GSO: Designing a Well-Founded Service Ontology to Support Dynamic Service Discovery and Composition

A pragmatic and straightforward approach to semantic service discovery is to match inputs and outputs of user requests with the input and output requirements of registered service descriptions. This approach can be extended by using pre-conditions, effects and semantic annotations (meta-data) in an attempt to increase discovery accuracy. While on one hand these additions help improve discovery accuracy, on the other hand complexity is added as service users need to add more information elements to their service requests. In this paper we present an approach that aims at facilitating the representation of service requests by service users, without loss of accuracy. We introduce a Goal-Based Service Framework (GSF) that uses the concept of goal as an abstraction to represent service requests. This paper presents the core concepts and relations of the Goal-Based Service Ontology (GSO), which is a fundamental component of the GSF, and discusses how the framework supports semantic service discovery and composition. GSO provides a set of primitives and relations between goals, tasks and services. These primitives allow a user to represent its goals, and a supporting platform to discover or compose services that fulfil them

Learning from Strike

This paper reports on an experimental study of the influence of asymmetric information and information spillovers on bargaining outcomes. It develops and tests Kuhn and Gu (1999) s model of learning in sequential wage negotiations, by means of two Ultimatum Bargaining Games with uncertainty on the proposer s side. Evidence shows that Dunlop s assertion of inflationary wage claims does not hold systematically and strike incidence is lowered by information spillovers, since claims are revised according to the previous bargaining outcomes. However, in the presence of fairness concerns, the ability to observe outcomes but not the bargaining process does not entail a reduction in information asymmetry sufficient to guarantee Pareto improving bargaining outcomes. Ce papier présente une étude expérimentale sur l'influence des asymétries d'information et de la diffusion de l'information entre firmes sur l'issue des négociations. Nous proposons un prolongement ainsi qu'un test du modèle de Kuhn et Gu (1999) concernant l'apprentissage dans des négociations séquentielles. Nous utilisons pour cela deux jeux d'ultimatum avec incertitude du coté du proposant. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent que l'hypothèse de Dunlop d'un biais inflationniste systématique des revendications salariales n'est jamais vérifiée et que conformément aux prédictions de Kuhn et Gu, la probabilité d'apparition d'une grève diminue en présence de diffusion de l'information. En effet, une révision des demandes en fonction du résultat des négociations passées est observée dans les données expérimentales. Pourtant, observer seulement le résultat des négociations passées et non le processus de négociation ne suffit à garantir une augmentation Pareto optimale des gains des joueurs. Les préoccupations d'équité entravent les effets bénéfiques de la diffusion de l'information entre firmes.Asymmetric Information, Experiments, Learning, Strikes, Ultimatum Bargaining Games, Asymétrie d'information, Expérimantations, Apprentissage, Grève, Jeux d'ultimatum

Peer - Mediated Distributed Knowledge Management

Distributed Knowledge Management is an approach to knowledge management based on the principle that the multiplicity (and heterogeneity) of perspectives within complex organizations is not be viewed as an obstacle to knowledge exploitation, but rather as an opportunity that can foster innovation and creativity. Despite a wide agreement on this principle, most current KM systems are based on the idea that all perspectival aspects of knowledge should be eliminated in favor of an objective and general representation of knowledge. In this paper we propose a peer-to-peer architecture (called KEx), which embodies the principle above in a quite straightforward way: (i) each peer (called a K-peer) provides all the services needed to create and organize "local" knowledge from an individual's or a group's perspective, and (ii) social structures and protocols of meaning negotiation are introduced to achieve semantic coordination among autonomous peers (e.g., when searching documents from other K-peers). A first version of the system, called KEx, is imple-mented as a knowledge exchange level on top of JXTA

Social Mental Shaping: Modelling the Impact of Sociality on Autonomous Agents' Mental States

This paper presents a framework that captures how the social nature of agents that are situated in a multi-agent environment impacts upon their individual mental states. Roles and relationships provide an abstraction upon which we develop the notion of social mental shaping. This allows us to extend the standard Belief-Desire-Intention model to account for how common social phenomena (e.g. cooperation, collaborative problem-solving and negotiation) can be integrated into a unified theoretical perspective that reflects a fully explicated model of the autonomous agent's mental state

DynCNET: a negotiation and coordination protocol for dynamic task assignment.

