Norm negotiation in multiagent systems

Normative multiagent systems provide agents with abilities to autonomously devise societies and organizations coordinating their behavior via social norms and laws. In this paper we study how agents negotiate new social norms and when they accept them. We introduce a negotiation model based on what we call the social delegation cycle, which explains the negotiation of new social norms from agent desires in three steps. First individual agents or their representatives negotiate social goals, then a social goal is negotiated in a social norm, and finally the social norm is accepted by the agents when it leads to fulfilment of the desires the cycle started with. We characterize the allowed proposals during social goal negotiation as mergers of the individual agent desires, and we characterize the allowed proposals during norm negotiation as both joint plans to achieve the social goal (obligations associated with the norm) and the associated sanctions or rewards (a control system associated with the norm). The norm is accepted when the norm is stable in the sense that agents will act according to the norm, and effective in the sense that fulfilment of the norm leads to achievement of the agents’ desires. We also compare norm negotiation with contract negotiation and negotiation of the distribution of obligation

Contract Formation through Preemptive Normative Conflict Resolution

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An Approach to Operationalize Regulative Norms in Multiagent Systems

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Advances in infrastructures and tools for multiagent systems

In the last few years, information system technologies have focused on solving challenges in order to develop distributed applications. Distributed systems can be viewed as collections of service-provider and ser vice-consumer components interlinked by dynamically defined workflows (Luck and McBurney 2008).Alberola Oltra, JM.; Botti Navarro, VJ.; Such Aparicio, JM. (2014). Advances in infrastructures and tools for multiagent systems. Information Systems Frontiers. 16:163-167. doi:10.1007/s10796-014-9493-6S16316716Alberola, J. M., Búrdalo, L., Julián, V., Terrasa, A., & García-Fornes, A. (2014). An adaptive framework for monitoring agent organizations. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9478-x .Alfonso, B., Botti, V., Garrido, A., & Giret, A. (2014). A MAS-based infrastructure for negotiation and its application to a water-right market. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9443-8 .Andrighetto, G., Castelfranchi, C., Mayor, E., McBreen, J., López-Sánchez, M., & Parsons, S. (2013). (Social) norm dynamics. In G. Andrighetto, G. Governatori, P. Noriega, & L. W. van der Torre (Eds.), Normative multi-agent systems (pp. 135–170). Dagstuhl: Schloss Dagstuhl--Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik.Baarslag, T., Fujita, K., Gerding, E. H., Hindriks, K., Ito, T., Jennings, N. R., et al. (2013). Evaluating practical negotiating agents: results and analysis of the 2011 international competition. Artificial Intelligence, 198, 73–103.Boissier, O., Bordini, R. H., Hübner, J. F., Ricci, A., & Santi, A. (2013). Multi-agent oriented programming with JaCaMo. Science of Computer Programming, 78(6), 747–761.Campos, J., Esteva, M., López-Sánchez, M., Morales, J., & Salamó, M. (2011). Organisational adaptation of multi-agent systems in a peer-to-peer scenario. Computing, 91(2), 169–215.Carrera, A., Iglesias, C. A., & Garijo, M. (2014). Beast methodology: an agile testing methodology for multi-agent systems based on behaviour driven development. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9438-5 .Criado, N., Such, J. M., & Botti, V. (2014). Norm reasoning services. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(2). doi: 10.1007/s10796-013-9444-7 .Del Val, E., Rebollo, M., & Botti, V. (2014). Enhancing decentralized service discovery in open service-oriented multi-agent systems. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 28(1), 1–30.Denti, E., Omicini, A., & Ricci, A. (2002). Coordination tools for MAS development and deployment. Applied Artificial Intelligence, 16(9–10), 721–752.Dignum, V., & Dignum, F. (2012). A logic of agent organizations. Logic Journal of IGPL, 20(1), 283–316.Ferber, J., & Gutknecht, O. (1998). A meta-model for the analysis and design of organizations in multi-agent systems. In Multi agent systems. Proceedings. International Conference on (pp. 128–135). 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Dispute Resolution Using Argumentation-Based Mediation

Mediation is a process, in which both parties agree to resolve their dispute by negotiating over alternative solutions presented by a mediator. In order to construct such solutions, mediation brings more information and knowledge, and, if possible, resources to the negotiation table. The contribution of this paper is the automated mediation machinery which does that. It presents an argumentation-based mediation approach that extends the logic-based approach to argumentation-based negotiation involving BDI agents. The paper describes the mediation algorithm. For comparison it illustrates the method with a case study used in an earlier work. It demonstrates how the computational mediator can deal with realistic situations in which the negotiating agents would otherwise fail due to lack of knowledge and/or resources.Comment: 6 page

Proceedings of the 11th European Agent Systems Summer School Student Session

This volume contains the papers presented at the Student Session of the 11th European Agent Systems Summer School (EASSS) held on 2nd of September 2009 at Educatorio della Providenza, Turin, Italy. The Student Session, organised by students, is designed to encourage student interaction and feedback from the tutors. By providing the students with a conference-like setup, both in the presentation and in the review process, students have the opportunity to prepare their own submission, go through the selection process and present their work to each other and their interests to their fellow students as well as internationally leading experts in the agent field, both from the theoretical and the practical sector. Table of Contents: Andrew Koster, Jordi Sabater Mir and Marco Schorlemmer, Towards an inductive algorithm for learning trust alignment . . . 5; Angel Rolando Medellin, Katie Atkinson and Peter McBurney, A Preliminary Proposal for Model Checking Command Dialogues. . . 12; Declan Mungovan, Enda Howley and Jim Duggan, Norm Convergence in Populations of Dynamically Interacting Agents . . . 19; Akın Günay, Argumentation on Bayesian Networks for Distributed Decision Making . . 25; Michael Burkhardt, Marco Luetzenberger and Nils Masuch, Towards Toolipse 2: Tool Support for the JIAC V Agent Framework . . . 30; Joseph El Gemayel, The Tenacity of Social Actors . . . 33; Cristian Gratie, The Impact of Routing on Traffic Congestion . . . 36; Andrei-Horia Mogos and Monica Cristina Voinescu, A Rule-Based Psychologist Agent for Improving the Performances of a Sportsman . . . 39; --Autonomer Agent,Agent,Künstliche Intelligenz

Massively multiple online role playing games as normative multiagent systems

The latest advancements in computer games offer a domain of human and artificial agent behaviour well suited for analysis and development based on normative multi agent systems research. One of the most influential gaming trends today, Massively Multi Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), poses new questions about the interaction between the players in the game. If we model the players and groups of players in these games as multiagent systems with the possibility to create norms and sanction norm violations we have to create a way to describe the different kind of norms that may appear in these situations. Certain situations in MMORPG are subject to discussions about how norms are created and propagated in a group, one such example involves the sleeper in the game Everquest, from Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). The Sleeper was at first designed to be unkillable, but after some events and some considerations from SOE the sleeper was finally killed. The most interesting aspect of the story about the sleeper is how we can interpret the norms being created in this example. We propose a framework to analyse the norms involved in the interaction between players and groups in MMORPG. We argue that our model adds complexity where we find earlier norm typologies lacking some descriptive power of this phenomenon, and we can even describe and understand the confusing event with the sleeper in Everquest