Liveness and Fairness Properties in Multi-Agent Systems

Problems of liveness and fairness are considered in multi-agent systems by means of abstract languages. Different approaches to define such properties for the agents and for a multi-agent system as a whole are discussed. It turns out that the properties of a multi-agent system need not correspond to separately definable properties of the agents (e.g. a community of fair agents need not constitute a fair multi-agent system). In general, analysis and verification need the consideration of the whole system, and the agents have to be considered in the context of the system, too. The results are not unique, there are different results for deadlock freedom, liveness and fairness, respectively.