Skip to main content

Addressing Constraint Failures in Agent Interaction Protocol

  • Conference paper
Book cover Multi-Agent Systems for Society (PRIMA 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4078))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 464 Accesses

Abstract

The field of multi-agent systems shifts attention from one particular agent to a society of agents; hence the interactions between agents in the society become critical towards the achievement of their goals. We assume that the interactions are managed via an agent protocol which enables agents to coordinate their actions in order to handle the dependencies that exist between their activities. An agent’s failure to comply with the constraints attached within the protocol might cause a brittle protocol to fail. To address this problem, a constraint relaxation approach is applied using a distributed protocol language called the Lightweight Coordination Calculus (LCC). This paper describes the design and implementation of a constraint relaxation module to be integrated within the LCC framework. The working of this module is later illustrated using a scenario involving the ordering and configuration of a computer between the customer and vendor agents.

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

Access this chapter

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 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

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Alberti, M., Gavanelli, M., Lamma, E., Mello, P., Torroni, P.: Specification and verification of agent interaction using social integrity constraints. Theoretical Computer Science 85, 23 (2004)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Odell, J., Parunak, H.V.D., Fleischer, M.: Modeling agents and their environment: the communication environment. Journal of Object Technology 2, 39–52 (2003)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Chen, B., Sadaoui, S.: A generic formal framework for multi-agent interaction protocols, University of Regina, Canada, Technical report TR 2003-05 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Estava, M., Rodriguez, J.A., Sierra, C., Garcia, P., Arcos, J.L.: On the formal specifications of electronic institutions, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pp. 126–147 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Greaves, M., Holmback, M., Bradshaw, J.: What is a conversation policy? In: Dignum, F., Greaves, F. (eds.) Issues in Agent Communication, vol. 1990, pp. 118–131. Springer, Heidelberg (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Walton, C.D., Robertson, D.: Flexible multi-agent protocols, University of Edinburgh, Technical report EDI-INF-RR-0164 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Robertson, D.: Multi-agent coordination as distributed logic programming. In: Demoen, B., Lifschitz, V. (eds.) ICLP 2004. LNCS, vol. 3132, pp. 416–430. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Robertson, D.: A lightweight coordination calculus for agent social norms. In: Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies (AAMAS), New York, USA (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Hassan, F., Robertson, D.: Constraint relaxation to reduce brittleness of distributed agent protocols. In: Coordination in Emergent Agent Societies Workshop (CEAS 2004), held in conjunction with the 16th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2004), Valencia, Spain (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Modi, P.J., Velose, M.: Bumping strategies for the multiagent agreement problem. In: Fourth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Utrecht, Netherland (July 2005)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Fruhwirth, T.: Theory and practice of constraint handling rules. The Journal of Logic Programming 37, 95–137 (1998)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  12. de Paula, G.E., Ramos, F.S., Ramalho, G.L.: Bilateral negotiation model for agent-mediated electronic commerce. In: Dignum, F.P.M., Cortés, U. (eds.) AMEC 2000. LNCS, vol. 2003, p. 1. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Weib, G.: Cognition, sociability, and constraints. In: Hannebauer, M., Wendler, J., Pagello, E. (eds.) ECAI-WS 2000. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2103, p. 217. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Sycara, K.P.: Multiagent systems. AI Magazine 19, 79–92 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Pruitt, D.: Negotiation behaviour. Academic Press, New York (1981)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Jussien, N., Boizumault, P.: Implementing constraint relaxation over finite domains using assumption-based truth maintenance systems. In: Jampel, M., Maher, M.J., Freuder, E.C. (eds.) CP-WS 1995. LNCS, vol. 1106, pp. 265–280. Springer, Heidelberg (1996)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. SICStus Prolog User’s Manual. Stockholm: Swedish Institute of Computer Science (1999), http://www.sics.se/sicstus.html

  18. Osman, N.Z.: Addressing constraint failures in distributed dialogue protocols, University of Edinburgh, MSc. Thesis (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Parsons, S., Sierra, C., Jennings, N.R.: Agents that reason and negotiate by arguing. Journal of Logic and Computation 8, 261–292 (1998)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Hassan, F., Robertson, D., Walton, C. (2009). Addressing Constraint Failures in Agent Interaction Protocol. In: Lukose, D., Shi, Z. (eds) Multi-Agent Systems for Society. PRIMA 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4078. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03339-1_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03339-1_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03337-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03339-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics