Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of a... more Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of actors' behavior. Each institution specifies a set of norms covering a specific aspect of the problem domain with a governance scope defining its remit. Together, they govern the participants and reflect the objectives of the organization. With actors' behavior being simultaneously regulated by more than one institution, normative conflicts can appear. In this paper, we formalize the notion of governance scope and propose a computational approach to identify weak and strong norm conflicts in virtual organizations. This is achieved by explicitly modeling the governance scopes of institutions through context models. We illustrate our approach by means of a case study concerning food security in international trade.
Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple ... more Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple alternatives without the burden of any form of negation. This complete absence of negation does not weaken the language as both forms (classical and as-failure) can be intuitively simulated in the language. The semantics of the language is based on the preference between alternatives, yielding both a skeptical and a credulous approach. In this paper we demonstrate how OCLPs can be translated to semi-negative logic programs such that, depending on the transformation, the answer sets of the latter correspond with the skeptical or credulous answer sets of the former. By providing such a mapping, we have a mechanism for implementing OCLP using an answer set solver like smodels or dlv.
Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for dynamic preference-based decision-making with ... more Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for dynamic preference-based decision-making with multiple alternatives without the need for any form of negation. This complete absence of negation does not weaken the language as both forms (classical and as-failure) can be intuitively simulated in the language and eliminated using a simple pre-processor, making it also an easy language for users less familiar with logic programming. The semantics of the language is based on the preference between alternatives, yielding both a skeptical and a credulous approach. In this paper we demonstrate how OCLPs can be translated to semi-negative logic programs such that, depending on the transformation, the answer sets of the latter correspond with the skeptical/credulous answer sets of the former. By providing such a mapping, we have a mechanism for implementing OCLP using answer set solvers like Smodels or dlv. We end with a discussion of the complexity of our system and the reasoning tasks it can perform.
In recent years, numerous papers have shown the power and flexibility of answer set programming (... more In recent years, numerous papers have shown the power and flexibility of answer set programming (ASP) in the modeling of intelligent agents. This is not surprising since ASP was developed specifically for non-monotonic reasoning-including common-sense reasoning required in agent modeling. When dealing with multiple agents exchanging information, a common problem is dealing with conflicting information. As with humans, our intelligent agents may trust information from some agents more and than from others. In this paper, we present ASTREA, a methodology and framework for modeling multi-agent systems with trust. Starting from agents written in standard AnsP rolog , we model the agent's knowledge, beliefs, reasoning capabilities and trust in other agents together with a conflict resolution strategy in CR-Prolog. The system is then able to advise the agent what information to take into account and what to discard.
Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, Sep 1, 2004
We present systems of logic programming agents (LPAS) to model the interactions between decision-... more We present systems of logic programming agents (LPAS) to model the interactions between decision-makers while evolving to a conclusion. Such a system consists of a number of agents connected by means of unidirectional communication channels. Agents communicate with each other by passing answer sets obtained by updating the information received from connected agents with their own private information. We introduce a credulous answer set semantics for logic programming agents. As an application, we show how extensive games with perfect information can be conveniently represented as logic programming agent systems, where each agent embodies the reasoning of a game player, such that the equilibria of the game correspond with the semantics agreed upon by the agents in the LPAS.
In this paper we propose ArgPROLEG, a normative framework for legal reasoning based on PROLEG, an... more In this paper we propose ArgPROLEG, a normative framework for legal reasoning based on PROLEG, an implementation of the the Japanese "theory of presupposed ultimate facts" (JUF). This theory was mainly developed with the purpose of modelling the process of decision making by judges in the court. Not having complete and accurate information about each case, makes uncertainty an unavoidable part of decision making for judges. In the JUF theory each party that puts forward a claim, due to associated burden of proof to each claim, it needs to prove it as well. Not being able to provide such a proof for a claim, enables the judges to discard that claim although they might not be certain about the truth. The framework that we offer benefits from the use of argumentation theory as well as normative framework in multi-agent systems, to bring the reasoning closer to the user. The nature of argumentation in dealing with incomplete information on the one hand and being presentable in the form of dialogues on the other hand, has furthered the emergence and popularity of argumentation in modelling legal disputes. In addition, the use of multiple agents allows more flexibility for the behaviour of the parties involved.
Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple ... more Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple alternatives and without the burden of any form of negation. This complete absence of negation does not weaken the language as both forms (classical and as-failure) can be intuitively simulated in the language. The semantics of the language is based on the preference between alternatives, yielding both a skeptical and a credulous approach. In this paper we discuss the theoretical basis for the implementation of an OCLP front-end for answer set solvers that can compute both semantics in an efficient manner. Both the basic algorithm and the proposed optimizations can be used in general and are not tailored towards any particular answer set solver.
This paper outlines a novel approach to the computation of answer sets in an evolving and interac... more This paper outlines a novel approach to the computation of answer sets in an evolving and interactive environment. Instead of recomputing the semantics of the entire program, our approach updates the answer sets after incremental changes to the rule base. This is intended for application domains in which the answer set program is developed or updated during the run time of the system but answer sets are required throughout. In this paper we focus on the theoretical background and presentation of the algorithm for handling the addition.
With the increasing speed and capacity of answer set solvers and showcase applications in a varie... more With the increasing speed and capacity of answer set solvers and showcase applications in a variety of fields, Answer Set Programming (ASP) is maturing as a programming paradigm for declarative problem solving. Comprehensive programming methodologies have been developed for procedural and object-oriented paradigms to assist programmers in developing their programs from the problem specification. In many cases, however it is not clear how, or even if, such methodologies can be applied to answer set programming. In this paper, we present a first and rather pragmatic methodology for ASP and illustrate our approach through the encoding of graphical puzzle. Work supported by the ALIVE project (FP7 215890) 1 https://wasp.unime.it/
Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agents Systems, May 6, 2013
Institutions offer a mechanism to regulate the behaviour of agents without the need for these age... more Institutions offer a mechanism to regulate the behaviour of agents without the need for these agents to internalise the norms of the system. Current formalisms can be divided in two groups depending on whether norms are expressed on the state of the normative structure or the events that bring about normative change. This paper argues that for complex systems both types are needed. To this extend, we introduce ESI, a formal model for institutions incorporating the concepts for both event-and state-based normative modelling. We demonstrate our approach with a simplified legal case-study.
Normative capabilities in multi-agent systems (MAS) can be represented within agents, separately ... more Normative capabilities in multi-agent systems (MAS) can be represented within agents, separately as institutions, or a blend of the two. This paper addresses how to extend the principles of open MAS to the provision of normative reasoning capabilities, which are currently either embedded in existing MAS platforms-tightly coupled and inaccessible-or not present. We use a resource-oriented architecture (ROA) pattern, that we call deontic sensors, to make normative reasoning part of an open MAS architecture. The pattern specifies how to loosely couple MAS and normative frameworks, such that each is agnostic of the other, while augmenting the brute facts that an agent perceives with institutional facts, that capture each institution's interpretation of an agent's action. In consequence, a MAS without normative capabilities can acquire them, and an embedded normative framework can be de-coupled and opened to other MAS platforms. More importantly, the deontic sensor pattern allows normative reasoning to be published as services, opening routes to certification and re-use, creation of (formalized) trust and non-specialist access to "on demand" normative reasoning.
Norms are utilised in agent societies to encourage acceptable behaviour by the participating agen... more Norms are utilised in agent societies to encourage acceptable behaviour by the participating agents. They can be established or revised from the top-down (authority) or from the bottom-up (populace). The study of norm creation from the bottom-up-or norm emergence/convergence-shows evidence of increasing activity. In consequence, we seek to analyse and categorize the approaches proposed in the literature for facilitating norm emergence. This paper makes three contributions to the study of norm emergence. Firstly, we present the different perspectives of norms and their impact on the norm emergence process, with the aim of comparing their similarities and differences in implementing the norm life cycle. Secondly, we identify the characteristics that support norm emergence that are observed in the emergence literature. Finally, we identify and propose future topics for study for the community, through a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in norm emergence.
Institutions governing multi-agent systems (MASs) are a pervasive means to guide agents towards t... more Institutions governing multi-agent systems (MASs) are a pervasive means to guide agents towards the aims of the MAS (e.g. collecting data) with regulations on the outcomes of agents' behaviour. Yet, wider organisations/governments often intend to guide the design of institutions governing MAS in meeting different aims (e.g. preserving the rights of agents). A pervasive means to guide the design of MAS-governing institutions (or any institution, for that matter) is to use institutions at higher tiers of governance (e.g. directives, constitutions) to regulate the regulations of institutions at lower tiers of governance (e.g. national legislation, software policies). A recent innovation has been an automated means to determine the compliance of a lower-tier institution's regulations with a higher-tier's. However, for a designer of a non-compliant institution there remains a dilemma: be punished for non-compliant regulations or arduously determine and rectify the underlying causes of non-compliance. In this paper we propose a way to automatically determine how to revise an institution to be compliant that also minimises the change in the regulations' outcomes thus keeping as closely as possible to the institution designers' original intentions.
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Jul 9, 2016
In a normative environment an agent's actions are not only directed by its goals but also by the ... more In a normative environment an agent's actions are not only directed by its goals but also by the norms imposed on it. However, the potential conflicts within and between the agent's goals and norms makes decision-making in these frameworks a challenging task. The questions we address in this paper are: (i) how should an agent act in a normative environment? (ii) how can the agent explain why it acted in a certain way? We propose a solution in which a normative planning problem serves as the basis for a practical reasoning approach based on argumentation. The properties of the best plan(s) with respect to goal achievement and norm compliance are mapped to arguments that are used to explain why a plan is justified, using an existing proof dialogue game.
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Apr 6, 2017
An institution typically comprises constitutive rules, which give shape and meaning to social int... more An institution typically comprises constitutive rules, which give shape and meaning to social interactions and regulative rules, which prescribe agent behaviour in the society. Regulative rules guide social interaction, in particular when they are coupled with reward and punishment regulations that are enforced for (non-) compliance. Institution examples include legislation and contracts. Formal institutional reasoning frameworks automate ascribing social meaning to agent interaction and determining whether those actions have social meanings that comprise (non-) compliant behaviour. Yet, institutions do not just govern societies. Rather, in what is called multi-level governance, institutional designs at lower governance levels (e.g., national legislation at the national level) are governed by higher level institutions (e.g., directives, human rights charters and supranational agreements). When an institution design is found to be non-compliant, punishments can be issued by annulling the legislation or imposing fines on the responsible designers (i.e., government). In order to enforce multi-level governance, higher governance levels (e.g., courts applying human rights) must check lower level institution designs (e.g., national legislation
International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, Dec 8, 2016
Mobile agent data aggregation routing forwards mobile agents in wireless sensor network to collec... more Mobile agent data aggregation routing forwards mobile agents in wireless sensor network to collect and aggregate data. The key objective of data aggregation routing is to maximise the number of collected data samples at the same time as minimising network resource consumption and data collection delay. This paper proposes a mobile agent routing protocol, called Zone-based Mobile agent Aggregation. This protocol utilises a bottom-up mobile agent migration scheme in which the mobile agents start their journeys from the centre of the event regions to the sink aiming to reduce the MA itinerary cost and delay and increase data aggregation routing accuracy. In addition, the proposed protocol reduces the impact of network architecture, event source distribution model and/or data heterogeneity on the performance of data aggregation routing.
