Table Of ContentLecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 5428
EditedbyR.Goebel,J.Siekmann,andW.Wahlster
Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Jomi Fred Hübner Eric Matson
Olivier Boissier Virginia Dignum (Eds.)
Coordination, Organizations
Institutions and Norms
in Agent Systems IV
COIN 2008 International Workshops
COIN@AAMAS 2008, Estoril, Portugal, May 12, 2008
COIN@AAAI 2008, Chicago, USA, July 14, 2008
Revised Selected Papers
1 3
SeriesEditors
RandyGoebel,UniversityofAlberta,Edmonton,Canada
JörgSiekmann,UniversityofSaarland,Saarbrücken,Germany
WolfgangWahlster,DFKIandUniversityofSaarland,Saarbrücken,Germany
VolumeEditors
JomiFredHübner
OlivierBoissier
ENSMinesSaint-Etienne
42023Saint-EtienneCedex02,France
E-mail:{hubner;boissier}@emse.fr
EricMatson
PurdueUniversity
WestLafayette,IN70907,USA
E-mail:[email protected]
VirginiaDignum
UtrechtUniversity
3508TBUtrecht,TheNetherlands
E-mail:[email protected]
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:Appliedfor
CRSubjectClassification(1998):I.2.11,I.2,D.2,F.3,D.1,C.2.4,D.3
LNCSSublibrary:SL7–ArtificialIntelligence
ISSN 0302-9743
ISBN-10 3-642-00442-3SpringerBerlinHeidelbergNewYork
ISBN-13 978-3-642-00442-1SpringerBerlinHeidelbergNewYork
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Preface
Multi-agent systems (MAS) are often understood as complex entities where a
multitude ofagentsinteract,usually with someintended individualor collective
goals.Suchaviewusuallyassumessomeformoforganization,orsetofnormsor
conventions that articulate or restrain interactions in order to make them more
effective,certain,or predictablefor participants.Engineeringeffective coordina-
tion or regulatory mechanisms is a key problem for the design of open complex
multi-agent systems.
In recent years, social and organizational aspects of agency have become a
major issue in MAS researchespecially in applications on service-orientedcom-
puting, gridcomputing andambientintelligence.These applications enforcethe
need for using these aspects in order to ensure social order within these envi-
ronments. Openness, heterogeneity, and scalability of MAS pose new demands
ontraditionalMAS interactionmodels. Therefore,the view of coordinationand
controlhastobeexpandedtoconsidernotonlyanagent-centricperspectivebut
also societal and organization-centricviews.
However,agentautonomyis often needed for concretely implementing social
order,becauseautonomousagentscanintelligentlyadaptthedesignedorganiza-
tion to particular cases and can face unpredicted events. From this perspective
autonomy can also be a possible source of internal change in the designed orga-
nizationalconstructs.Differently,autonomousbehaviorcanalsooriginateforms
ofself-organizationwhichemergeoutoflocalinteractionsandareonly partially
externally programmed. In such situations the self-organized order and the ex-
ternally designed organizationcan even be in conflict.
These interdisciplinary issues have to be studied considering the analysis of
the social, legal, economic, and technological dimensions of multi-agent organi-
zations.Inthiscontext,theCOINworkshopsprovideaspacefortheconvergence
of concerns and developments of MAS researchersthat have been involvedwith
theseissuesfromthecomplementaryperspectivesofcoordination,organizations,
institutions,andnorms.Thisyear,theCOINworkshopswerehostedduringAA-
MAS2008(May12,Estoril,Portugal)andAAAI2008(July14,Chicago,USA).
The papers contained in this volume are the revised and extended versions
of a selection of papers presented and discussed in these two workshops. They
are organized in five parts. The first part (from coordination to organization)
groups papers focused on the coordination of agents where the organization is
a result of the overall coordination process. The second part (from organiza-
tionto coordination)takes the other direction.Consideringthat the systemhas
an organization, the question is how to coordinate the agents belonging to this
organization. In particular, how reputation can be used inside organizations to
helptheagentstobettercoordinatethemselves.Whilethethirdpart(formaliza-
tion of norms and institutions) contains papers focused on the formalization of
VI Preface
important concepts related to norms and institutions, the papers of the fourth
part (design of norms and institutions) are more concerned with the design, in-
cluding the verification, of such concepts. The fifth part contains papers that
apply the concepts of the workshops in applications and simulations.
We would like to thank the COIN Steering Committee for presenting us
with the opportunity to organize these workshops.We also want to express our
gratitude to the ProgramCommittee members andadditionalreviewersofboth
events,totheparticipantsoftheworkshops,andmoreparticularlytotheauthors
for their original contributions and further revisions for this volume. We thank
the organizers of the AAMAS and AAAI events for hosting and supporting the
organizationoftheCOINworkshops.Finally,wewouldalsoliketoacknowledge
the supportfromSpringer,inthe personofAlfredHofmann,for the publication
of the COIN workshops since the first edition in 2004.
December 2008 Jomi F. Hu¨bner
Olivier Boissier
Eric Matson
Virginia Dignum
Organization
Organizing Committees
COIN@AAMAS 2008
Jomi Fred Hu¨bner University of Blumenau, Brazil
Olivier Boissier ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France
COIN@AAAI 2008
Eric Matson Purdue University, USA
Virginia Dignum Utrecht University, The Netherlands
COIN Steering Committee
Christian Lemaˆıtre Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico
Eric Matson Purdue University, USA
Guido Boella University of Turin, Italy
Jaime Sima˜o Sichman University of Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil
Javier Va´zquez-Salceda Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
Julian Padget University of Bath, UK
Nicoletta Fornara University of Lugano, Italy
Olivier Boissier ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France
Pablo Noriega IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Sascha Ossowski Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
Virginia Dignum Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Wamberto Vasconcelos University of Aberdeen, UK
Program Committees
COIN@AAMAS 2008
Alessandro Ricci Universit`a di Bologna, Italy
Alexander Artikis NCSR Demokritos, Greece
Andrea Omicini Universita` di Bologna, Italy
Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa UCPEL, Brazil
Carles Sierra IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Catherine Tessier ONERA, France
Catholijn Jonker Delft University, of Technology,
The Netherlands
Christian Lemaˆıtre Universidad Auto´noma Metropolitana, Mexico
Christophe Sibertin-Blanc IRIT, France
Cristiano Castelfranchi ISTC/CNR, Italy
VIII Organization
Dan Corkill University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Daniel Moldt University of Hamburg, Germany
Eric Matson Purdue University, USA
Eric Platon National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Eug´enio Oliveira Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Fuyuki Ishikawa National Insitute of Informatics, Japan
Guido Boella University of Turin, Italy
Harko Verhagen Stockholm University, Sweden
Jaime Sima˜o Sichman University of Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil
Javier Va´zquez-Salceda Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
John-Jules Meyer Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Juan Antonio R. Aguilar IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Julian Padget University of Bath, UK
Leon van der Torre University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Liz Sonenberg University of Melbourne, Australia
Luca Tummolini ISTC/CNR, Italy
Marina de Vos University of Bath, UK
Nicoletta Fornara University of Lugano, Switzerland
Olivier Gutknecht LPDL, France
Pablo Noriega IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Pinar Yolum Bogazici University, Turkey
Sascha Ossowski URJC, Spain
Stephen Cranefield University of Otago, New Zealand
Vincent Louis Orange Labs, France
Virginia Dignum University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Viviane Torres Da Silva Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Wamberto Vasconcelos University of Aberdeen, UK
COIN@AAAI 2008
Alexander Artikis NCSR Demokritos, Greece
Guido Boella University of Turin, Italy
Olivier Boissier ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France
Rosaria Conte CNR and University of Siena, Italy
Ulisses Cortes UPC, Spain
Shaheen Fatima University of Liverpool, UK
Mario Verdicchio University of Bergamo, Italy
