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Experimental designs reflect assumptions about variable relationships that determine what causal queries researchers can answer through the experiment. Accounting for and communicating these assumptions is essential for drawing valid,…
As distributed systems grow in scale and complexity, the need for flexible automation of systems management functions also grows. We outline a framework for building tools that provide distributed, scalable, declarative, modular, and…
We describe a process calculus featuring high level constructs for component-oriented programming in a distributed setting. We propose an extension of the higher-order pi-calculus intended to capture several important mechanisms related to…
We consider a general framework of optimal mechanism design under adverse selection and ambiguity about the type distribution of agents. We prove the existence of optimal mechanisms under minimal assumptions on the contract space and prove…
Robot allocation plays an essential role in facilitating robotic service provision across various domains. Yet the increasing number of users and the uncertainties regarding the users' true service requirements have posed challenges for the…
A blockchain-based smart contract or a "smart contract" for short, is a computer program intended to digitally facilitate the negotiation or contractual terms directly between users when certain conditions are met. With the advance in…
We propose here to look at how abstract a model of a usable system can be, but still say something useful and interesting, so this paper is an exercise in abstraction and formalisation, with usability-of-design as an example target use. We…
Agentic AI systems represent a new frontier in artificial intelligence, where agents often based on large language models(LLMs) interact with tools, environments, and other agents to accomplish tasks with a degree of autonomy. These systems…
This article contributes to the design and the verification of trusted components and services. The contracts are declined at several levels to cover then different facets, such as component consistency, compatibility or correctness. The…
Today, software-intensive systems are increasingly being developed in a globally distributed way. However, besides its benefit, global development also bears a set of risks and problems. One critical factor for successful project management…
We present a new approach to automated reasoning about higher-order programs by endowing symbolic execution with a notion of higher-order, symbolic values. Our approach is sound and relatively complete with respect to a first-order solver…
Use of knowledge-based planning tools can help alleviate the challenges of planning a complex operation by a coalition of diverse parties in an adversarial environment. We explore these challenges and potential contributions of…
Increased complexity in cyber-physical systems calls for modular system design methodologies that guarantee correct and reliable behavior, both in normal operations and in the presence of failures. This paper aims to extend the…
Results from the communication complexity literature have demonstrated that stable matching requires communication: one cannot find or verify a stable match without having access to essentially all of the ordinal preference information held…
Smart contracts are computer programs that can be consistently executed by a network of mutually distrusting nodes, without the arbitration of a trusted authority. Because of their resilience to tampering, smart contracts are appealing in…
The paper outlines ongoing research on logic-based tools for the analysis and representation of legal contracts of the kind frequently encountered in large-scale engineering projects and complex, long-term trading agreements. We consider…
We develop an assume-guarantee framework for control of large scale linear (time-varying) systems from finite-time reach and avoid or infinite-time invariance specifications. The contracts describe the admissible set of states and controls…
Agents, language model-based systems capable of reasoning, planning, and acting are widely adopted in real-world tasks, yet how their performance changes as these systems scale across key dimensions remains underexplored. We introduce…
We study a bilevel \emph{max-max} optimization framework for principal-agent contract design, in which a principal chooses incentives to maximize utility while anticipating the agent's best response. This problem, central to moral hazard…
Rule-based policy and contract systems have rarely been studied in terms of their software engineering properties. This is a serious omission, because in rule-based policy or contract representation languages rules are being used as a…