Contract-Related Agents

We propose a simple event calculus representation of contracts and a reactive belief-desire-intention agent architecture to enable the monitoring and execution of contract terms and conditions. We use the event calculus to deduce current and past obligations, obligation fulfilment and violation. By associating meta-information with the contracts, the agent is able to select which of its contracts with other agents are relevant to solving its goals by outsourcing. The agent is able to handle an extendable set of contract types such as standing contracts, purchase contracts and service contracts without the need for a first-principles planner.

[1]  Peter Norvig,et al.  Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach , 1995 .

[2]  Hector J. Levesque,et al.  Intention is Choice with Commitment , 1990, Artif. Intell..

[3]  Richard Fikes,et al.  STRIPS: A New Approach to the Application of Theorem Proving to Problem Solving , 1971, IJCAI.

[4]  Michael E. Bratman,et al.  Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason , 1991 .

[5]  Robert Goldblatt.  Mathematical modal logic: A view of its evolution , 2003, J. Appl. Log..

[6]  Murray Shanahan,et al.  An abductive event calculus planner , 2000, J. Log. Program..

[7]  Martin J. Kollingbaum,et al.  Norm adoption in the NoA agent architecture , 2003, AAMAS '03.

[8]  Mordechai Ben-Ari,et al.  The Temporal Logic of Branching Time , 1981, POPL.

[9]  Frank Dignum,et al.  Designing a Deontic Logic of Deadlines , 2004, DEON.

[10]  Jorge Lobo,et al.  A Policy Description Language , 1999, AAAI/IAAI.

[11]  Hans Weigand,et al.  Formal Specification of Interaction in Agent Societies , 2002, FAABS.

[12]  Steven Orla Kimbrough.  On electronic commerce, subatomic semantics and Caesar's stabbing , 1997, Proceedings of the Thirtieth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[13]  John Knottenbelt,et al.  Policies for Agent Systems , 2001 .

[14]  Paolo Mancarella,et al.  The CIFF Proof Procedure for Abductive Logic Programming with Constraints: Definition, Implementation and a Web Application , 2008 .

[15]  Amir Pnueli,et al.  The temporal logic of programs , 1977, 18th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (sfcs 1977).

[16]  Steven Orla Kimbrough,et al.  Reasoning about the objects of attitudes and operators: towards a disquotation theory for representation of propositional content , 2001, ICAIL '01.

[17]  L. THORNE MCCARTY.  Ownership: A case study in the representation of legal concepts , 2004, Artificial Intelligence and Law.

[18]  Sushil Jajodia,et al.  A logical language for expressing authorizations , 1997, Proceedings. 1997 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Cat. No.97CB36097).

[19]  Marek Sergot,et al.  On the characterization of law and computer systems: the normative systems perspective , 1994 .

[20]  Wil M.P. van der Aalst,et al.  Three good reasons for using a Petri-net-based workflow management system , 1996 .

[21]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  The dMARS Architecture: A Specification of the Distributed Multi-Agent Reasoning System , 2004, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[22]  Scott A. Moore,et al.  KQML & FLBC: contrasting agent communication languages , 1999, Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences. 1999. HICSS-32. Abstracts and CD-ROM of Full Papers.

[23]  Victoria Ungureanu,et al.  Law-governed interaction: a coordination and control mechanism for heterogeneous distributed systems , 2000, TSEM.

[24]  Keith L. Clark,et al.  Negation as Failure , 1987, Logic and Data Bases.

[25]  Munindar P. Singh,et al.  Flexible protocol specification and execution: applying event calculus planning using commitments , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[26]  Aashu Virmani,et al.  Netmon: network management for the SARAS softswitch , 2000, NOMS 2000. 2000 IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium 'The Networked Planet: Management Beyond 2000' (Cat. No.00CB37074).

[27]  Arosha K. Bandara.  A formal approach to analysis and refinement of policies , 2005 .

[28]  Rodney A. Brooks,et al.  A Robust Layered Control Syste For A Mobile Robot , 2022 .

[29]  N. Isaacs,et al.  Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning: And Other Legal Essays , 2010 .

[30]  Frank Dignum,et al.  Cooperative Information Agents and Communication , 1997, CIA.

[31]  Martin Bichler,et al.  SLA representation, management and enforcement , 2005, 2005 IEEE International Conference on e-Technology, e-Commerce and e-Service.

