Coordination, Organizations, Instiutions, and Norms in Agent System VII
Publication Type:
BookSource:
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Volume 7254, Berlin / Heidelberg, p.XIV, 221 (2012)ISBN:
978-3-642-35544-8Keywords:
multiagent systems; normative systems; organizationsAbstract:
This book constitutes a selection of the thoroughly reviewed papers of two international workshops on Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in Agent Systems, COIN@AAMAS 2011, held in Taipei, Taiwan in May 2011 and COIN@WI-IAT 2011, held in Lyon, France in August 2011. The papers are organized in topical sections on agent coordination, norm-aware agent reasoning, as well as norm creation and enforcement
A Distributed Architecture for Enforcing Norms in Open MAS
Publication Type:
Book ChapterSource:
Advanced Agent Technology, Springer, Volume 7068, Berlin / Heidelberg, p.457-471 (2012)ISBN:
978-3-642-27215-8URL:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f45r56u48418r432/Abstract:
Norms have been promoted as a coordination mechanism for controlling agent behaviours in open MAS. Thus, agent platforms must provide normative support, allowing both norm-aware and non norm-aware agents to take part in MAS controlled by norms. In this paper, the most relevant proposals on the definition of norm enforcement mechanisms have been analysed. These proposals present several drawbacks that make them unsuitable for open MAS. In response to these problems, this paper describes a new Norm-Enforcing Architecture aimed at controlling open MAS.
On Grievance Protocols for Conflict Resolution in Open Multi-Agent Systems
Publication Type:
Conference PaperSource:
44th Hawaii International International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS-44 2011), IEEE Computer Society, Hawaii, p.1-10 (2011)ISBN:
978-0-7695-4282-9Abstract:
This paper presents the specification of an agentbased framework for conflict resolution into Open Multi-agent Systems by means of grievance protocols. In this framework, any grievance process primarily involves negotiation (with or without mediation) and arbitration or a combination of both. In this way, the result of a conflict resolution can be an agreement among the conflicting parties by which they voluntary settle the conflict, or a decision from the arbitrator (a neutral third party) which is final, and binding on both conflicting parties. The framework is designed in such a way that multiple agreement mechanisms may be available at any given time, to be activated and adjusted on demand (on-line) by participating agents. The framework is also generic enough so that new protocols may be easily added. The objective is to have a generic electronic institution that may be tailored to specific needs and grafted into other electronic institutions.
Distributed norm management for multi-agent systems
Publication Type:
Journal ArticleSource:
Expert Systems with Applications, Elsevier, Volume 39, Issue 5, p.5990-5999 (2012)Abstract:
Norms explicitly represent prohibitions, permissions and obligations associated with software agents, changing as agents act and interact in pursuit of their goals. Norms provide means of regulating open and heterogeneous multi-agent systems; however, in order to truly reflect the nature of multi-agent systems, norms should be managed in a distributed fashion. A centralized account of norms creates a single point-of-failure and bottlenecks, and as a result fault-tolerance and scalability are jeopardized. The decentralized management of norms is, nevertheless, a challenging issue and we observe a lack of truly distributed computational realizations of normative models. To remedy this, we propose normative structures, which allow the propagation of changes in the norms associated with agents, as a result of their actions. Due to the dynamic nature of multi-agent systems and the potential concurrency of agents’ actions, conflicts may arise, whereby an action is simultaneously prohibited and obliged (or prohibited and permitted). We thus present a run-time algorithm to detect and resolve conflicts during the enactment of a multi-agent system, and show how this algorithm can be put to use within a distributed setup.
Norm enforceability in Electronic Institutions?
Publication Type:
Book ChapterSource:
Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in agent systems VI, Springer, Number 6541, p.250-257 (2011)Keywords:
electronic institutions; normative systems; normative agentsAbstract:
Nowadays Multi-Agent Systems require more and more regulation and normative mechanisms in order to assure the correct and secure execution of the interactions and transactions in the open virtual organization they are implementing. The Electronic Institution approach for developing Multi-Agent Systems implements some enforceability mechanisms in order to control norms execution and observance.
In this paper we study a complex situation in a regulated environment in which the enforceability mechanisms provided by the current Electronic Institutions implementation cannot deal appropriately with norm observance. The analyzed situation is exempli ed with a speci c scenario of the mWater regulated environment, an electronic market for water-rights transfer. After this example is presented, we extrapolate it to a more generic domain while also addressing the main issues for its application in general scenarios.
