Formalizing organizational constraints: a semantic approach

  • Authors:

  • M. Birna van Riemsdijk;Koen V. Hindriks;Catholijn M. Jonker;Maarten Sierhuis

  • Affiliations:

  • Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands;Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands;Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands;Carnegie Mellon University, California

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: volume 1 - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

An organizational modeling language can be used to specify an agent organization in terms of its roles, organizational structure, norms, etc. Such an organizational specification imposes constraints on agents that play roles in it, and the agents are expected to take this into account when deciding what to do. This means that agents need to have a basic understanding of what it means to comply with organizational constraints. For this, it is essential that these constraints are precisely specified. In this paper, we address this in the context of the MOISE+ organizational modeling language. We define a semantic framework for MOISE+ MAS and an accompanying linear temporal logic (LTL) to express its properties. We analyze which constraints MOISE+ imposes on agents, and investigate how these can be made precise in LTL. We show that multiple interpretations of constraints are sometimes possible, and explore the space of possibilities. These analyses demonstrate the need for a rigorous specification of organizational constraints, and provide the foundations for the development of agents that understand how to function in a MOISE+ MAS.