Electronic institution : an e-contracting platform for virtual organization

Automated tools that assist contract drafting are mostly focused on the representation of contract documents. Multi-agent systems have been ap-plied in the e-business domain, namely for information discovery and contract negotiation. Work on contract monitoring and enforcement is less explored. In this paper we start from these two observations to expose our efforts towards the development of tools that enable the computational representation of con-tracts and furthermore their monitoring and enforcement. We are mostly inter-ested in Virtual Organization settings, where groups of agents representing dif-ferent business entities form consortiums that must be regulated by appropriate norms. We are pursuing the concept of an Electronic Institution as a platform providing a normative environment and a set of e-contracting related services. Within this environment, contracts are represented through norms. We intend to test the applicability of our approach through illustration with case-studies and comparison with other contract representation formalisms

Enhancing Agent Mediated Electronic Markets with Ontology Matching Services and Social Network Support

Os Mercados Eletrónicos atingiram uma complexidade e nível de sofisticação tão elevados, que tornaram inadequados os modelos de software convencionais. Estes mercados são caracterizados por serem abertos, dinâmicos e competitivos, e constituídos por várias entidades independentes e heterogéneas. Tais entidades desempenham os seus papéis de forma autónoma, seguindo os seus objetivos, reagindo às ocorrências do ambiente em que se inserem e interagindo umas com as outras. Esta realidade levou a que existisse por parte da comunidade científica um especial interesse no estudo da negociação automática executada por agentes de software [Zhang et al., 2011]. No entanto, a diversidade dos atores envolvidos pode levar à existência de diferentes conceptualizações das suas necessidades e capacidades dando origem a incompatibilidades semânticas, que podem prejudicar a negociação e impedir a ocorrência de transações que satisfaçam as partes envolvidas. Os novos mercados devem, assim, possuir mecanismos que lhes permitam exibir novas capacidades, nomeadamente a capacidade de auxiliar na comunicação entre os diferentes agentes. Pelo que, é defendido neste trabalho que os mercados devem oferecer serviços de ontologias que permitam facilitar a interoperabilidade entre os agentes. No entanto, os humanos tendem a ser relutantes em aceitar a conceptualização de outros, a não ser que sejam convencidos de que poderão conseguir um bom negócio. Neste contexto, a aplicação e exploração de relações capturadas em redes sociais pode resultar no estabelecimento de relações de confiança entre vendedores e consumidores, e ao mesmo tempo, conduzir a um aumento da eficiência da negociação e consequentemente na satisfação das partes envolvidas. O sistema AEMOS é uma plataforma de comércio eletrónico baseada em agentes que inclui serviços de ontologias, mais especificamente, serviços de alinhamento de ontologias, incluindo a recomendação de possíveis alinhamentos entre as ontologias dos parceiros de negociação. Este sistema inclui também uma componente baseada numa rede social, que é construída aplicando técnicas de análise de redes socias sobre informação recolhida pelo mercado, e que permite melhorar a recomendação de alinhamentos e auxiliar os agentes na sua escolha. Neste trabalho são apresentados o desenvolvimento e implementação do sistema AEMOS, mais concretamente: • É proposto um novo modelo para comércio eletrónico baseado em agentes que disponibiliza serviços de ontologias; • Adicionalmente propõem-se o uso de redes sociais emergentes para captar e explorar informação sobre relações entre os diferentes parceiros de negócio; • É definida e implementada uma componente de serviços de ontologias que é capaz de: • o Sugerir alinhamentos entre ontologias para pares de agentes; • o Traduzir mensagens escritas de acordo com uma ontologia em mensagens escritas de acordo com outra, utilizando alinhamentos previamente aprovados; • o Melhorar os seus próprios serviços recorrendo às funcionalidades disponibilizadas pela componente de redes sociais; • É definida e implementada uma componente de redes sociais que: • o É capaz de construir e gerir um grafo de relações de proximidade entre agentes, e de relações de adequação de alinhamentos a agentes, tendo em conta os perfis, comportamento e interação dos agentes, bem como a cobertura e utilização dos alinhamentos; • o Explora e adapta técnicas e algoritmos de análise de redes sociais às várias fases dos processos do mercado eletrónico. A implementação e experimentação do modelo proposto demonstra como a colaboração entre os diferentes agentes pode ser vantajosa na melhoria do desempenho do sistema e como a inclusão e combinação de serviços de ontologias e redes sociais se reflete na eficiência da negociação de transações e na dinâmica do mercado como um todo.In electronic commerce, the diversity of the involved actors can lead to different conceptualizations of their needs and capabilities, giving rise to semantic incompatibilities that might hamper negotiations and the fulfilling of satisfactory transactions. In order to provide help in conversation among different actors, markets must offer ontology services to facilitate interoperability. However, humans tend to be reluctant to accept others’ conceptualizations, except if they become convinced that a good deal can be achieved. In this context, the application and exploitation of relationships captured by social networks can result in the establishment of more accurate trust relationships between businesses and customers, as well as the improvement of the negotiation efficiency and therefore the users’ satisfaction with the electronic commerce system. The AEMOS system is an agent-based electronic commerce platform that provides ontology matching services in order to facilitate the interoperability between agents that use different ontologies. AEMOS also includes a social network component that allows improving the ontology alignment recommendations and supporting the agents’ decisions about which alignments to select based on the information collected throughout the market and by exploring social network analysis techniques. This work presents the development and implementation of the AEMOS system, illustrating how the collaboration between the different agents can be helpful in improving the system’s performance, and how the inclusion and combination of ontology services and social networks reflects in the efficiency of the negotiation process

An approach to inter-organizational workflow management in an electronic institution