Using Experience to Generate New Regulations
Publication Type:
Conference ProceedingsSource:
International Joint Conference in Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), AAAI Press, USA, Barcelona, Spain, p.307-312 (2011)ISBN:
978-1-57735-512-0Abstract:
Humans have developed jurisprudence as a mechanism to solve conflictive situations by using past experiences. Following this principle, we propose an approach to enhance a multi-agent system by adding an authority which is able to generate new
regulations whenever conflicts arise. Regulations are generated by learning from previous similar situations, using a machine learning technique (based on Case-Based Reasoning) that solves new problems using previous experiences. This approach requires: to be able to gather and evaluate experiences; and to be described in such a way that similar social situations require similar regulations. As a scenario to evaluate our proposal, we use a simplified version of a traffic scenario, where agents are traveling cars. Our goals are to avoid collisions
between cars and to avoid heavy traffic. These situations, when happen, lead to the synthesis of new regulations. At each simulation step, applicable regulations are evaluated in terms of their effectiveness and necessity. Overtime the system generates a set of regulations that, if followed, improve system performance (i.e. goal achievement).
Beyond the Carrot and Stick Approach to Enforcement: An Agent-Based Model
Publication Type:
Conference PaperSource:
European Conference on Cognitive Science, New Bulgarian University Press, Sofia (2011)ISBN:
978-954-535-660-5Keywords:
Norms; Punishment; Self-organization;Abstract:
As specified by Axelrod in his seminal work An Evolutionary
Approach to Norms (Axelrod, 1986), punishment is a key
mechanism to achieve the necessary social control and to enforce
social norms in a self-regulated society. In this paper,
we distinguish between two enforcing mechanisms, punishment
and sanction, focusing on the specific ways in which they
favour the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. In particular,
by punishment we refer to a practice that works only
by imposing a cost, while by sanction we indicate a practice
that also signals the existence of a norm and that its violation
is not condoned. To achieve this, we have developed a normative
agent able both to punish and sanction offenders and to
be affected by these enforcing mechanisms itself.The results
obtained through agent-based simulation show that sanction is
more effective and makes the population more resilient to sudden
changes than mere punishment.
Dynamic Sanctioning for Robust and Cost-Efficient Norm Compliance
Publication Type:
Conference PaperSource:
Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Arti?cial Intelligence, IJCAI/AAAI, Barcelona, p.414-419 (2011)ISBN:
978-1-57735-516-8Abstract:
As explained by Axelrod in his seminal work An Evolutionary Approach to Norms, punishment is a key mechanism to achieve the necessary social control and to impose social norms in a self-regulated society. In this paper, we distinguish between two enforcing mechanisms. i.e. punishment and sanction, focusing on the specific ways in which they favor the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. The key research question is to find more stable and cheaper mechanisms for norm compliance in hybrid social environments (populated by humans and computational agents). To achieve this task, we have developed a normative agent able to punish and sanction defectors and to dynamically choose the right amount of punishment and sanction to impose on them (Dynamic Adaptation Heuristic). The results obtained through agent-based simulation show us that sanction is more effective and less costly than punishment in the achievement and maintenance of cooperation and it makes the population more resilient to sudden changes than if it were enforced only by mere punishment.
Norm Adaptation using a Two-Level Multi-Agent System Architecture in a Peer-to-Peer Scenario
Publication Type:
Conference PaperSource:
9th workshop on Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in multi-agent systems (COIN), Toronto, Canada, p.64-71 (2010)Abstract:
Existing organisational centred multi-agent systems (MAS) regulate agents’ activities. Nevertheless, population and/or environmental changes may lead to a poor fulfilment of the system’s purposes, and therefore, adapting the whole organisation becomes key. This is even more needed in open MAS, where participants are unknown beforehand, they may change over time, and there are no guarantees about their behaviours nor capabilities. Hence, in this paper we focus on endowing an organisation with self-adaptation capabilities instead of expecting agents to increase their behaviour complexity. We regard this organisational adaptation as an assisting service provided by what we call the Assistance Layer. Our abstract Two Level Assisted MAS Architecture (2-LAMA)incorporates such a layer. We empirically evaluate our adaptation mechanism in a P2P scenario by comparing it with the standard BitTorrent protocol. Results provide a performance improvement and show that the cost of introducing an additional layer in charge of system’s adaptation is lower than its benefits.
Towards a Normative BDI Architecture for Norm Compliance.
Publication Type:
Conference PaperSource:
11th International Workshop on Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in Multi-Agent Systems (COIN@MALLOW2010), Lyon, France, p.65-81 (2010)Abstract:
Multi-AgentSystems require coordination mechanisms in order to assemble the behaviour of autonomous and heterogeneous agents and achieve the desired performance of the whole system. Norms are deontic statements employed by these coordination mechanisms which define constraints to the potential excesses of agents’ autonomous behaviour. However, norms are only effective if agents are capable of understanding and managing them pragmatically. In this paper, we propose an extension of the BDI proposal in order to allow agents to take pragmatic autonomous decisions considering the existence of norms. In particular, coherence and consistency theory will be employed as a criterion for determining norm compliance.