Abstract. We present a new general purpose query and abduction language for reasoning about actio... more Abstract. We present a new general purpose query and abduction language for reasoning about action domains that allows the processing of simultaneous actions, definition of conditions and reasoning about fluents and actions. AQL provides a simple declarative syntax for the specification of constraints on the histories (the combination of action traces and state transitions) within the modelled domain. Its semantics, provided by the translation of AQL queries into Ans-P rolog, acquires the benefits of the reasoning power provided by ...
Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of a... more Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of actors' behavior. Each institution specifies a set of norms covering a specific aspect of the problem domain with a governance scope defining its remit. Together, they govern the participants and reflect the objectives of the organization. With actors' behavior being simultaneously regulated by more than one institution, normative conflicts can appear. In this paper, we formalize the notion of governance scope and propose a computational approach to identify weak and strong norm conflicts in virtual organizations. This is achieved by explicitly modeling the governance scopes of institutions through context models. We illustrate our approach by means of a case study concerning food security in international trade.
Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agents Systems, May 4, 2015
Norms guide multi-agent systems away from being potentially anarchic towards a coordinated and co... more Norms guide multi-agent systems away from being potentially anarchic towards a coordinated and collaborative society. Institutions provide an explicit, external representation of norms as well as the means to detect violations and other conditions. Each institution can be crafted individually to capture their designers' goals, but this creates a challenge at higher levels of authority in guiding the institutional design to be coordinated with other institutions and not imposing unacceptable limits on agents' rights. We propose to use institutions to govern and to revise institutions, following a principle widely encountered in the social world, where treaties, primary legislation, framework agreements and subsidiarity establish a regulatory space by defining norms on the form of a body of regulation. We set out a formal and computational framework, building on the InstAL model and implementation, to construct tiers of institutions, where the norms at each tier are governed by those at the tier above. Thus, agents' behaviour is governed and monitored by a tier-1 institution, whose norms are governed and monitored by a tier-2 institution, etc.. This allows us to check the compliance of an institution with the tier above. Compliance failure generates the necessary negative examples for automatic norm-revision.
Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of a... more Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of actors' behavior. Each institution specifies a set of norms covering a specific aspect of the problem domain with a governance scope defining its remit. Together, they govern the participants and reflect the objectives of the organization. With actors' behavior being simultaneously regulated by more than one institution, normative conflicts can appear. In this paper, we formalize the notion of governance scope and propose a computational approach to identify weak and strong norm conflicts in virtual organizations. This is achieved by explicitly modeling the governance scopes of institutions through context models. We illustrate our approach by means of a case study concerning food security in international trade.
Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple ... more Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple alternatives without the burden of any form of negation. This complete absence of negation does not weaken the language as both forms (classical and as-failure) can be intuitively simulated in the language. The semantics of the language is based on the preference between alternatives, yielding both a skeptical and a credulous approach. In this paper we demonstrate how OCLPs can be translated to semi-negative logic programs such that, depending on the transformation, the answer sets of the latter correspond with the skeptical or credulous answer sets of the former. By providing such a mapping, we have a mechanism for implementing OCLP using an answer set solver like smodels or dlv.
Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for dynamic preference-based decision-making with ... more Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for dynamic preference-based decision-making with multiple alternatives without the need for any form of negation. This complete absence of negation does not weaken the language as both forms (classical and as-failure) can be intuitively simulated in the language and eliminated using a simple pre-processor, making it also an easy language for users less familiar with logic programming. The semantics of the language is based on the preference between alternatives, yielding both a skeptical and a credulous approach. In this paper we demonstrate how OCLPs can be translated to semi-negative logic programs such that, depending on the transformation, the answer sets of the latter correspond with the skeptical/credulous answer sets of the former. By providing such a mapping, we have a mechanism for implementing OCLP using answer set solvers like Smodels or dlv. We end with a discussion of the complexity of our system and the reasoning tasks it can perform.
In recent years, numerous papers have shown the power and flexibility of answer set programming (... more In recent years, numerous papers have shown the power and flexibility of answer set programming (ASP) in the modeling of intelligent agents. This is not surprising since ASP was developed specifically for non-monotonic reasoning-including common-sense reasoning required in agent modeling. When dealing with multiple agents exchanging information, a common problem is dealing with conflicting information. As with humans, our intelligent agents may trust information from some agents more and than from others. In this paper, we present ASTREA, a methodology and framework for modeling multi-agent systems with trust. Starting from agents written in standard AnsP rolog , we model the agent's knowledge, beliefs, reasoning capabilities and trust in other agents together with a conflict resolution strategy in CR-Prolog. The system is then able to advise the agent what information to take into account and what to discard.
Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, Sep 1, 2004
We present systems of logic programming agents (LPAS) to model the interactions between decision-... more We present systems of logic programming agents (LPAS) to model the interactions between decision-makers while evolving to a conclusion. Such a system consists of a number of agents connected by means of unidirectional communication channels. Agents communicate with each other by passing answer sets obtained by updating the information received from connected agents with their own private information. We introduce a credulous answer set semantics for logic programming agents. As an application, we show how extensive games with perfect information can be conveniently represented as logic programming agent systems, where each agent embodies the reasoning of a game player, such that the equilibria of the game correspond with the semantics agreed upon by the agents in the LPAS.
In this paper we propose ArgPROLEG, a normative framework for legal reasoning based on PROLEG, an... more In this paper we propose ArgPROLEG, a normative framework for legal reasoning based on PROLEG, an implementation of the the Japanese "theory of presupposed ultimate facts" (JUF). This theory was mainly developed with the purpose of modelling the process of decision making by judges in the court. Not having complete and accurate information about each case, makes uncertainty an unavoidable part of decision making for judges. In the JUF theory each party that puts forward a claim, due to associated burden of proof to each claim, it needs to prove it as well. Not being able to provide such a proof for a claim, enables the judges to discard that claim although they might not be certain about the truth. The framework that we offer benefits from the use of argumentation theory as well as normative framework in multi-agent systems, to bring the reasoning closer to the user. The nature of argumentation in dealing with incomplete information on the one hand and being presentable in the form of dialogues on the other hand, has furthered the emergence and popularity of argumentation in modelling legal disputes. In addition, the use of multiple agents allows more flexibility for the behaviour of the parties involved.
Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple ... more Ordered Choice Logic Programming (OCLP) allows for preferencebased decision-making with multiple alternatives and without the burden of any form of negation. This complete absence of negation does not weaken the language as both forms (classical and as-failure) can be intuitively simulated in the language. The semantics of the language is based on the preference between alternatives, yielding both a skeptical and a credulous approach. In this paper we discuss the theoretical basis for the implementation of an OCLP front-end for answer set solvers that can compute both semantics in an efficient manner. Both the basic algorithm and the proposed optimizations can be used in general and are not tailored towards any particular answer set solver.
This paper outlines a novel approach to the computation of answer sets in an evolving and interac... more This paper outlines a novel approach to the computation of answer sets in an evolving and interactive environment. Instead of recomputing the semantics of the entire program, our approach updates the answer sets after incremental changes to the rule base. This is intended for application domains in which the answer set program is developed or updated during the run time of the system but answer sets are required throughout. In this paper we focus on the theoretical background and presentation of the algorithm for handling the addition.
With the increasing speed and capacity of answer set solvers and showcase applications in a varie... more With the increasing speed and capacity of answer set solvers and showcase applications in a variety of fields, Answer Set Programming (ASP) is maturing as a programming paradigm for declarative problem solving. Comprehensive programming methodologies have been developed for procedural and object-oriented paradigms to assist programmers in developing their programs from the problem specification. In many cases, however it is not clear how, or even if, such methodologies can be applied to answer set programming. In this paper, we present a first and rather pragmatic methodology for ASP and illustrate our approach through the encoding of graphical puzzle. Work supported by the ALIVE project (FP7 215890) 1 https://wasp.unime.it/
Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agents Systems, May 6, 2013
Institutions offer a mechanism to regulate the behaviour of agents without the need for these age... more Institutions offer a mechanism to regulate the behaviour of agents without the need for these agents to internalise the norms of the system. Current formalisms can be divided in two groups depending on whether norms are expressed on the state of the normative structure or the events that bring about normative change. This paper argues that for complex systems both types are needed. To this extend, we introduce ESI, a formal model for institutions incorporating the concepts for both event-and state-based normative modelling. We demonstrate our approach with a simplified legal case-study.
