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Integrating Trust in Virtual Organisations

  • Conference paper
Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems II (COIN 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4386))

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Abstract

Organisational models cannot only be used to structure multiagent systems but also to express behaviour constraints for agents in open environments. However, sometimes these behaviour constraints cannot be exhaustively enforced, and some agents may transgress the norms put forward by a Virtual Organisation. This poses an additional burden on agents, as they cannot be sure that their acquaintances will behave as prescribed. Trust and reputation mechanisms are of particular relevance to this respect, as they are commonly used to infer expectations of future behaviour from past interactions.

In this paper we argue that, on the one hand, the a priori structure of Virtual Organisations can be useful to improve the efficiency of trust and reputation mechanisms, and that, on the other hand, such mechanisms provide relevant information for agents that are part of Virtual Organisations. For this purpose, we identify relevant aspects of existing organisational (meta-)models, and outline a reputation mechanism for Virtual Organisations that integrates these aspects. The dynamics of this mechanism is illustrated by an example.

The present work was partly funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under grant TIC2003-08763-C02-02.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Artificial Intelligence Group, DATCCCIA - ESCET, University Rey Juan Carlos,  

    Ramón Hermoso, Holger Billhardt & Sascha Ossowski

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  1. Ramón Hermoso
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  2. Holger Billhardt
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  3. Sascha Ossowski
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Pablo Noriega Javier Vázquez-Salceda Guido Boella Olivier Boissier Virginia Dignum Nicoletta Fornara Eric Matson

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Hermoso, R., Billhardt, H., Ossowski, S. (2007). Integrating Trust in Virtual Organisations. In: Noriega, P., et al. Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems II. COIN 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4386. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74459-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74459-7_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74457-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74459-7

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