Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Formal verification of group and propagated trust in multi-agent systems

  • Published:
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

While modeling trust in multi-agent systems provides a fundamental basis for promoting safe interactions and imitating agents reasoning mechanisms, exploiting model checking techniques to govern the trust relationships between group of agents and other agents is yet to be investigated. In this paper, we present a formal framework that allows individual and group of agents to reason about their trust toward other agents. In particular, we propose a branching time temporal logic BT which includes operators that express concepts such as everyone trust, distributed trust and propagated trust. We develop efficient and scalable reduction algorithms by which model checking BT logic is feasible at design time. We analyze the satisfiability and model checking problems of this logic. Moreover, we present in this manuscript BTT, a new BT Transformation tool, which is developed to automate the verification process. Finally, we demonstrate extensive experimental results, which confirm the theoretical findings and make our approach practical.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The BT Transformation (BTT) tool is available at: https://users.encs.concordia.ca/~bentahar/BTTransformationTool.zip

  2. Available at: http://aspe.hhs.gov/sp/reports/2010/PathRad/index.shtml

References

  1. Al-Saqqar, F., Bentahar, J., & Sultan, K. (2016). On the soundness, completeness and applicability of the logic of knowledge and communicative commitments in multi-agent systems. Expert Systems with Applications, 43, 223–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Al-Saqqar, F., Bentahar, J., Sultan, K., Wan, W., & Asl, E. K. (2015). Model checking temporal knowledge and commitments in multi-agent systems using reduction. Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory, 51, 45–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Bataineh, A. S., Bentahar, J., El Menshawy, M., & Dssouli, R. (2017). Specifying and verifying contract-driven service compositions using commitments and model checking. Expert Systems with Applications, 74, 151–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Bentahar, J., Drawel, N., & Sadiki, A. (2022). Quantitative group trust: A two-stage verification approach. In The International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, (pp. 20–20).

  5. Bentahar, J., El-Menshawy, M., Qu, H., & Dssouli, R. (2012). Communicative commitments: Model checking and complexity analysis. Knowledge-Based Systems, 35, 21–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Benthem, J. (1984). Correspondence theory. In D. Gabbay & F. Guenthner (Eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic (Vol. 2, pp. 167–247). Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Castelfranchi, C., & Falcone, R. (1998). Principles of trust for MAS: cognitive anatomy, social importance, and quantification. In The Third International Conference on Multiagent Systems, ICMAS, (pp. 72–79).

  8. Chakraborty, P. S., & Karform, S. (2012). Designing trust propagation algorithms based on simple multiplicative strategy for social networks. Procedia Technology, 6, 534–539.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Christianson, B., & Harbison, W.S. (1996). Why isn’t trust transitive? In International Workshop on Security Protocols, (pp. 171–176). Springer.

  10. Clarke, E. M., Emerson, A., & Sifakis, J. (2009). Model checking: Algorithmic verification and debugging. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 74–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Clarke, E. M., Grumberg, O., & Peled, D. (1999). Model Checking. MIT Press.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. Cohen, P. R., & Levesque, H. J. (1990). Intention is choice with commitment. Artificial Intelligence, 42(2–3), 213–261.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Desai, N., Mallya, A. U., Chopra, A. K., & Singh, M. P. (2005). Interaction protocols as design abstractions for business processes. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 31(12), 1015–1027.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Drawel, N., Bentahar, J., El-Menshawy, M., & Laarej, A. (2018). Verifying temporal trust logic using CTL model checking. In The 20th International Trust Workshop co-located with AAMAS/IJCAI/ECAI/ICML, (pp. 62–74).

  15. Drawel, N., Bentahar, J., & Shakshuki, E. (2017). Reasoning about trust and time in a system of agents. In The 8th International Conference on Ambient Systems, Networks and Technologies (ANT),Procedia Computer Science, (Vol. 109, pp. 632–639).

  16. Drawel, N., Qu, H., Bentahar, J., & Shakshuki, E. M. (2020). Specification and automatic verification of trust-based multi-agent systems. Future Generation Computer Systems, 107, 1047–1060.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. El Kholy, W., Bentahar, J., El Menshawy, M., Qu, H., & Dssouli, R. (2014). Modeling and verifying choreographed multi-agent-based web service compositions regulated by commitment protocols. Expert Systems with Applications, 41(16), 7478–7494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. El Kholy, W., Bentahar, J., El Menshawy, M., Qu, H., & Dssouli, R. (2017). SMC4AC: A new symbolic model checker for intelligent agent communication. Fundamenta Informaticae, 152(3), 223–271.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. El-Menshawy, M., Bentahar, J., & Dssouli, R. (2010). Symbolic model checking commitment protocols using reduction. In The 8th International Workshop on Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies VIII, DALT. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, (Vol. 6619, pp. 185–203).

  20. El Menshawy, M., Bentahar, J., El Kholy, W., & Laarej, A. (2018). Model checking real-time conditional commitment logic using transformation. Journal of Systems and Software, 138, 189–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Emerson, A. (1990). Temporal and modal logic. In: Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science, Volume B: Formal Models and Sematics, (pp. 995–1072). MIT Press.

  22. Emerson, A., & Halpern, J. Y. (1985). Decision procedures and expressiveness in the temporal logic of branching time. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 30(1), 1–24.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  23. Fagin, R., Halpern, J. Y., Vardi, M. Y., & Moses, Y. (1995). Reasoning about knowledge. MIT Press.

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  24. Harel, D., Kozen, D., & Tiuryn, J. (2000). Dynamic logic. MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  25. Herzig, A., Lorini, E., & Moisan, F. (2012). A simple logic of trust based on propositional assignments. In F. Paglieri, L. Tummolini, & R. Falcone (Eds.), The Goals of Cognition. Essays in Honour of Cristiano Castelfranchi, Tributes (pp. 407–419). College Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Huang, X., Kwiatkowska, M., & Olejnik, M. (2019). Reasoning about cognitive trust in stochastic multiagent systems. ACM Transactions on Computational Logic, 20(4), 21:1-21:64.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  27. Jamali, M., & Ester, M. (2010). A matrix factorization technique with trust propagation for recommendation in social networks. In The ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, RecSys, (pp. 135–142). ACM.

  28. Kafalı, O., Ajmeri, N., & Singh, M.P. (2017). Kont: Computing tradeoffs in normative multiagent systems. In Proceedings of the Thirty-First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, (pp. 3006–3012). AAAI’17.

  29. Kholy, W. E., Bentahar, J., Menshawy, M. E., Qu, H., & Dssouli, R. (2014). Conditional commitments: Reasoning and model checking. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), 24(2), 1–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Kong, J., & Lomuscio, A. (2017). Model checking multi-agent systems against LDLK specifications. In IJCAI, pp. 1138–1144.

  31. Kouvaros, P., Lomuscio, A., Pirovano, E., & Punchihewa, H. (2019). Formal verification of open multi-agent systems. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems, (pp. 179–187).

  32. Kupferman, O., Vardi, M. Y., & Wolper, P. (2000). An automata-theoretic approach to branching-time model checking. Journal of the ACM, 47(2), 312–360.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  33. Liu, F., & Lorini, E. (2017). Reasoning about belief, evidence and trust in a multi-agent setting. In International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-agent Systems, (pp. 71–89)

  34. Lomuscio, A., & Michaliszyn, J. (2016). Model checking multi-agent systems against epistemic HS specifications with regular expressions. In Fifteenth International Conference on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

  35. Lomuscio, A., & Michaliszyn, J. (2016). Verification of multi-agent systems via predicate abstraction against ATLK specifications. In AAMAS

  36. Lomuscio, A., Pecheur, C., & Raimondi, F. (2007). Automatic verification of knowledge and time with NuSMV. In Proceedings of the Twentieth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, (pp. 1384–1389). IJCAI/AAAI Press.