Nicoletta Fornara University of Lugano, Switzerland
Scott Harmon Kansas State University, USA
Henry Hexmoor Southern Illinois University, USA
Koen Hindriks Delft University of Technology,
The Netherlands
Jomi Fred Hu¨bner ENS Mines Saint-Etienne, France
Christian Lemaˆıtre Universidad Auto´noma Metropolitana, Mexico
Victor Lesser University of Massachusetts, USA
Pablo Noriega IIIA-CSIC, Spain
Organization IX
James Odell James Odell Associates, USA
Javier Va´zquez-Salceda Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
Andrea Omicini DEIS Universit di Bologna,Italy
Sascha Ossowski University Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
Julian Padget University of Bath, UK
Juan Antonio R. Aguilar IIIA, Spain
Paul Scerri Robotics Institute-Carnegie Mellon University,
USA
Jaime Sima˜o Sichman University of Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil
Maarten Sierhuis RIACS-NASA, USA
Catherine Tessier ONERA-CERT, France
Walt Truszkowski NASA, USA
Wamberto Vasconcelos University of Aberdeen, UK
Additional Reviewers
Birna van Riemsdijk Maite Lo´pez
Francesco Vigan`o Matteo Vasirani
Henrique Lopes Cardoso Matthias Wester-Ebbinghaus
Huib Aldewereld Pilar Dellunde
Luciano Coutinho Ramon Hermoso Traba
Luis Paulo Reis Serena Villata
Table of Contents
I From Coordination to Organization
Agreeing on Institutional Goals for Multi-agent Societies.............. 1
Dorian Gaertner, Juan Antonio Rodr´ıguez-Aguilar, and
Francesca Toni
Organizations and Autonomous Agents: Bottom-Up Dynamics of
Coordination Mechanisms......................................... 17
Bob van der Vecht, Frank Dignum, John-Jules Ch. Meyer, and
Virginia Dignum
Combining Job and Team Selection Heuristics ....................... 33
Chris L.D. Jones and K. Suzanne Barber
Force Versus Majority: A Comparison in Convention Emergence
Efficiency ....................................................... 48
Paulo Urbano, Jo˜ao Balsa, Luis Antunes, and Luis Moniz
II From Organization to Coordination
Automatic GenerationofDistributedTeamFormationAlgorithms from
OrganizationalModels............................................ 64
Michael Ko¨hler-Bußmeier and Matthias Wester-Ebbinghaus
Exploring Robustness in the Context of OrganizationalSelf-design ..... 80
Sachin Kamboj and Keith S. Decker
Instrumenting Multi-agent Organisations with Artifacts to Support
Reputation Processes ............................................ 96
Jomi Fred Hu¨bner, Laurent Vercouter, and Olivier Boissier
A Hybrid Reputation Model Based on the Use of Organizations........ 111
Viviane Torres da Silva, Ram´on Hermoso, and Roberto Centeno
III Formalization of Norms and Institutions
Formalising Situatedness and Adaptation in Electronic Institutions..... 126
Jordi Campos, Maite Lo´pez-S´anchez,
Juan Antonio Rodr´ıguez-Aguilar, and Marc Esteva
XII Table of Contents
A Context-Based Institutional Normative Environment ............... 140
Henrique Lopes Cardoso and Eug´enio Oliveira
Towards a Formalisation of Electronic Contracting Environments ...... 156
Nir Oren, Sofia Panagiotidi, Javier Va´zquez-Salceda, Sanjay Modgil,
Michael Luck, and Simon Miles
IV Design of Norms and Institutions
An Automata-Based Monitoring Technique for Commitment-Based
Multi-Agent Systems ............................................. 172
Paola Spoletini and Mario Verdicchio
Using SOA Provenance to Implement Norm Enforcement
in e-Institutions ................................................. 188
Javier Va´zquez-Salceda and Sergio Alvarez-Napagao
Verifying Social Expectations by Model Checking Truncated Paths..... 204
Stephen Cranefield and Michael Winikoff
V Applications
The Use of Norms Violations to Model Agents BehavioralVariety...... 220
Benoit Lacroix, Philippe Mathieu, and Andras Kemeny
Categorizing Social Norms in a Simulated Resource Gathering
Society ......................................................... 235
Daniel Villatoro and Jordi Sabater-Mir
Transgressionand Atonement ..................................... 250
Kevin M. Knight, Deepthi Chandrasekaran, Aline Normoyle,
Ransom Weaver, and Barry G. Silverman
Author Index.................................................. 267