Normative capabilities in multi-agent systems (MAS) can be represented within agents, separately ... more Normative capabilities in multi-agent systems (MAS) can be represented within agents, separately as institutions, or a blend of the two. This paper addresses how to extend the principles of open MAS to the provision of normative reasoning capabilities, which are currently either embedded in existing MAS platforms-tightly coupled and inaccessible-or not present. We use a resource-oriented architecture (ROA) pattern, that we call deontic sensors, to make normative reasoning part of an open MAS architecture. The pattern specifies how to loosely couple MAS and normative frameworks, such that each is agnostic of the other, while augmenting the brute facts that an agent perceives with institutional facts, that capture each institution's interpretation of an agent's action. In consequence, a MAS without normative capabilities can acquire them, and an embedded normative framework can be de-coupled and opened to other MAS platforms. More importantly, the deontic sensor pattern allows normative reasoning to be published as services, opening routes to certification and re-use, creation of (formalized) trust and non-specialist access to "on demand" normative reasoning.
Norms are utilised in agent societies to encourage acceptable behaviour by the participating agen... more Norms are utilised in agent societies to encourage acceptable behaviour by the participating agents. They can be established or revised from the top-down (authority) or from the bottom-up (populace). The study of norm creation from the bottom-up-or norm emergence/convergence-shows evidence of increasing activity. In consequence, we seek to analyse and categorize the approaches proposed in the literature for facilitating norm emergence. This paper makes three contributions to the study of norm emergence. Firstly, we present the different perspectives of norms and their impact on the norm emergence process, with the aim of comparing their similarities and differences in implementing the norm life cycle. Secondly, we identify the characteristics that support norm emergence that are observed in the emergence literature. Finally, we identify and propose future topics for study for the community, through a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in norm emergence.
Institutions governing multi-agent systems (MASs) are a pervasive means to guide agents towards t... more Institutions governing multi-agent systems (MASs) are a pervasive means to guide agents towards the aims of the MAS (e.g. collecting data) with regulations on the outcomes of agents' behaviour. Yet, wider organisations/governments often intend to guide the design of institutions governing MAS in meeting different aims (e.g. preserving the rights of agents). A pervasive means to guide the design of MAS-governing institutions (or any institution, for that matter) is to use institutions at higher tiers of governance (e.g. directives, constitutions) to regulate the regulations of institutions at lower tiers of governance (e.g. national legislation, software policies). A recent innovation has been an automated means to determine the compliance of a lower-tier institution's regulations with a higher-tier's. However, for a designer of a non-compliant institution there remains a dilemma: be punished for non-compliant regulations or arduously determine and rectify the underlying causes of non-compliance. In this paper we propose a way to automatically determine how to revise an institution to be compliant that also minimises the change in the regulations' outcomes thus keeping as closely as possible to the institution designers' original intentions.
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Jul 9, 2016
In a normative environment an agent's actions are not only directed by its goals but also by the ... more In a normative environment an agent's actions are not only directed by its goals but also by the norms imposed on it. However, the potential conflicts within and between the agent's goals and norms makes decision-making in these frameworks a challenging task. The questions we address in this paper are: (i) how should an agent act in a normative environment? (ii) how can the agent explain why it acted in a certain way? We propose a solution in which a normative planning problem serves as the basis for a practical reasoning approach based on argumentation. The properties of the best plan(s) with respect to goal achievement and norm compliance are mapped to arguments that are used to explain why a plan is justified, using an existing proof dialogue game.
