Results 1 - 10 of 211

A social semantics for agent communications languages

by Munindar P. Singh - Proceedings of the Workshop on Agent Communication Languages, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-99 , 2000
"... Abstract. The ability to communicate is one of the salient properties of agents. Although a number of agent communication languages (ACLs) have been developed, obtaining a suitable formal semantics for ACLs remains one of the greatest challenges of multiagent systems theory. Previous semantics have ..."
Abstract - Cited by 226 (6 self) - Add to MetaCart
Abstract. The ability to communicate is one of the salient properties of agents. Although a number of agent communication languages (ACLs) have been developed, obtaining a suitable formal semantics for ACLs remains one of the greatest challenges of multiagent systems theory. Previous semantics have largely been mentalistic in their orientation and are based solely on the beliefs and intentions of the participating agents. Such semantics are not suitable for most multiagent applications, which involve autonomous and heterogeneous agents, whose beliefs and intentions cannot be uniformly determined. Accordingly, we present a social semantics for ACLs that gives primacy to the interactions among the agents. Our semantics is based on social commitments and is developed in temporal logic. This semantics, because of its public orientation, is essential to providing a rigorous basis for multiagent protocols. 1
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Flexible Protocol Specification and Execution: Applying Event Calculus Planning using Commitments

by Pinar Yolum, Munindar R Singh , 2002
"... Protocols represent the allowed interactions among communicating agents. Protocols are essential in applications such as electronic commerce where it is necessary to constrain the behaviors of autonomous agents. Traditional approaches, which model protocols in terms of action sequences, limit the fl ..."
Abstract - Cited by 140 (20 self) - Add to MetaCart
Protocols represent the allowed interactions among communicating agents. Protocols are essential in applications such as electronic commerce where it is necessary to constrain the behaviors of autonomous agents. Traditional approaches, which model protocols in terms of action sequences, limit the flexibility of the agents in executing the protocols. By contrast, we develop an approach for specifying protocols in which we capture the content of the actions through agents' commitments to one another. We forrealize commitments in a variant of the event calculus. We provide operations and reasoning rules to capture the evolution of commitments through the agents' actions. Using these rules in addition to the basic event calculus axioms enables agents to reason about their actions explicitly to flexibly accommodate the exceptions and opportunities that arise at run time. This reasoning is implemented using an event calculus planner that helps us determine flexible execution paths that respect the protocol specifications.
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Commitment machines

by Pınar Yolum, Munindar P. Singh - In Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL-01 , 2002
"... Abstract. We develop an approach in which we model communication protocols via commitment machines. Commitment machines supply a content to protocol states and actions in terms of the social commitments of the participants. The content can be reasoned about by the agents thereby enabling flexible ex ..."
Abstract - Cited by 104 (23 self) - Add to MetaCart
Abstract. We develop an approach in which we model communication protocols via commitment machines. Commitment machines supply a content to protocol states and actions in terms of the social commitments of the participants. The content can be reasoned about by the agents thereby enabling flexible execution of the given protocol. We provide reasoning rules to capture the evolution of commitments through the agents ’ actions. Because of its representation of content and its operational rules, a commitment machine effectively encodes a systematically enhanced version of the original protocol, which allows the original sequences of actions as well as other legal moves to accommodate exceptions and opportunities. We show how a commitment machine can be compiled into a finite state machine for efficient execution, and prove soundness and completeness of our compilation procedure. 1
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Reasoning about commitments in the event calculus: An approach for specifying and executing protocols

by Pınar Yolum, Munindar P. Singh - Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence , 2004
"... Abstract. Commitments among agents are widely recognized as an important basis for organizing interactions in multiagent systems. We develop an approach for formally representing and reasoning about commitments in the event calculus. We apply and evaluate this approach in the context of protocols, w ..."
Abstract - Cited by 65 (7 self) - Add to MetaCart
Abstract. Commitments among agents are widely recognized as an important basis for organizing interactions in multiagent systems. We develop an approach for formally representing and reasoning about commitments in the event calculus. We apply and evaluate this approach in the context of protocols, which represent the interactions allowed among communicating agents. Protocols are essential in applications such as electronic commerce where it is necessary to constrain the behaviors of autonomous agents. Traditional approaches, which model protocols merely in terms of action sequences, limit the flexibility of the agents in executing the protocols. By contrast, by formally representing commitments, we can specify the content of the protocols through the agents ’ commitments to one another. In representing commitments in the event calculus, we formalize commitment operations and domain-independent reasoning rules as axioms to capture the evolution of commitments. We also provide a means to specify protocol-specific axioms through the agents ’ actions. These axioms enable agents to reason about their actions explicitly to flexibly accommodate the exceptions and opportunities that may arise at run time. This reasoning is implemented using an event calculus planner that helps determine flexible execution paths that respect the given protocol specifications.
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Formal Methods in DAI: Logic-Based Representation and Reasoning

by Munindar P. Singh, et al.
"... ..."
Abstract - Cited by 48 (3 self) - Add to MetaCart
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Resolving commitments among autonomous agents

