Implementing norms that govern non-dialogical actions

Abstract

The governance of open multi-agent systems is particular important since those systems are composed of heterogeneous, autonomous and independently designed agents. Such governance is usually provided by the establishment of norms that regulate the actions of agents. Although there are several approaches that formally describe norms, there are still few of them that propose their implementation. In this paper we propose the implementation of norms that govern non-dialogical actions by extending one of the approaches that regulate dialogical ones. Non-dialogical actions are not related to the interactions between agents but to tasks executed by agents that characterize, for instance, the access to resources, their commitment to play roles or their movement into environments and organizations. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.