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, Apr 6, 2017
An institution typically comprises constitutive rules, which give shape and meaning to social int... more An institution typically comprises constitutive rules, which give shape and meaning to social interactions and regulative rules, which prescribe agent behaviour in the society. Regulative rules guide social interaction, in particular when they are coupled with reward and punishment regulations that are enforced for (non-) compliance. Institution examples include legislation and contracts. Formal institutional reasoning frameworks automate ascribing social meaning to agent interaction and determining whether those actions have social meanings that comprise (non-) compliant behaviour. Yet, institutions do not just govern societies. Rather, in what is called multi-level governance, institutional designs at lower governance levels (e.g., national legislation at the national level) are governed by higher level institutions (e.g., directives, human rights charters and supranational agreements). When an institution design is found to be non-compliant, punishments can be issued by annulling the legislation or imposing fines on the responsible designers (i.e., government). In order to enforce multi-level governance, higher governance levels (e.g., courts applying human rights) must check lower level institution designs (e.g., national legislation
International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, Dec 8, 2016
Mobile agent data aggregation routing forwards mobile agents in wireless sensor network to collec... more Mobile agent data aggregation routing forwards mobile agents in wireless sensor network to collect and aggregate data. The key objective of data aggregation routing is to maximise the number of collected data samples at the same time as minimising network resource consumption and data collection delay. This paper proposes a mobile agent routing protocol, called Zone-based Mobile agent Aggregation. This protocol utilises a bottom-up mobile agent migration scheme in which the mobile agents start their journeys from the centre of the event regions to the sink aiming to reduce the MA itinerary cost and delay and increase data aggregation routing accuracy. In addition, the proposed protocol reduces the impact of network architecture, event source distribution model and/or data heterogeneity on the performance of data aggregation routing.
Abstract. We present a new general purpose query and abduction language for reasoning about actio... more Abstract. We present a new general purpose query and abduction language for reasoning about action domains that allows the processing of simultaneous actions, definition of conditions and reasoning about fluents and actions. AQL provides a simple declarative syntax for the specification of constraints on the histories (the combination of action traces and state transitions) within the modelled domain. Its semantics, provided by the translation of AQL queries into Ans-P rolog, acquires the benefits of the reasoning power provided by ...
Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of a... more Within a virtual organization, more than one institution might be involved in the regulation of actors' behavior. Each institution specifies a set of norms covering a specific aspect of the problem domain with a governance scope defining its remit. Together, they govern the participants and reflect the objectives of the organization. With actors' behavior being simultaneously regulated by more than one institution, normative conflicts can appear. In this paper, we formalize the notion of governance scope and propose a computational approach to identify weak and strong norm conflicts in virtual organizations. This is achieved by explicitly modeling the governance scopes of institutions through context models. We illustrate our approach by means of a case study concerning food security in international trade.
Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agents Systems, May 4, 2015
Norms guide multi-agent systems away from being potentially anarchic towards a coordinated and co... more Norms guide multi-agent systems away from being potentially anarchic towards a coordinated and collaborative society. Institutions provide an explicit, external representation of norms as well as the means to detect violations and other conditions. Each institution can be crafted individually to capture their designers' goals, but this creates a challenge at higher levels of authority in guiding the institutional design to be coordinated with other institutions and not imposing unacceptable limits on agents' rights. We propose to use institutions to govern and to revise institutions, following a principle widely encountered in the social world, where treaties, primary legislation, framework agreements and subsidiarity establish a regulatory space by defining norms on the form of a body of regulation. We set out a formal and computational framework, building on the InstAL model and implementation, to construct tiers of institutions, where the norms at each tier are governed by those at the tier above. Thus, agents' behaviour is governed and monitored by a tier-1 institution, whose norms are governed and monitored by a tier-2 institution, etc.. This allows us to check the compliance of an institution with the tier above. Compliance failure generates the necessary negative examples for automatic norm-revision.
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Papers by Marina De Vos