by Ashok U. Mallya, Pınar Yolum, Munindar P. Singh - In International Workshop on Agent Communication Languages and Conversation Policies (ACL , 2003
"... Abstract. Commitments are a powerful representation for modeling multiagent interactions. Previous approaches have considered the semantics of commitments and how to check compliance with them. However, these approaches do not capture some of the subtleties that arise in real-life applications, e.g. ..."
Abstract - Cited by 43 (8 self) - Add to MetaCart
Abstract. Commitments are a powerful representation for modeling multiagent interactions. Previous approaches have considered the semantics of commitments and how to check compliance with them. However, these approaches do not capture some of the subtleties that arise in real-life applications, e.g., e-commerce, where contracts and institutions have implicit temporal references. The present paper develops a rich representation for the temporal content of commitments. This enables us to capture realistic contracts and institutions rigorously, and avoid subtle ambiguities. Consequently, this approach enables us to reason about whether and when exactly a commitment is satisfied or breached and whether it is or ever becomes unenforceable. 1
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A Normative Framework for Agent-Based Systems

by Fabiola López Y López, Michael Luck - Comput. Math. Organ. Theory
"... One of the key issues in the computational representation of open societies relates to the introduction of norms that help to cope with the heterogeneity, the autonomy and the diversity of interests among their members. Research regarding this issue presents two omissions. One is the lack of a canon ..."
Abstract - Cited by 41 (11 self) - Add to MetaCart
One of the key issues in the computational representation of open societies relates to the introduction of norms that help to cope with the heterogeneity, the autonomy and the diversity of interests among their members. Research regarding this issue presents two omissions. One is the lack of a canonical model of norms that facilitates their implementation, and that allows us to describe the processes of reasoning about norms. The other refers to considering, in the model of normative multi-agent systems, the perspective of individual agents and what they might need to effectively reason about the society in which they participate. Both are the concerns of this paper, and the main objective is to present a formal normative framework for agent-based systems. 1
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Multiagent Commitment Alignment

by Amit K. Chopra, Munindar P. Singh , 2009
"... Commitments provide a basis for understanding interactions in multiagent systems. Successful interoperation relies upon the interacting parties being aligned with respect to their commitments. However, alignment is nontrivial in a distributed system where agents communicate asynchronously and make d ..."
Abstract - Cited by 37 (19 self) - Add to MetaCart
Commitments provide a basis for understanding interactions in multiagent systems. Successful interoperation relies upon the interacting parties being aligned with respect to their commitments. However, alignment is nontrivial in a distributed system where agents communicate asynchronously and make different observations. We propose a formalization for commitments that ensures alignment despite asynchrony. This formalization consists of three elements: (1) a semantics of commitment operations; (2) messaging patterns that implement the commitment operations; and (3) weak constraints on agents’ behaviors to ensure the propagation of vital information. We prove that our formalization ensures alignment. We illustrate the generality of our formalization with several real-life scenarios.
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Specifying and Verifying Cross-Organizational Business Models: An Agent-Oriented Approach ∗

by Pankaj R. Telang, Munindar P. Singh
"... Cross-organizational business processes are the norm in today’s economy. Enterprises of necessity conduct their business in cooperation to create products and services for the marketplace. Such business processes inherently involve autonomous partners with heterogeneous software designs and implemen ..."
Abstract - Cited by 37 (16 self) - Add to MetaCart
Cross-organizational business processes are the norm in today’s economy. Enterprises of necessity conduct their business in cooperation to create products and services for the marketplace. Such business processes inherently involve autonomous partners with heterogeneous software designs and implementations. Thus it would be natural to model such processes via high-level abstractions that reflect the contractual relationships among the business partners. Yet, in today’s IT practice, cross-organizational processes are modeled at a low level of abstraction in terms of the control and data flows among the participants. This paper makes the following contributions. First, it proposes a simple, yet expressive declarative way to specify business models at a high level based on the notion of commitments. Second, it shows how such a high-level model maps to a conventional operational model. Third, it provides a basis for verifying the correctness of the operational representations with respect to the declarative business model using existing temporal model checking tools. This paper validates the above claims using the wellknown Quote To Cash business process, e.g., as supported by vendors such as SAP and applied in large enterprises. In this manner, this paper helps bridge the gap between high-level business models and their IT realizations. 1
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Agents for Process Coherence in Virtual Enterprises

by Anuj K. Jain, Manuel Aparicio IV, Munindar P. Singh , 1999
"... SoCom # 1 "on time" Abstract SoCom # 2 "cheap" Buyer Seller Abstract SoCom # 3 Buyer Seller SoCom Manager Hoosier Inc. Register me as buyer and seller Register me as buyer and seller Play Seller in AbstractSoCom #1? Yes Valvano & Co. Hot Air Bros. 8 ..."
Abstract - Cited by 36 (3 self) - Add to MetaCart
SoCom # 1 "on time" Abstract SoCom # 2 "cheap" Buyer Seller Abstract SoCom # 3 Buyer Seller SoCom Manager Hoosier Inc. Register me as buyer and seller Register me as buyer and seller Play Seller in AbstractSoCom #1? Yes Valvano & Co. Hot Air Bros. 8 9 Concrete SoCom created 4 6 7 "high quality" = Roles = Agents Directory Agent_id Role derived 1 Figure 2. Instantiation of a concrete SoCom 68 March 1999/Vol. 42, No. 3 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM Adopt role Need to initiate Ask SoCom manager Participate No No No No No No No Ye s Yes Ye s Yes Yes Yes Ye s Register SoCom manager suggests a socom Request to create SoCom Process request Stop Stop (undefined) Stop (Failure) Instantiate and announce Receipt of a request Request to register Condition evaluation OK? Find candidates Ask candidates All say yes? Agents decision making SoCom manager's decision making Because our agents are autonomous, we must e...