  37. Marsh, S. (1994). Formalising trust as a computational concept. Ph.D. thesis, University of Stirling

  38. Nayak, A., Chhogyal, K., Ghose, A., & Hoa, D. (2019). A value based trust assessment model for multi-agent systems. In 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI.

  39. Parr, T. (2013). The Definitive ANTLR 4 Reference (1st ed.). The Pragmatic Programmers: The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

  40. Parr, T., & Fisher, K. (2011). LL(*): The foundation of the ANTLR parser generator. In: M.W. Hall, D.A. Padua (eds.) In Proceedings of the 32nd ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, PLDI 2011, San Jose, CA, June 4–8, 2011, (pp. 425–436). ACM

  41. Parr, T., Harwell, S., & Fisher, K. (2014). Adaptive LL(*) parsing: The power of dynamic analysis. In: A.P. Black, T.D. Millstein (eds.) In: Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages & Applications, OOPSLA 2014, part of SPLASH 2014, Portland October 20–24, 2014, (pp. 579–598). ACM

  42. Penczek, W., & Lomuscio, A. (2003). Verifying epistemic properties of multi-agent systems via bounded model checking. Fundamenta Informaticae, 55(2), 167–185.

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  43. Pnueli, A. (1977). The temporal logic of programs. In 18th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, (pp. 46–57)

  44. Primiero, G. (2016). A calculus for distrust and mistrust. In: Trust Management X-10th IFIP WG 11.11 International Conference, IFIPTM. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, (Vol. 473, pp. 183–190).

  45. Primiero, G. (2020). A logic of negative trust. Journal of Applied Non-Classical Logics, 30(3), 193–222.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  46. Primiero, G., & Raimondi, F. (2014). A typed natural deduction calculus to reason about secure trust. In Twelfth Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, (pp. 379–382). IEEE Computer Society.

  47. Sardana, N., Cohen, R., Zhang, J., & Chen, S. (2018). A Bayesian multiagent trust model for social networks. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, 5(4), 995–1008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Schnoebelen, P. (2002). The complexity of temporal logic model checking. In: The 4th conference on Advances in Modal Logic, (pp. 393–436).

  49. Singh, M. P. (2008). Semantical considerations on dialectical and practical commitments. In: AAAI (Vol. 8, pp. 176–181).

  50. Singh, M.P. (2008). Semantical considerations on dialectical and practical commitments. In: D. Fox, C.P. Gomes (eds.) In Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI, Chicago, July 13–17, (pp. 176–181). AAAI Press.

  51. Singh, M.P. (2011). Trust as dependence: A logical approach. In: The 10th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, (pp. 863–870)

  52. Sultan, K., Bentahar, J., Wan, W., & Al-Saqqar, F. (2014). Modeling and verifying probabilistic multi-agent systems using knowledge and social commitments. Expert Systems with Applications, 41(14), 6291–6304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Telang, P. R., Kalia, A. K., & Singh, M. P. (2015). Modeling healthcare processes using commitments: An empirical evaluation. PLoS ONE, 10(11), e0141202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Troquard, N. (2014). Reasoning about coalitional agency and ability in the logics of “bringing-it-about’’. Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems, 28(3), 381–407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Viganò, F., & Colombetti, M. (2009). Verifying organizations regulated by institutions. In V. Dignum (ed.) Handbook of Research on Multi-Agent Systems-Semantics and Dynamics of Organizational Models, (pp. 367–396). IGI Global.

  56. Wahab, O. A., Bentahar, J., Otrok, H., & Mourad, A. (2018). Towards trustworthy multi-cloud services communities: A trust-based hedonic coalitional game. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, 11(1), 184–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Nagat Drawel, Jamal Bentahar, Amine Laarej & Gaith Rjoub

Authors
  1. Nagat Drawel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jamal Bentahar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Amine Laarej
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Gaith Rjoub
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jamal Bentahar.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Drawel, N., Bentahar, J., Laarej, A. et al. Formal verification of group and propagated trust in multi-agent systems. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 36, 19 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-021-09542-6

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-021-09542-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation