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In the Netherlands, almost all people have dinner around 5:30pm. As a foreigner in that country, it is almost impossible to plan a (working) meeting around this time, which would be a `normal' time in many other countries. On the other hand, having dinner that early is not an obligation. No one will be ofended or would even care if you choose to eat later. This is an example of a shared strategy, i.e. an institutional arrangement where different actors have the intention of performing the same task at a certain time or setting. InMAS research, shared strategies can be a new way of expressing conventions that cannot easily be fitted into norms, individual plans or collective intentions, while sharing some elements with all of these.

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This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 12111 ``Normative Multi-Agent Systems''. Normative systems are systems in the behavior of which norms play a role and which need normative concepts in order to be described or specified. A normative multi-agent system combines models for normative systems (dealing for example with obligations, permissions and prohibitions) with models for multi-agent systems. Norms have been proposed in multi-agent systems and computer science to deal with issues of coordination, security, electronic commerce and institutions, agent organization. However, due to the lack of a unified theory, many multi-agent system researchers are presently developing their own ad hoc concepts and applications. The aim of this Dagstuhl Seminar was to formulate a collective appraisal of the current perspectives in the field and the most promising venues for future activity. In particular, the seminar has been conceived for the writing of a volume titled "A Prospective view of Normative Multi Agent Systems" aimed to become a standard reference in the field and to provide guidelines for future research in normative multi-agent systems.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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In this paper we present the notion of Social Instruments as a set
of mechanisms that facilitate the emergence of norms from repeated
interactions between members of a society. Specifically, we focus on
two social instruments: rewiring and observation. Our main goal is
to provide agents with tools that allow them to leverage their
social network of interactions when effectively addressing
coordination and learning problems, paying special attention to
dissolving meta\-stable subconventions. Finally, we present a more
sophisticated social instrument (observation + rewiring)
for robust resolution of \emph{subconventions}, which works dissolving Self-Reinforcing Substructures (SRS) in the social
network.

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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.

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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 enforce- ability 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 exemplified with a specific 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.

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From 15.03. to 20.03.2009, the Dagstuhl Seminar 09121 "Normative Multi-Agent Systems'' was held in Schloss Dagstuhl, Leibniz Center for Informatics. This paper contains the abstracts of
the presentations given during the seminar.

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From15.03. to 20.03.2009, the Dagstuhl Seminar0912 "Normative Multi-Agent Systems" was held in Schloss Dagstuhl. Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. This volume contains the 26 papers presented and a short introduction by the editors.

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