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Marco Colombetti

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19 papers
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19

EUMAS Conference 2017 Conference Paper

Operational Semantics of an Extension of ODRL Able to Express Obligations

  • Nicoletta Fornara
  • Marco Colombetti

Abstract Nowadays economy is every day more and more a digital economy where many human activities are performed by means of digital devices. Those digital activities produce and operate on a big amount of digital assets, as the data stored in datasets, documents, images, videos or audio files. Rationally, it is useless that digital assets are made public without the specification of constrains on their usage and access. Many formal languages for expressing licenses, policies, norms, agreements, and contracts have been proposed in literature. Among them, the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) is a quite general one. In this paper, we present an extension of the syntax of ODRL for expressing conditional obligations. We present also an operational semantics of this extension with the goal of being able to perform automatic reasoning on the dynamic evolution in time of obligations. The definition of such operational semantics will be based on the specification of the lifecycle of obligations and on the definition of the mechanisms for computing their state using automatic reasoning. In particular, for doing that we use as far as possible, W3C standards: RDF and RDF Schema for the specification of obligations, and the Apache Jena general purpose rule engine for efficiently deducing the state of obligations on the bases of the state of the interaction among agents.

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TIST Journal 2013 Journal Article

Research directions in agent communication

  • Amit K. Chopra
  • Alexander Artikis
  • Jamal Bentahar
  • Marco Colombetti
  • Frank Dignum
  • Nicoletta Fornara
  • Andrew J. I. Jones
  • Munindar P. Singh

Increasingly, software engineering involves open systems consisting of autonomous and heterogeneous participants or agents who carry out loosely coupled interactions. Accordingly, understanding and specifying communications among agents is a key concern. A focus on ways to formalize meaning distinguishes agent communication from traditional distributed computing: meaning provides a basis for flexible interactions and compliance checking. Over the years, a number of approaches have emerged with some essential and some irrelevant distinctions drawn among them. As agent abstractions gain increasing traction in the software engineering of open systems, it is important to resolve the irrelevant and highlight the essential distinctions, so that future research can be focused in the most productive directions. This article is an outcome of extensive discussions among agent communication researchers, aimed at taking stock of the field and at developing, criticizing, and refining their positions on specific approaches and future challenges. This article serves some important purposes, including identifying (1) points of broad consensus; (2) points where substantive differences remain; and (3) interesting directions of future work.

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KER Journal 2012 Journal Article

Norms, organizations, and semantics

  • Olivier Boissier
  • Marco Colombetti
  • Michael Luck
  • John-Jules Meyer
  • Axel Polleres

Abstract This paper integrates the responses to a set of questions from a distinguished set of panelists involved in a discussion at the Agreement Technologies workshop in Cyprus in December 2009. The panel was concerned with the relationship between the research areas of semantics, norms, and organizations, and the ways in which each may contribute to the development of the others in support of next generation agreement technologies.

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EUMAS Conference 2011 Conference Paper

Using OWL 2 DL for Expressing ACL Content and Semantics

  • Nicoletta Fornara
  • Daniel Okouya
  • Marco Colombetti

Abstract The design and implementation of open interaction systems is widely recognized to be a crucial issue in the development of innovative applications on the Internet. In this paper we pursue the goal of enhancing interoperability and openness in open interaction systems by systematic use of web standards. We propose a way of using the semantic web language OWL 2 DL to represent both the content of an ACL message, whose structure is compatible with FIPA-ACL, and the meaning of the whole message, adopting a commitment-based semantics, in such a way that OWL reasoning on message meaning is made possible. To this purpose we specify a number of ACL conventions regarding the domain independent components of the content language and the semantics of messages; we describe a set of supporting OWL ontologies, and exemplify our proposal with the analysis of a commissive message: a promise to perform a certain action within a given deadline if certain conditions hold. We then describe a demonstrative prototype of a system where those conventions are concretely implemented that is based on Web Service technologies (WSDL, SOAP, and HTTP for message transport).

