Detection and resolution of normative conflicts in multi-agent systems : a literature survey

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Constraint rule-based programming of norms for electronic institutions

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BDI reasoning with normative considerations

F. Meneguzzi thanks Fundaç ao de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS, Brazil) for the financial support through the ACI program (Grant ref. 3541-2551/12-0) and the ARD program (Grant ref. 12/0808-5), as well as Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) through the Universal Call (Grant ref. 482156/2013-9) and PQ fellowship (Grant ref. 306864/2013-4). N. Oren and W.W. Vasconcelos acknowledge the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, UK) within the research project “Scrutable Autonomous Systems” (SAsSY11, Grant ref. EP/J012084/1).Peer reviewedPostprin

OWL-POLAR : A Framework for Semantic Policy Representation and Reasoning

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Social Reasoning in Multi-Agent Systems with the Expectation-Strategy-Behaviour Framework

Multi-agent Systems (MAS) provide an increasingly relevant field of research due to their many applications to modelling real world situations where the behaviour of many individual, self-motivated, agents must be reasoned about and controlled. The problem of agent social reasoning is central to MAS, where an agent reasons about its actions and interactions with other agents. This is the most important component of MAS, as it is the interactions, cooperation and competition between agents that make MAS a powerful approach suited for tackling many complex problems. Existing work focuses either on specific types of social reasoning or general purpose agent practical reasoning - reasoning directed toward actions. This thesis argues that social reasoning should be considered separately from practical reasoning. There are many possible benefits to this separation compared to existing approaches. Principally, it can allow general algorithms for agent implementation, analysis and bounded reasoning. This viewpoint is motivated by the desire to implement social reasoning agents and allow for a more general theory of social reasoning in agents. This thesis presents the novel Expectation- Strategy-Behaviour (ESB) framework for social reasoning, which provides a generic way to specify and execute agent reasoning approaches. ESB is a powerful tool, allowing an agent designer to write expressive social reasoning specifications and have a computational model generated automatically. Through a formalism and description of an implemented reasoner based on this theory it is shown that it is possible and beneficial to implement a social reasoning engine as a complementary component to practical reasoning. By using ESB to specify, and then implement, existing social reasoning schemes for joint commitment and normative reasoning, the framework is shown to be a suitable general reasoner. Examples are provided of how reasoning can be bounded in an ESB agent and the mechanism to allow analysis of agent designs is discussed. Finally, there is discussion on the merits of the ESB solution and possible future work

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Using Norms To Control Open Multi-Agent Systems

Internet es, tal vez, el avance científico más relevante de nuestros días. Entre otras cosas, Internet ha permitido la evolución de los paradigmas de computación tradicionales hacia el paradigma de computaciónn distribuida, que se caracteriza por utilizar una red abierta de ordenadores. Los sistemas multiagente (SMA) son una tecnolog a adecuada para abordar los retos motivados por estos sistemas abiertos distribuidos. Los SMA son aplicaciones formadas por agentes heterog eneos y aut onomos que pueden haber sido dise~nados de forma independiente de acuerdo con objetivos y motivaciones diferentes. Por lo tanto, no es posible realizar ninguna hip otesis a priori sobre el comportamiento de los agentes. Por este motivo, los SMA necesitan de mecanismos de coordinaci on y cooperaci on, como las normas, para garantizar el orden social y evitar la aparici on de conictos. El t ermino norma cubre dos dimensiones diferentes: i) las normas como un instrumento que gu a a los ciudadanos a la hora de realizar acciones y actividades, por lo que las normas de nen los procedimientos y/o los protocolos que se deben seguir en una situaci on concreta, y ii) las normas como ordenes o prohibiciones respaldadas por un sistema de sanciones, por lo que las normas son medios para prevenir o castigar ciertas acciones. En el area de los SMA, las normas se vienen utilizando como una especi caci on formal de lo que est a permitido, obligado y prohibido dentro de una sociedad. De este modo, las normas permiten regular la vida de los agentes software y las interacciones entre ellos. La motivaci on principal de esta tesis es permitir a los dise~nadores de los SMA utilizar normas como un mecanismo para controlar y coordinar SMA abiertos. Nuestro objetivo es elaborar mecanismos normativos a dos niveles: a nivel de agente y a nivel de infraestructura. Por lo tanto, en esta tesis se aborda primero el problema de la de nici on de agentes normativos aut onomos que sean capaces de deliberar acercaCriado Pacheco, N. (2012). Using Norms To Control Open Multi-Agent Systems [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/17800Palanci

Speech Acts and Burden of Proof in Computational Models of Deliberation Dialogue

We argue that burden of proof (BoP) of the kind present in persuasion does not apply to deliberation. We analyze existing computational models showing that in deliberation agents may answer a critique but there is no violation of the protocol if they choose not to. We propose a norm-­‐‑governed dialogue where BoP in persuasion is modeled as an obligation to respond, and permissions capture the different types of constraint observed in deliberation

Argumentation-based Reasoning about Plans, Maintenance Goals and Norms

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