Task assignment in Multi-Agent Systems is a complex coordination problem, especially in systems that operate under dynamic and changing conditions. Adaptive task assignment is used to handle these dynamic and changing circumstances. This technical document describes an adaptive task assignment protocol, DynCNET which is an extension of the Contract Net Protocol. In this document, the DynCNET protocol will be build step by step, starting from the Contract Net protocol. We will add dynamic task assignment, synchronization of abort messages and scope handling. The final result will be the DynCNET protocol with support for synchronization of abort messages and scope handling.

Learning from Strikes

This paper reports on an experimental study of the influence of asymmetric information and information spillovers on bargaining outcomes. It develops and tests Kuhn and Gu's model (1999) of learning in sequential wage negotiations, by means of two Ultimatum Bargaining Games with uncertainty on the proposer's side. Evidence shows that Dunlop's assertion of inflationary wage demands does not systematically hold and strike incidence is lowered by information spillovers, since demands are revised according to previous bargaining outcomes. However, in the presence of fairness concerns, the ability to observe outcomes but not the bargaining process does not entail a sufficient reduction in information asymmetry to a point of guaranteeing Pareto-improved bargaining outcomes.asymmetric information; experimental economics; learning; strikes; ultimatum bargaining games

Social influence, negotiation and cognition

To understand how personal agreements can be generated within complexly differentiated social systems, we develop an agent-based computational model of negotiation in which social influence plays a key role in the attainment of social and cognitive integration. The model reflects a view of social influence that is predicated on the interactions among such factors as the agents' cognition, their abilities to initiate and maintain social behaviour, as well as the structural patterns of social relations in which influence unfolds. Findings from a set of computer simulations of the model show that the degree to which agents are influenced depends on the network of relations in which they are located, on the order in which interactions occur, and on the type of information that these interactions convey. We also find that a fundamental role in explaining influence is played by how inclined the agents are to be concilatory with each other, how accurate their beliefs are, and how self-confident they are in dealing with their social interactions. Moreover, the model provides insights into the trade-offs typically involved in the exercise of social influence

Idleness, Usefulness and Self-Constitution

The core argument of the paper is that the modern philosophical notion of self-constitution is directed against the prospect of human beings dissolving into idleness. Arguments for self-constitution are marked by non-philosophical presuppositions about the value of usefulness. Those arguments also assume a particular conception of superior experience as conscious integration of a person’s actions within an identifiable set of chosen commitments. Exploring particular arguments by Hegel, Kant, Korsgaard and Frankfurt the paper claims that those arguments are problematic in the various ways in which they suppose usefulness and explicitly or implicitly take extra-philosophical views of idleness

Indemnification and Advancement Through an Agency Lens

DeMott discusses the doctrines that define entitlements to indemnification. In the corporate context, indemnification is better grounded, as in the Model Business Corporation Act (MBCA), in the necessity of furnishing corporate directors with appropriate protection against personal risk. To be sure, as the MBCA\u27s official comments implicitly acknowledge, the position of officers, especially senior executive officers, does not fit neatly and exclusively into either an agent or a non-agent category for indemnification purposes

A Role-Based Approach for Orchestrating Emergent Configurations in the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is envisioned as a global network of connected things enabling ubiquitous machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. With estimations of billions of sensors and devices to be connected in the coming years, the IoT has been advocated as having a great potential to impact the way we live, but also how we work. However, the connectivity aspect in itself only accounts for the underlying M2M infrastructure. In order to properly support engineering IoT systems and applications, it is key to orchestrate heterogeneous 'things' in a seamless, adaptive and dynamic manner, such that the system can exhibit a goal-directed behaviour and take appropriate actions. Yet, this form of interaction between things needs to take a user-centric approach and by no means elude the users' requirements. To this end, contextualisation is an important feature of the system, allowing it to infer user activities and prompt the user with relevant information and interactions even in the absence of intentional commands. In this work we propose a role-based model for emergent configurations of connected systems as a means to model, manage, and reason about IoT systems including the user's interaction with them. We put a special focus on integrating the user perspective in order to guide the emergent configurations such that systems goals are aligned with the users' intentions. We discuss related scientific and technical challenges and provide several uses cases outlining the concept of emergent configurations.Comment: In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on the Internet of Agents @AAMAS201