In a virtual organization, different business partners (individual organizations) cooperate in order to achieve a common goal. The coordination of the corresponding inter-organizational workflow is an important issue. In this paper an approach towards managing the operational embodiment of a manufacturing consortium is presented. This approach is conceptualized as a service within an Electronic Institution framework providing several agent-based services related with the formation and operation of virtual organizations. The behavior of the inter-organizational workflow management service is presented, modeled as an extension to a contract monitoring service. The paper also deals with the information exchange needs between these services and with the partners involved in a virtual organization contractual relationship.The work reported in this paper was supported by the FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) Project POSC/EIA/57672/2004

A hybrid model of electronic negotiation : integration of negotiation support and automated negotiation models

Electronic business negotiations are enabled by different electronic negotiation models: automated negotiation models for software agents, negotiation support models for human negotiators, and auction models for both. To date, there is no electronic negotiation model that enables bilateral multi-issue negotiations between a human negotiator and a negotiation agent?an important task in electronic negotiation research. In this thesis, a model is presented that integrates the automated negotiation model and the negotiation support model. The resulting hybrid negotiation model paves the way for human-agent business negotiations. The integration of two models is realised at the levels of negotiation process, communication support and decision making. To this end, the negotiation design, negotiation process, negotiation decision making, and negotiation communication in negotiation support systems (NSSs) and agent negotiation systems (ANSs) are studied and analysed. The analyses on these points help in strengthening the motivation behind hybrid negotiation model and setting aims for the integration of an NSS and an ANS in hybrid negotiation model. We mainly propose a human-agent negotiation design, negotiation process protocols to support the design, a hybrid communication model for human-agent interaction, an agent decision-making model for negotiation with human, and a component for interoperability between NSS and ANS. The agent decision-making model is composed of heuristic and argumentation-based negotiation techniques. It is proposed after analysing different automated negotiation models for different human negotiation strategies. The proposed communication model supports human negotiator and negotiation agent to understand and process negotiation messages from each other. This communication model consists of negotiation ontology, a wrapper agent, and a proper selection of an agent communication language (ACL) and a content language. The wrapper agent plays a role for interoperability between agent system and NSS by providing a communication interface along with the negotiation ontology. The negotiation ontology, ACL and agent content language make the communication model of negotiation agent in ANS. The proposed hybrid model is realised by integrating an ANS into NSS Negoisst. The research aim is to show that a hybrid negotiation system, composed of two heterogeneous negotiation models, can enable human-agent multi-issue integrative negotiations.Elektronische ökonomische Verhandlungen werden durch verschiedene Verhandlungsmodelle ermöglicht: Automatisierte Verhandlungsmodelle für Softwareagenten, Verhandlungsunterstützung für menschliche Verhandelnde und Auktionsmodelle für Beide. Bis heute existiert kein elektronisches Verhandlungsmodell, das bilaterale multi-attributive Verhandlungen zwischen einem menschlichen Verhandelnden und einem Verhandlungsagenten ? eine wichtige Aufgabe in der Forschung im Bereich elektronischer Verhandlungen. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Modell präsentiert, welches das automatisierte Verhandlungsmodell und das Verhandlungsunterstützungsmodell integriert. Das resultierende hybride Verhandlungsmodell ebnet den Weg für ökonomische Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungen. Die Integration der zwei Modelle ist realisiert auf der Ebene von Verhandlungsprozess, Kommunikationsunterstützung und Entscheidungsunterstützung. Dazu werden Verhandlungsdesign, Verhandlungsprozess, verhandlungsbezogene Entscheidungsfindung und Verhandlungskommunikation in Verhandlungsunterstützungssystemen (NSS) und Agentenverhandlungssystemen (ANS) studiert und analysiert. Die Analysen zu diesen Punkten verstärken die Motivation hinter dem hybriden Verhandlungsmodell und bestimmen die Ziele für die Integration von NSS und ANS. Es werden hauptsächlich ein Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungsdesign, Verhandlungsprozessprotokolle zur Unterstützung des Designs, ein hybrides Kommunikationsmodell für Mensch-Agent-Kommunikation, ein Agenten-Entscheidungsmodell für die Verhandlung mit menschlichem Gegenpart und eine Komponente für die Interoperabilität zwischen NSS und ANS. Das Entscheidungsmodell für Agenten besteht aus heuristischen und argumentativen Verhandlungstechniken. Es wird aufgestellt nachdem verschiedene automatisierte Verhandlungsmodelle für verschiedene menschliche Verhandlungsstrategien analysiert worden sind. Die vorgeschlagenen Kommunikationsmodelle unterstützen menschliche Verhandler und Verhandlungsagenten dabei Verhandlungsnachrichten voneinander zu verstehen und zu verarbeiten. Dieses Kommunikationsmodell besteht aus einer Verhandlungsontologie, einem Wrapper-Agenten und einer angemessenen Auswahl der Agentenkommunikationssprache (ACL) und der Inhaltssprache. Der Wrapper-Agent spielt eine Rolle bei der Interoperabilität zwischen dem Agentensystem und dem NSS durch eine Kommunikationsschnittstelle zusammen mit der Verhandlungsontologie. Die Verhandlungsontologie, die ACL und die Inhaltssprache der Agenten ergeben das Kommunikationsmodell der Verhandlungsagenten im ANS. Das vorgestellte hybride Modell ist realisiert als Integration eines ANS in das NSS Negoisst. Das Forschungsziel ist zu zeigen, dass ein hybrides Verhandlungssystem, basierend auf zwei heterogenen Verhandlungsmodellen, integrative multi-attributive Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungen ermöglicht