Abstract
In order to regulate different circumstances over an extensive period of time, norms in institutions are stated in a vague and often ambiguous manner, thereby abstracting from concrete aspects which become instead relevant for the actual functioning of the institutions. If agent-based electronic institutions, which adhere to a set of abstract requirements, are to be built, how can those requirements be translated into more concrete constraints, the impact of which can be described directly in the institution? We address this issue considering institutions as normative systems based on articulate ontologies of the agent domain they regulate. Ontologies, we hold, are used by institutions to relate the abstract concepts in which their norms are formulated, to their concrete application domain. In this view, different institutions can implement the same set of norms in different ways as far as they presuppose divergent ontologies of the concepts in which that set of norms is formulated. In this paper we analyse this phenomenon introducing a notion of contextual ontology. We will focus on the formal machinery necessary to characterise it as well.
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Davide Grossi studied Philosophy at Università di Pisa, Italy. Besides, he obtained the diploma on philosophical disciplines of Scuola Normale Superiore, an Italian university center for teaching and research. Since 2003 he is Ph.D. student at the Intelligent Systems Group at Universiteit Utrecht. His research focuses on the analysis of the formal aspects of norms, institutions and organizations.
Huib Aldewereld studied Cognitive Artificial Intelligence at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, graduating in 2002 on the subject of logics for BDI-like multiagent systems. At the moment he is finishing his Ph.D. at the Intelligent Systems group in Utrecht, researching norm enforcement in agent-mediated electronic institutions and the verification of norm compliance of protocols.
Javier Vázquez-Salceda studied Computer Science at the Politechnical University of Catalonia (UPC), in Barcelona, Spain. After his master studies he became research assistant in the KEMLg Group at UPC. In 2003 he presented his Ph.D. dissertation (with honors). For two years he was Postdoc researcher in the Intelligent Systems Group at the Universiteit Utrecht. Nowadays he is back at UPC as researcher. His research is focused on theoretical and applied issues of norms and institutions, and the conflict between software and physical agents’ autonomy and social control.
Frank Dignum received his PhD in 1989 from the Free University in Amsterdam. After that he has been a lecturer in Swaziland and Portugal before settling down at the Technical University of Eindhoven. Since 2000 he became associate professor at the Universiteit Utrecht. His main research interests are in the social aspects of multi-agents systems and the regulation of mult-agent systems through norms and institutions.
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Grossi, D., Aldewereld, H., Vázquez-Salceda, J. et al. Ontological aspects of the implementation of norms in agent-based electronic institutions. Comput Math Organiz Theor 12, 251–275 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-006-9546-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-006-9546-6