Organizations and Autonomous Agents: Bottom-Up Dynamics of Coordination Mechanisms

Agents in an organization need to coordinate their actions in order to reach the organizational goals. Organizational models specify the desired behaviour in terms of roles, relations, norms and interactions. In this research, we show how organizational rules can be adopted by autonomous agents. We have developed a method to translate norms into reasoning rules for agents. However, since the agents are autonomous they will have their own reasoning rules next to the organizational rules. We propose a modular reasoning model to make organizational rules explicit. This allows for meta-reasoning about these rules. We show that this stimulates bottom-up dynamics in the organization.

[1]  Pablo Noriega,et al.  Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems III, COIN 2007, International Workshops COIN@AAMAS 2007, Honolulu, HI, USA, May 14, 2007, COIN@MALLOW 2007, Durham, UK, September 3-4, 2007, Revised Selected Papers , 2008, COIN.

[2]  S. Miles,et al.  An Argumentation Inspired Heuristic for Resolving Normative Conflict , 2008 .

[3]  Frank Dignum,et al.  Role-assignment in open agent societies , 2003, AAMAS '03.

[4]  Nicolas Maudet,et al.  Modular Representation of Agent Interaction Rules through Argumentation , 2005, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[5]  Frank Dignum,et al.  A Programming Language for Cognitive Agents Goal Directed 3APL , 2003, PROMAS.

[6]  Jaime Simão Sichman,et al.  On Personal and Role Mental Attitudes: A Preliminary Dependence-Based Analysis , 1998, SBIA.

[7]  Ferber,et al.  [IEEE Comput. Soc International Conference on Multi Agent Systems - Paris, France (3-7 July 1998)] Proceedings International Conference on Multi Agent Systems (Cat. No.98EX160) - A meta-model for the analysis and design of organizations in multi-agent systems , 1998 .

[8]  Frank Dignum,et al.  An agent-mediated approach to the support of knowledge sharing in organizations , 2004, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[9]  M. V. Dignum,et al.  A Model for Organizational Interaction: based on Agents, founded in Logic , 2000 .

[10]  Frank Dignum,et al.  A Dynamic Coordination Mechanism Using Adjustable Autonomy , 2007, COIN.

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

[12]  Jacques Ferber,et al.  A meta-model for the analysis and design of organizations in multi-agent systems , 1998, Proceedings International Conference on Multi Agent Systems (Cat. No.98EX160).

[13]  Walter Van de Velde,et al.  Agents Breaking Away , 1996, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[14]  Gerhard Brewka.  Reasoning about Priorities in Default Logic , 1994, AAAI.

[15]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  On agent-based software engineering , 2000, Artif. Intell..

[16]  Olivier Boissier,et al.  A Model for the Structural, Functional, and Deontic Specification of Organizations in Multiagent Systems , 2002, SBIA.

[17]  E. Matson,et al.  Formal transition in agent organizations , 2005, International Conference on Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multi-Agent Systems, 2005..