[32]  Paola Mello,et al.  Specification and verification of agent interaction protocols in a logic-based system , 2004, SAC '04.

[33]  A.D.H. Farrell,et al.  Performance monitoring of service-level agreements for utility computing using the event calculus , 2004, Proceedings. First IEEE International Workshop on Electronic Contracting, 2004..

[34]  Sven Ove Hansson,et al.  Semantics for more plausible deontic logics , 2004, J. Appl. Log..

[35]  Martin J. Kollingbaum,et al.  Supervised interaction: creating a web of trust for contracting agents in electronic environments , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[36]  Yoav Shoham,et al.  AGENT0: A Simple Agent Language and Its Interpreter , 1991, AAAI.

[37]  Munindar P. Singh.  An ontology for commitments in multiagent systems: , 1999, Artificial Intelligence and Law.

[38]  Thomas Erl,et al.  Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design , 2005 .

[39]  Scott A. Moore,et al.  KQML and FLBC: Contrasting Agent Communication Languages , 2000, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[40]  Antonio Corradi,et al.  Policy-Driven Management of Agent Systems , 2001, POLICY.

[41]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  Introduction to multiagent systems , 2001 .

[42]  James B. Cole,et al.  Identifying requirements for Business Contract Language: a monitoring perspective , 2003, Seventh IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference, 2003. Proceedings..

[43]  John-Jules Ch. Meyer,et al.  A different approach to deontic logic: deontic logic viewed as a variant of dynamic logic , 1987, Notre Dame J. Formal Log..

[44]  Deborah A. Frincke,et al.  Planning, Petri Nets, and Intrusion Detection , 1998 .

[45]  Yoav Shoham.  Agent-Oriented Programming , 1993, Artif. Intell..

[46]  J. Sadock.  Speech acts , 2007 .

[47]  Scott A. Moore,et al.  A Foundation for Flexible Automated Electronic Communication , 2001, Inf. Syst. Res..

[48]  Guido Boella,et al.  Contracts as legal institutions in organizations of autonomous agents , 2004, Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 2004. AAMAS 2004..

[49]  Thom W. Frühwirth,et al.  Theory and Practice of Constraint Handling Rules , 1998, J. Log. Program..

[50]  Michael Winikoff.  An AgentSpeak Meta-interpreter and Its Applications , 2005, PROMAS.

[51]  Angelo Montanari,et al.  What the Event Calculus actually does, and how to do it efficiently , 1994, GULP-PRODE.

[52]  J. O. Urmson,et al.  How to Do Things with Words@@@The William James Lectures , 1963 .

[53]  Enrico Giunchiglia,et al.  Causal Laws and Multi-Valued Fluents , 2001 .

[54]  Koen V. Hindriks,et al.  Formal Semantics for an Abstract Agent Programming Language , 1997, ATAL.

[55]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  Commitments and conventions: The foundation of coordination in multi-agent systems , 1993, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[56]  Victor R. Lesser,et al.  Advantages of a Leveled Commitment Contracting Protocol , 1996, AAAI/IAAI, Vol. 1.

[57]  Michael J. Nash,et al.  The Chinese Wall security policy , 1989, Proceedings. 1989 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

[58]  Alan Ross Anderson,et al.  A REDUCTION OF DEONTIC LOGIC TO ALETHIC MODAL LOGIC , 1958 .

[59]  Martin J. Kollingbaum,et al.  NoA - A Normative Agent Architecture , 2003, IJCAI.

[60]  Murray Shanahan.  The Ramification Problem in the Event Calculus , 1999, IJCAI.

[61]  Henry Prakken,et al.  Dyadic Deontic Logic and Contrary-to-Duty Obligations , 1997 .

[62]  Jeffrey M. Bradshaw,et al.  KAoS: toward an industrial-strength open agent architecture , 1997 .

[63]  Amy L. Lansky,et al.  Reactive Reasoning and Planning , 1987, AAAI.

[64]  John McCarthy,et al.  Actions and Other Events in Situation Calculus , 2002, KR.

[65]  Keith Clark,et al.  Contract Driven Agents , 2005, FLAIRS Conference.

[66]  Alan S. Abrahams,et al.  A Software Implementation of Kimbrough's Disquotation Theory for Representing and Enforcing Electronic Commerce Contracts , 2002 .

[67]  J. McCarthy.  Situations, Actions, and Causal Laws , 1963 .

