself used was ‘intermediate technology’ and derived from visits he paid to India and Burma in the late 1950s and early 1960s in his capacity as senior economist to the British National Coal Board, invited to advise t...

Agriculture in developing countries is complex and vulnerable, especially for resource-poor farmers. They require location-specific technologies and solutions developed with their active involvement. In Nepal, several top-down approaches have been tried but there appeared to be challenges in addressing the needs of poor farmers. Participatory approaches emphasise involvement of local farmers an...

In this paper we use our previous work which has examined the different levels involved in reasoning about legal cases to examine some challenges to the relevance of current theoretical work in AI and Law made by Branting. In our model we view the process of legal reasoning as being divided into three distinct but interconnected levels of reasoning. These levels involve a bottom layer concernin...