Maintenance-based trust for multi-agent systems

ABSTRACT

In last years, trust and reputation has been gaining increasing interest in multi-agent systems (MAS). To address this issue, we propose in this paper a maintenance-based trust mechanism for agents operating in multi-agent systems. In the proposed model, a comprehensive trust assessment process is provided to assess the trustworthiness of the participating agents. The main characteristic of this model is the retrospect trust adjustments, which integrate the applicable constraints and modify the involved features with respect to the actual performance of the evaluated agent. Specifically, the retrospect process updates the belief set of the agents in order to adapt them to the social network changes. This paper has two contributions: after describing the architecture of the proposed framework, we provide a theoretical analysis of its assessment and discuss the system implementation, along with simulations comparing it with the broadly known frameworks.

REFERENCES

• 1: Jamal Bentahar , Babak Khosravifar, Using Trustworthy and Referee Agents to Secure Multi-Agent Systems, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations, p.477-482, April 07-09, 2008 [doi>10.1109/ITNG.2008.113]
• 2: D. Marchiori and M. Warglien. Predicting Human Interactive Learning by Regret-Driven Neural Networks. Science, 319(5866):1111--1113, 2008.
• 3: P. M. Dung , P. Mancarella , F. Toni, Computing ideal sceptical argumentation, Artificial Intelligence, v.171 n.10-15, p.642-674, July, 2007 [doi>10.1016/j.artint.2007.05.003]
• 4: Trung Dong Huynh , Nicholas R. Jennings , Nigel R. Shadbolt, Certified reputation: how an agent can trust a stranger, Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems, May 08-12, 2006, Hakodate, Japan [doi>10.1145/1160633.1160854]
• 5: Trung Dong Huynh , Nicholas R. Jennings , Nigel R. Shadbolt, An integrated trust and reputation model for open multi-agent systems, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, v.13 n.2, p.119-154, September 2006 [doi>10.1007/s10458-005-6825-4]
• 6: Y. Wang, and M. P. Singh. Formal trust model for multiagent ststems. Proceedings of the 20'th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), pp. 1551--1556, 2007.
• 7: P. Yolum and M. P. Singh. Engineering self-organizing referral networks for trustworthy service selection. IEEE Transaction on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 35(3):396--407, 2005.
• 8: J. Sabatar. Trust and reputation for agent societies. Phd thesis, Universitat autonoma de Barcelona, 2003.
• 9: G. Zacharia, and P. Maes. Trust management through reputation mechanisms. Applied artifitial intelligence, 14(9):881--908, 2000.
• 10: J. Sabater, M. Paolucci and R. Conte. Repage: REPutation and ImAGE Among Limited Autonomous Partners. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 9(2), 2006.
• 11: A. Jesang and R. Ismail. The beta reputation system. 15'th Bled Electronic Commerce Conference e-Reality: Constructing the e-Economy, 2002.
• 12: W. T. Teacy , Jigar Patel , Nicholas R. Jennings , Michael Luck, TRAVOS: Trust and Reputation in the Context of Inaccurate Information Sources, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, v.12 n.2, p.183-198, March 2006 [doi>10.1007/s10458-006-5952-x]
• 13: Jamal Bentahar , Zakaria Maamar , Djamal Benslimane , Philippe Thiran, An Argumentation Framework for Communities of Web Services, IEEE Intelligent Systems, v.22 n.6, p.75-83, November 2007 [doi>10.1109/MIS.2007.99]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence
            Subjects: Multiagent systems

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
        I.2.11 Distributed Artificial Intelligence
            Subjects: Coherence and coordination

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.4 System Management
          Subjects: Centralization/decentralization
      K.6.5 Security and Protection (D.4.6, K.4.2)

General Terms:
Design, Management, Security

Keywords:
agent communication, multi-agent systems, trust