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AAMAS Conference 2008 Conference Paper

Specifying and Enforcing Norms in Artificial Institutions

  • Nicoletta Fornara
  • Marco Colombetti

In this paper we investigate two related aspects of the formalization of open interaction systems: how to specify norms, and how to enforce them by means of sanctions. The problem of specifying the sanctions associated with the violation of norms is crucial in an open system because, given that the compliance of autonomous agents to obligations and prohibitions cannot be taken for granted, norm enforcement is necessary to constrain the possible evolutions of the system, thus obtaining a degree of predictability that makes it rational for agents to interact with the system. In our model, we introduce a construct for the definition of norms in the design of artificial institutions, expressed in terms of roles and event times, which, when certain activating events take place, is transformed into commitments of the agents playing certain roles. Norms also specify different types of sanctions associated with their violation. In the paper, we analyze the concept of sanction in detail and propose a mechanism through which sanctions can be applied.

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AILAW Journal 2007 Journal Article

Artificial institutions: a model of institutional reality for open multiagent systems

  • Nicoletta Fornara
  • Francesco Viganò
  • Mario Verdicchio
  • Marco Colombetti

Abstract Software agents’ ability to interact within different open systems, designed by different groups, presupposes an agreement on an unambiguous definition of a set of concepts, used to describe the context of the interaction and the communication language the agents can use. Agents’ interactions ought to allow for reliable expectations on the possible evolution of the system; however, in open systems interacting agents may not conform to predefined specifications. A possible solution is to define interaction environments including a normative component, with suitable rules to regulate the behaviour of agents. To tackle this problem we propose an application-independent metamodel of artificial institutions that can be used to define open multiagent systems. In our view an artificial institution is made up by an ontology that models the social context of the interaction, a set of authorizations to act on the institutional context, a set of linguistic conventions for the performance of institutional actions and a system of norms that are necessary to constrain the agents’ actions.

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JAAMAS Journal 2006 Journal Article

Agent communication and artificial institutions

  • Nicoletta Fornara
  • Francesco Viganò
  • Marco Colombetti

Abstract In this paper we propose an application-independent model for the definition of artificial institutions that can be used to define open multi-agent systems. Such a model of institutional reality makes us able also to define an objective and external semantics of a commitment-based Agent Communication Language (ACL). In particular we propose to regard an ACL as a set of conventions to act on a fragment of institutional reality, defined in the context of an artificial institution. Another contribution of the work presented in this paper is an operational definition of norms, a crucial component of artificial institutions. In fact in open systems interacting agents might not conform to the specifications. We regard norms as event-driven rules that when are fired by events happening in the system create or cancel a set of commitments. An interesting aspect of our proposal is that both the definition of the ACL and the definition of norms are based on the same notion of commitment. Therefore an agent capable of reasoning on commitments can reason on the semantics of communicative acts and on the system of norms.

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EUMAS Conference 2006 Conference Paper

Specifying and Enforcing Norms in Artificial Institutions

  • Nicoletta Fornara
  • Marco Colombetti

In this paper we investigate two important and related aspects of the formalization of open interaction systems: how to specify norms, and how to enforce them by means of sanctions. The problem of specifying the sanctions associated to the violation of norms is crucial in an open system because, given that the compliance of autonomous agents to obligations and prohibitions cannot be taken for granted, norm enforcement is necessary to constrain the possible evolutions of the system, thus obtaining a degree of predictability that makes it rational for agents to interact with the system. In our model, norms are specified declaratively. When certain events take place, norms become active and generate pending commitments for the agents playing certain roles. Norms also specify the sanctions associated to their violation. In the paper, we analyze the concept of sanction in detail and propose a mechanism through which sanctions can be applied.

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MFCS Conference 1976 Conference Paper

Programs, Computations and Temporal Features

  • Marco Colombetti
  • Enrico Pagello

Abstract Predicate Logic is a natural support to computing systems: computation and deduction are closely related. The way to describe proof strategies can clarify the theoretical soundness of programming. This description involves the clarification of the role of control statements. A semantic analysis of program statements can suggest useful restrictions to the interpreter. These find a natural representation in a temporal framework.

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