Abstract
Norms are the obligations, permissions and prohibitions associated with members of a society. Norms provide a useful abstraction with which to specify and regulate the behaviour of self-interested software agents in open, heterogeneous systems. Any realistic account of norms must address their dynamic nature: the norms associated with agents will change as agents act (and interact) – prohibitions can be lifted, obligations can be fulfilled, and permissions can be revoked as a result of agents’ actions. These norms may at times conflict with one another, that is, an action may be simultaneously prohibited and obliged (or prohibited and permitted). Such conflicts cause norm-compliant agents to experience a paralysis: whatever they do (or not do) will go against a norm. In this paper we present mechanisms to detect and resolve normative conflicts. We achieve more expressiveness, precision and realism in our norms by using constraints over first-order variables. The mechanisms to detect and resolve norm conflicts take into account such constraints and are based on first-order unification and constraint satisfaction. We also explain how the mechanisms can be deployed in the management of norms regulating environments for software agents.
This research is continuing through participation in the International Technology Alliance sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.K. Ministry of Defence ( http://www.usukita.org ).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Apt, K.R.: From Logic Programming to Prolog. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1997)
Artikis, A., Kamara, L., Pitt, J., Sergot, M.: A Protocol for Resource Sharing in Norm-Governed Ad Hoc Networks. In: Leite, J.A., Omicini, A., Torroni, P., Yolum, p. (eds.) DALT 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3476. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Conte, R., Castelfranchi, C.: Understanding the Functions of Norms in Social Groups through Simulation. In: Gilbert, N., Conte, R. (eds.) Artificial Societies: The Computer Simulation of Social Life, pp. 252–267. UCL Press, London (1995)
Dignum, F.: Autonomous Agents with Norms. A.I. & Law 7, 69–79 (1999)
Elhag, A., Breuker, J., Brouwer, P.: On the Formal Analysis of Normative Conflicts. Information & Comms. Techn. Law 9(3), 207–217 (2000)
Esteva, M., Padget, J., Sierra, C.: Formalizing a Language for Institutions and Norms. In: Meyer, J.-J.C., Tambe, M. (eds.) ATAL 2001. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2333. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Fitting, M.: First-Order Logic and Automated Theorem Proving. Springer, New York (1990)
Foster, I., Kesselman, C., Tuecke, S.: The Anatomy of the Grid: Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations. Int’ J. Supercomputer Applications 15(3), 209–235 (2001)
Gaertner, D., García-Camino, A., Noriega, P., Rodríguez-Aguilar, J.-A., Vasconcelos, W.: Distributed Norm Management in Regulated Multi-agent Systems. In: Procs. 6th Int’l Joint Conf. on Autonomous Agents & Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2007), Honolulu, Hawai’i (May 2007)
García-Camino, A., Noriega, P., Rodríguez-Aguilar, J.-A.: An Algorithm for Conflict Resolution in Regulated Compound Activities. In: 7th Annual Int’l Workshop “Engineering Societies in the Agents World” (ESAW 2006), Dublin, Ireland (September 2006)
García-Camino, A., Rodríguez-Aguilar, J.-A., Sierra, C., Vasconcelos, W.: A Rule-based Approach to Norm-Oriented Programming of Electronic Institutions. ACM SIGecom Exchanges 5(5), 33–40 (2006)
García-Camino, A., Rodriguez-Aguilar, J.-A., Sierra, C., Vasconcelos, W.W.: A Distributed Architecture for Norm-Aware Agent Societies. In: Baldoni, M., Endriss, U., Omicini, A., Torroni, P. (eds.) DALT 2005. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3904. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Jaffar, J., Maher, M.J.: Constraint Logic Programming: A Survey. Journal of Logic Progr. 19(20), 503–581 (1994)
Jaffar, J., Maher, M.J., Marriott, K., Stuckey, P.J.: The Semantics of Constraint Logic Programs. Journal of Logic Progr 37(1-3), 1–46 (1998)
Kollingbaum, M.: Norm-governed Practical Reasoning Agents. PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen (2005)
Kollingbaum, M., Norman, T., Preece, A., Sleeman, D.: Norm Refinement: Informing the Re-negotiation of Contracts. In: Procs. Workshop on Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in Agent Systems (COIN@ECAI 2006), Riva del Garda, Italy (August 2006)
Leite, J.A., Alferes, J.J., Pereira, L.M.: Multi-Dimensional Dynamic Knowledge Representation. In: Eiter, T., Faber, W., Truszczyński, M. (eds.) LPNMR 2001. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2173. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
López y López, F.: Social Power and Norms: Impact on Agent Behaviour. PhD thesis, Univ. of Southampton (June 2003)
Norman, T., Preece, A., Chalmers, S., Jennings, N., Luck, M., Dang, V., Nguyen, T., Deora, V., Shao, J., Gray, W., Fiddian, N.: Agent-based Formation of Virtual Organisations. Knowledge Based Systems 17, 103–111 (2004)
Pacheco, O., Carmo, J.: A Role Based Model for the Normative Specification of Organized Collective Agency and Agents Interaction. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 6(2), 145–184 (2003)
Ross, A.: On Law and Justice. Stevens & Sons (1958)
Sartor, G.: The Structure of Norm Conditions and Nonmonotonic Reasoning in Law. In: Procs. 3rd Int’l Conf. on A.I. & Law (ICAIL1991), Oxford, England (July 1991)
Sartor, G.: A Simple Computational Model for Nonmonotonic and Adversarial Legal Reasoning. In: Procs. 4th Int’l Conf. on A.I. & Law (ICAIL1993). The Netherlands, Amsterdam (June 1993)
Sergot, M.: A Computational Theory of Normative Positions. ACM Trans. Comput. Logic 2(4), 581–622 (2001)
Swedish Institute of Computer Science. SICStus Prolog (viewed on 10 Feb 2005 at 18.16 GMT) (2005), http://www.sics.se/isl/sicstuswww/site/index.html
Vasconcelos, W., Kollingbaum, M., Norman, T., García-Camino, A.: Resolving Conflict and Inconsistency in Norm-Regulated Virtual Organizations. In: Procs. 6th Int’l Joint Conf. on Autonomous Agents & Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2007), Honolulu, Hawai’i (2007)
White, S.M.: Requirements for Distributed Mission-Critical Decision Support Systems. In: Procs 13th Annual IEEE Int’l Symp. & Workshop on Eng. of Computer-Based Systs (ECBS 2006) (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kollingbaum, M.J., Vasconcelos, W.W., García-Camino, A., Norman, T.J. (2008). Managing Conflict Resolution in Norm-Regulated Environments. In: Artikis, A., O’Hare, G.M.P., Stathis, K., Vouros, G. (eds) Engineering Societies in the Agents World VIII. ESAW 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4995. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-87654-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-87654-0_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-87653-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-87654-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)