Roles and norms for programming agent organizations

ABSTRACT

We present a programming language for implementing multiagent systems consisting of a set of individual agents that interact with a computational organization specified in terms of roles, norms and sanctions. We provide an operational semantics of the language that can serve as a basis for the implementation of organizational platforms. The view on roles is motivated by four key properties we deem important for an efficient implementation of agent organizations.

REFERENCES

• 1: M. Baldoni, G. Boella, and L. van der Torre. Roles as a coordination construct: Introducing powerjava. In Proc. of 1st Int. Workshop on Methods and Tools for Coordinating Concurrent, Distributed and Mobile Systems, 2005.
• 2: Alan Colman , Jun Han, Roles, players and adaptable organizations, Applied Ontology, v.2 n.2, p.105-126, April 2007
• 3: M. Dastani, N. A. M. Tinnemeier, and J.-J. C. Meyer. A programming language for normative multi-agent systems. In V. Dignum, editor, Multi-Agent Systems: Semantics and Dynamics of Organizational Models, chapter 16. IGI Global, 2008.
• 4: M. Dastani, M. van Riemsdijk, J. Hulstijn, F. Dignum, and J.-J. C. Meyer. Enacting and deacting roles in agent programming. In Proc. of the 5th Int. Workshop on AOSE, page 3382, 2004.
• 5: Marc Esteva , Bruno Rosell , Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar , Josep Ll. Arcos, AMELI: An Agent-Based Middleware for Electronic Institutions, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, p.236-243, July 19-23, 2004, New York, New York [doi>10.1109/AAMAS.2004.56]
• 6: D. Grossi. Designing Invisible Handcuffs. Formal Investigations in Institutions and Organizations for MAS. PhD thesis, Utrecht University, SIKS, 2007.
• 7: Jomi F. Hubner , Jaime S. Sichman , Olivier Boissier, Developing organised multiagent systems using the MOISE⁺ model: programming issues at the system and agent levels, International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, v.1 n.3/4, p.370-395, December 2007 [doi>10.1504/IJAOSE.2007.016266]
• 8: B. Kristensen. Object-oriented modeling with roles. In Proc. of the 2nd Int. Conf. on OO Information Systems, pages 57--71. Springer-Verlag, 1995.
• 9: R. G. Matteo Baldoni, Valerio Genovese and L. van der Torre. Adding organizations and roles as primitives to the jade framework. In Proc. of the 3rd Int. Workshop on Normative MAS, 2008.
• 10: J. J. Odell, H. Van, D. Parunak, and M. Fleischer. The role of roles in designing effective agent organizations. In Software Engineering for Large-Scale Multi-Agent Systems, LNCS 2603, pages 27--38. Springer, 2003.
• 11: Andrea Omicini , Alessandro Ricci , Mirko Viroli , Cristiano Castelfranchi , Luca Tummolini, Coordination Artifacts: Environment-Based Coordination for Intelligent Agents, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, p.286-293, July 19-23, 2004, New York, New York [doi>10.1109/AAMAS.2004.95]
• 12: Ravi S. Sandhu , Edward J. Coyne , Hal L. Feinstein , Charles E. Youman, Role-Based Access Control Models, Computer, v.29 n.2, p.38-47, February 1996 [doi>10.1109/2.485845]
• 13: J. R. Searle. The Construction of Social Reality. Free Press, 1995.
• 14: F. Zambonelli, N. Jennings, and M. Wooldridge. Organisational rules as an abstraction for the analysis and design of multi-agent systems. IJSEKE, 11(3):303--328, 2001.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

General Terms:
Languages, Theory

Keywords:
norms, operational semantics, organizations, roles