Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Workshop on Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems

COIN 2015: Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems XI pp 335–353Cite as

Implementation of Normative Practical Reasoning with Durative Actions

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

  • 607 Accesses

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9628))

Abstract

Autonomous agents operating in a dynamic environment need constantly to reason about actions in pursuit of their goals, while taking into consideration possible norms imposed on those actions. Normative practical reasoning supports agents decision making about what is best for an agent to do in a given situation. What makes practical reasoning challenging is the conflict between goals that the agent is pursuing and the norms that the agent is trying to uphold. We offer a formal model that allows the agents to plan for conflicting goals and norms in presence of durative actions that can be executed concurrently. We compare plans based on decision-theoretic notions (i.e. utility) such that the utility gain of goals and utility loss of norm violations are the basis of this comparison. The set of optimal plans consists of plans that maximise the overall utility, each of which can be chosen by the agent to execute. The formal model is implemented computationally using answer set programming, which in turns permits the statement of the problem in terms of a logic program that can be queried for solutions with specific properties. We demonstrate how a normative practical reasoning problem can be mapped into an answer set program such that the optimal plans of the former can be obtained as the answer sets of the latter.

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

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    In the formal model a plan/solution \(\pi \) for problem P is defined as a set of action, time pairs (e.g. \((a_{i},t_{i})\)), whereas in the answer sets a plan is expressed by action, state pairs (e.g. occurred \(\texttt {(a,s)}\)). Action, state pairs can easily be mapped to action, time pairs by replacing the state with the time that holds in that state.

References

  1. Aldewereld, H., Dignum, F., García-Camino, A., Noriega, P., Rodríguez-Aguilar, J.A., Sierra, C.: Operationalisation of norms for usagein electronic institutions. In: Nakashima, H., Wellman, M.P., Weiss, G., Stone, P. (eds.) 5th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2006), Hakodate, Japan, May 8–12, pp. 223–225. ACM (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Alrawagfeh, W., Meneguzzi, F.: Utilizing permission norms in BDI practical normative reasoning. In: Ghose, A., et al. (eds.) COIN 2014. LNCS, vol. 9372, pp. 1–18. Springer, Heidelberg (2015). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-25420-3_1

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Artikis, A., Sergot, M.J., Pitt, J.V.: Specifying norm-governed computational societies. ACM Trans. Comput. Log. 10(1), 1–42 (2009)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Blum, A.L., Furst, M.L.: Fast planning through planning graph analysis. Artif. Intell. 90(1), 281–300 (1997)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. de Boer, F.S., Hindriks, K.V., van der Hoek, W., Meyer, J.-J.C.: A verification framework for agent programming with declarative goals. J. Appl. Logic 5(2), 277–302 (2007)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Börger, E., Stärk, R.: Asynchronous multi-agent ASMs. In: Börger, E., Stärk, R. (eds.) Abstract State Machines, pp. 207–282. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Broersen, J., Dastani, M., Hulstijn, J., Huang, Z., van der Torre, L.: The BOID architecture: conflicts between beliefs, obligations, intentions and desires. In: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Autonomous Agents. AGENTS 2001, pp. 9–16. ACM, Montreal (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Cliffe, O., De Vos, M., Padget, J.: Answer set programming for representing and reasoning about virtual institutions. In: Inoue, K., Satoh, K., Toni, F. (eds.) CLIMA 2006. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4371, pp. 60–79. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Criado, N., Argente, E., Botti, V.J.: A BDI architecture for normative decision making. In: van der Hoek, W., Kaminka, G.A., Lespérance, Y., Luck, M., Sen, S. (eds.) 9th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2010), Toronto, Canada, May 10–14, vol. 1–3. IFAAMAS, pp. 1383–1384 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  10. De Vos, M., Balke, T., Satoh, K.: Combining event-and state-based norms. In: Gini, M.L. Shehory, O., Ito, T., Jonker, C.M. (eds.) International conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, AAMAS 2013, Saint Paul, MN, USA, May 6–10, IFAAMAS, pp. 1157–1158 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Doherty, P., Gustafsson, J., Karlsson, L., Kvarnström, J.: TAL: temporal action logics language specification and tutorial. Electron. Trans. Artif. Intell. 2, 273–306 (1998)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  12. Esteva, M., Rodríguez-Aguilar, J.-A., Sierra, C., Garcia, P., Arcos, J.-L.: On the formal specification of electronic institutions. In: Sierra, C., Dignum, F.P.M. (eds.) AgentLink 2000. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1991, pp. 126–147. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Fikes, R.E., Nilsson, N.J.: STRIPS: a new approach to the application of theorem proving to problem solving. In: Proceedings of the 2Nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. IJCAI 1971, pp. 608–620. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco (1971)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Gelfond, M., Lifschitz, V.: Action languages. Electron. Trans. AI 3, 281–300 (1998)

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  15. Gelfond, M., Lifschitz, V.: The stable model semantics for logic programming. In: Kowalski, R.A., Bowen, K.A. (eds.) ICLP, SLP, pp. 1070–1080. MIT Press (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gini, M.L., Shehory, O., Ito, T., Jonker, C.M. (eds.): International conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, AAMAS 2013, Saint Paul, MN, USA, May 6–10, 2013. IFAAMAS (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Hindriks, K.V., van der Hoek, W., van Riemsdijk, M.B.: Agent programming with temporally extended goals. In: Sierra, C., Castelfranchi, C., Decker, K.S., Sichman, J.S. (eds.) 8th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2009), Budapest, Hungary, May 10–15, 2009, vol. 1. IFAAMAS, pp. 137–144 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Hindriks, K.V., van Riemsdijk, M.B.: Satisfying maintenance goals. In: Baldoni, M., Son, T.C., Riemsdijk, M.B., Winikoff, M. (eds.) DALT 2007. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4897, pp. 86–103. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Kafali, Ö., Günay, A., Yolum, P.: GOSU: computing Goal Support with commitments in multiagent systems. In: Schaub, T., Friedrich, G., O’Sullivan, B. (eds.) Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications ECAI 2014–21st European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 18–22 , Prague, Czech Republic - Including Prestigious Applications of Intelligent Systems (PAIS 2014), vol. 263, pp. 477–482. IOS Press (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Kollingbaum, M.: Norm-governed Practical Reasonig Agents. Ph.D. thesis. University of Aberdeen (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Kowalski, R., Sergot, M.: A logic-based calculus of events. New Gen. Comput. 4(1), 67–95 (1986)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Lee, J., Palla, R.: Reformulating temporal action logicsin answer set programming. In: Hoffmann, J., Selman, B. (eds.) Proceedings of the Twenty-SixthAAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 22-26, 2012, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. AAAI Press (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Lee, J., Palla, R.: Reformulating the situation calculus and theevent calculus in the general theory of stable models and in answer set programming. CoRR abs/1401.4607 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lifschitz, V.: Answer set programming and plan generation. Artif. Intell. 138(1–2), 39–54 (2002)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. y López, F.L., Luck, M., d’Inverno, M.: A normative framework for agent-based systems. In: Normative Multi-Agent Systems (NORMAS), pp. 24–35 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Oren, N., Vasconcelos, W., Meneguzzi, F., Luck, M.: Acting on norm constrained plans. In: Leite, J., Torroni, P., Ågotnes, T., Boella, G., van der Torre, L. (eds.) CLIMA XII 2011. LNCS, vol. 6814, pp. 347–363. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Panagiotidi, S., Vázquez-Salceda, J., Dignum, F.: Reasoning over norm compliance via planning. In: Aldewereld, H., Sichman, J.S. (eds.) COIN 2012. LNCS, vol. 7756, pp. 35–52. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Panagiotidi, S., Vázquez-Salceda, J., Vasconcelos, W.: Contextual norm-based plan evaluation via answer set programming. In: BajoPérez, J., et al. (eds.) Highlights on Practical Applications of Agentsand Multi-Agent Systems. AISC, vol. 156, pp. 197–206. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Pitt, J., Busquets, D., Riveret, R.: Formal models of social processes: the pursuit of computational justice in self-organising multi-agent systems. In: 2013 IEEE 7th International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems (SASO), pp. 269–270 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Rao, A.S., Georgeff, M.P.: BDI agents: from theory to practice. In: Proceedings of The First International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS 1995), pp. 312–319 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Schulz, C., Toni, F.: Justifying Answer Sets using Argumentation. CoRR abs/1411.5635 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Telang, P.R., Meneguzzi, F., Singh, M.P.: Hierarchical planning about goals and commitments. In: Gini, M.L., Shehory, O., Ito, T., Jonker, C.M. (eds.) International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, AAMAS 2013, Saint Paul, MN, USA, May 6–10, 2013. IFAAMAS, pp. 877–884 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Zohreh Shams, Marina De Vos & Julian Padget

  2. Department of Computing Science, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

    Wamberto Vasconcelos

Authors
  1. Zohreh Shams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Marina De Vos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Julian Padget
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Wamberto Vasconcelos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zohreh Shams .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Delft University of Technology , Delft, The Netherlands

    Virginia Dignum

  2. IIIA-CSIC , Barcelona, Spain

    Pablo Noriega

  3. Ozyegin University , Istanbul, Turkey

    Murat Sensoy

  4. University of Sao Paulo , Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Jaime Simão Sichman

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Shams, Z., De Vos, M., Padget, J., Vasconcelos, W. (2016). Implementation of Normative Practical Reasoning with Durative Actions. In: Dignum, V., Noriega, P., Sensoy, M., Sichman, J. (eds) Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems XI. COIN 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9628. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42691-4_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42691-4_19

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-42690-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-42691-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation