Computing Science Seminar. Vasconcelos on "Group Norms for Multi-Agent Organisations"

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Computing Science Seminar. Vasconcelos on "Group Norms for Multi-Agent Organisations"
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Abstract: Normative multi-agent systems offer the ability to integrate social and individual factors to provide increased levels of fidelity with respect to modelling social phenomena, such as cooperation, coordination, group decision making, and organization, in both human and artificial agent systems. An important open research issue refers to group norms, i.e. norms that govern groups of agents. Depending on the interpretation, group norms may be intended to affect the group as a whole, each member of a group, or some members of the group. Moreover, upholding group norms may require coordination among the members of the group. We have identified three sets of agents affected by group norms, namely, i) the addressees of the norm, ii) those that will act on it, and iii) those that are responsible for ensuring norm compliance. We present a formalism to represent these, connecting it to a minimalist agent organisation model. We use our formalism to develop a reasoning mechanism which enables agents to identify their position with respect to a group norm, so as to further support agent autonomy and coordination when deciding on possible courses of action.

Bio: Wamberto Vasconcelos is a Reader and Head of Computing Science in the University of Aberdeen, having joined the department in 2002. He got his PhD from the University of Edinburgh (1995) and his research interests include knowledge representation and reasoning, software engineering and distributed and multi-agent systems. He has been involved in various UK- and EU-funded research projects.

Speaker
Wamberto Vasconcelos
Hosted by
Adam Wyner
Venue
Meston 311