[68]  John Bryant.  The logic of relative modality and the paradoxes of deontic logic , 1980, Notre Dame J. Formal Log..

[69]  Benjamin Cox,et al.  NetBill Security and Transaction Protocol , 1995, USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce.

[70]  Asit Dan,et al.  Web services agreement specification (ws-agreement) , 2004 .

[71]  Paolo Mancarella,et al.  The KGP Model of Agency , 2004, ECAI.

[72]  David J. Israel,et al.  Plans and resource‐bounded practical reasoning , 1988, Comput. Intell..

[73]  Benjamin N. Grosof,et al.  Representing E-Business Rules for the Semantic Web: Situated Courteous Logic Programs in RuleML , 2001 .

[74]  Emil C. Lupu,et al.  Ponder: A Language for Specifying Security and Management Policies for Distributed Systems , 2000 .

[75]  Frank Dignum,et al.  The Role of Deontic Logic in the Specification of Information Systems , 1998, Logics for Databases and Information Systems.

[76]  Nils J. Nilsson,et al.  Teleo-Reactive Programs for Agent Control , 1993, J. Artif. Intell. Res..

[77]  Timothy W. Finin,et al.  A semantics approach for KQML—a general purpose communication language for software agents , 1994, CIKM '94.

[78]  Yao-Hua Tan,et al.  Multi Preference Semantics for a Defeasible Deontic Logic , .

[79]  Keith L. Clark,et al.  Logic-Programming Schemes and Their Implementation , 1991, Computational Logic - Essays in Honor of Alan Robinson.

[80]  Ravi S. Sandhu,et al.  Role-Based Access Control Models , 1996, Computer.

[81]  Brad Hartfield,et al.  Computer systems and the design of organizational interaction , 1988, TOIS.

[82]  Chrysanthos Dellarocas Sloan.  Contractual Agent Societies : Negotiated shared context and social control in open multi-agent systems , 2000 .

[83]  Ronald M. Lee,et al.  Defeasible deontic reasoning and its applications to normative systems , 1995, Decis. Support Syst..

[84]  Evelina Lamma,et al.  Specification and Verification of Agent Interaction using Social Integrity Constraints , 2004, LCMAS.

[85]  Alessandra Russo,et al.  Using event calculus to formalise policy specification and analysis , 2003, Proceedings POLICY 2003. IEEE 4th International Workshop on Policies for Distributed Systems and Networks.

[86]  Alexander Artikis,et al.  Specifying Electronic Societies with the Causal Calculator , 2002, AOSE.

[87]  E. M. Verharen,et al.  A Language-Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Information Agents , 1997 .

[88]  Julian Padget,et al.  Formalizing a Language for Institutions and Norms , 2001, ATAL.

[89]  R. Hilpinen.  Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings , 1981 .

[90]  Terry Winograd,et al.  Understanding computers and cognition - a new foundation for design , 1987 .

[91]  Enrico Giunchiglia,et al.  Nonmonotonic causal theories , 2004, Artif. Intell..

[92]  S. Rebecca Thomas,et al.  The PLACA Agent Programming Language , 1995, ECAI Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages.

[93]  Jens Dietrich,et al.  A Logic Based SLA Management Framework , 2005 .

[94]  Antonis C. Kakas,et al.  A Simple Declarative Language for Describing Narratives With Actions , 1997, J. Log. Program..

[95]  Marcus J. Huber.  JAM: a BDI-theoretic mobile agent architecture , 1999, AGENTS '99.

[96]  Frank Dignum,et al.  Meeting the Deadline: Why, When and How , 2004, FAABS.

[97]  S. Kimbrough.  A Note on the Good Samaritan Paradox and the Disquotation Theory of Propositional Content , 2002 .

[98]  David Kinny.  ViP: a visual programming language for plan execution systems , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[99]  Angelo Montanari,et al.  EFFICIENT TEMPORAL REASONING IN THE CACHED EVENT CALCULUS , 1996, Comput. Intell..

[100]  Mark Klein,et al.  Chapter 5 CONTRACTUAL AGENT SOCIETIES Negotiated shared context and social control in open multi-agent systems , 2001 .

[101]  John McCarthy,et al.  SOME PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ARTI CIAL INTELLIGENCE , 1987 .

[102]  Marek J. Sergot,et al.  A Formal Characterisation of Institutionalised Power , 1996, Log. J. IGPL.

