A Computational Model for Conflict Resolution in Cooperative Design Systems

Design of complex modern-day artifacts can be modelled as the cooperative activity of groups of design agents, each with their own areas of expertise. The interaction of such agents inevitably involves conflict. This paper presents a computational model for the resolution of such conflicts based on studies of human cooperative design. This model is based centrally on the insights that general conflict resolution expertise exists separately from domain-level design expertise, and that this expertise can be instantiated in the context of particular conflicts into specific advice for resolving those conflicts. Conflict resolution expertise consists of a taxonomy of design conflict classes in addition to associated general advice suitable for resolving conflicts in these classes. The abstract nature of conflict resolution expertise makes it applicable to a wide variety of design domains. This paper describes this conflict resolution model and provides examples of its operation from an implemented cooperative design system for local area network design that uses machine-based design agents.

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