[103]  Alexander Artikis,et al.  Animated specifications of computational societies , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[104]  Hector J. Levesque,et al.  GOLOG: A Logic Programming Language for Dynamic Domains , 1997, J. Log. Program..

[105]  Victoria Y. Yoon,et al.  A multiagent system for U.S. defense research contracting , 2005, CACM.

[106]  Reid G. Smith,et al.  The Contract Net Protocol: High-Level Communication and Control in a Distributed Problem Solver , 1980, IEEE Transactions on Computers.

[107]  Steven Orla Kimbrough,et al.  Formal Language for Business Communication: Sketch of a Basic Theory , 1998, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[108]  Murray Shanahan,et al.  The Event Calculus Explained , 1999, Artificial Intelligence Today.

[109]  Mark Witkowski,et al.  Robot Navigation and Map Building with the Event Calculus (abstract) , 1999, ESCQARU.

[110]  Fausto Giunchiglia,et al.  Multilanguage hierarchical logics (or: how we can do without modal logics) , 1994, CNKBS.

[111]  Keith L. Clark,et al.  Go! — A Multi-Paradigm Programming Language for Implementing Multi-Threaded Agents , 2004, Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence.

[112]  Terry Winograd.  A Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work , 1987, Hum. Comput. Interact..

[113]  D. Holdstock.  Past, present--and future? , 2005, Medicine, conflict, and survival.

[114]  Frank Dignum,et al.  Implementation of a Cooperative Agent Architecture Based on the Language-Action Perspective , 1997, ATAL.

[115]  Nils J. Nilsson,et al.  Teleo-Reactive Programs and the Triple-Tower Architecture , 2001, Electron. Trans. Artif. Intell..

[116]  C. Bergmann,et al.  JASON Java-based AgentSpeak interpreter used with saci for multi-agent distribution over the net , 2006 .

[117]  Paolo Mancarella,et al.  Abductive Logic Programming with CIFF: Implementation and Applications , 2004 .

[118]  Angelo Montanari,et al.  A Guided Tour through some Extensions of the Event Calculus , 2000, Comput. Intell..

[119]  Daniel Vanderveken,et al.  Foundations of Illocutionary Logic , 1985 .

[120]  Mehdi Dastani,et al.  The BOID architecture: conflicts between beliefs, obligations, intentions and desires , 2001, AGENTS '01.

[121]  A. S. Roa,et al.  AgentSpeak(L): BDI agents speak out in a logical computable language , 1996 .

[122]  Michael Luck,et al.  Engineering AgentSpeak(L): A Formal Computational Model , 1998, J. Log. Comput..

[123]  Michael Gelfond,et al.  Representing Action and Change by Logic Programs , 1993, J. Log. Program..

[124]  Keith L. Clark,et al.  Ballroom etiquette: A Case Study for Norm-Governed Multi-Agent Systems , 2006, COIN@AAMAS/ECAI.

[125]  Keith Clark,et al.  An Architecture For Contract-based Communicating Agents , 2004 .

[126]  Martin J. Kollingbaum,et al.  Norm-governed practical reasoning agents , 2005 .

[127]  Timothy W. Finin,et al.  KQML as an agent communication language , 1994, CIKM '94.

[128]  M. Sergot,et al.  Using the Event Calculus for the Performance Monitoring of Service-Level Agreements for Utility Computing , 2004 .

[129]  Mark S. Fox,et al.  COOL: A Language for Describing Coordination in Multi Agent Systems , 1995, ICMAS.

[130]  Martin J. Kollingbaum,et al.  Norm Consistency in Practical Reasoning Agents , 2003 .

[131]  Keith L. Clark,et al.  Towards a Specification Language for Cooperation Methods , 1992, GWAI.

[132]  Emil C. Lupu,et al.  The Ponder Policy Specification Language , 2001, POLICY.

[133]  Aspassia Daskalopulu.  Modelling legal contracts as processes , 2000, Proceedings 11th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications.

[134]  Benjamin N. Grosof,et al.  A declarative approach to business rules in contracts: courteous logic programs in XML , 2015, EC '99.

[135]  Anand S. Rao,et al.  A profile of the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute [World Impact] , 1996, IEEE Expert.

[136]  Benjamin N. Grosof,et al.  Toward a Declarative Language for Negotiating Executable Contracts , 2003 .