Moiseinst An organizational model for specifying rights and duties of autonomous agents

1. Solved Problem

In interactive multimedia applications, the objects composing the scene are increasingly considered as autonomous agents. However as shown by several works in multi-agent domain, multi-agent applications are often involved in evolving environment. Recently, in order to obtain more flexible scene, objects start to be considered as autonomous agents allowing the definition of scenes in which objects would act by adapting themselves to the context.

Multimedia objects involved in this creation are considered as autonomous agents able to adapt and modify their behaviours to the modification of the environment and its related scenario.

 

2. How to solve

(1)Interactive game

The game consists in a “questions-answers” TV game. Being at home, each televiewer is represented in the TV Game by an Avatar which is opposed to a real players' team. Avatars are directly controlled by their correspondent televiewers. The quizmaster is also supported by a virtual assistant. His role is to regulate the game and to ensure that participants follow the rules of the game. These ones define the game goals as well as more specific rules.

As in all collective games, this application aim is to constrain players to adopt a team behaviour and to respect rules. The complexity comes from that teleplayers don't know each other and don't, a priori, intend to play collectively.

We define an Electronic Institution for Interactive Games as an autonomous agents' organization in which their behaviours are ruled by norms and controlled by an arbitration system. The role of this arbitration system consists in rewarding or punishing agents when they respect or not their agreements.

Figure1 Global view of MoiseInst Organizational Structure in a TV content production process composed of Structural (SS), Functional (FS), Contextual (CS) and Normative (NS) specifications, taken into account by Agents through Institution Agent Middleware SYNAI

 

The interactive game is thus composed of two layers: (i) the multi-agent interactive game in which avatars as autonomous agents evolve, (ii) an institutional multi-agent middleware called SYNAI (SYstem of Normative Agents for Institution) dedicated to the management of the organization and to the arbitration. The institutional middleware reads this specification in order to supervise and control the agents.

 

(2)General view of MoiseInst

Four specifications:

A structural specification (SS) defining roles that agents will play and relations between these roles as well as an additional structural level named group to which roles belong and in which interaction take place ;

A functional specification (FS) defining all goals that have to be achieved in the system ;

A contextual specification (CS) defining the different contexts influencing the dynamic of the organization as well as transitions between contexts ;

A normative specification (NS) extending the Moise+ deontic specification and defining clearly rights and duties of roles and groups on a mission (set of goals) and in a specific context.

 

Since MoiseInst aims at being used both by the agents and by the institution middleware, the specifications built with MoiseInst concern the interactive game on one hand, called hereafter “domain”, and the control of the interactive game on the other hand, called hereafter “institution".

 

Structural Specifications

The MoiseInst structural specification (SS) allows to describe an organization in terms of roles, groups and links between roles and groups. A set of constraints expresses inter-roles compatibilities, scope of links, cardinality of roles and groups.

Figure2 Avatars scenario Structural Specification

 

Functional Specification

As in Moise+ the MoiseInst functional specification expresses the global functioning of the system as a set of social schemes. A social scheme is composed of plans binding together collective goals. Missions express the a priori distribution of those goals for achievement by the agents. Social Schemes may be reused within other social schemes.

Figure3 Avatars scenario Functional Specification

 

Contextual Specification

The contextual specification CS of an OS describes a priori a set of contexts occupied by the corresponding OE with the transitions governing the change of context. The CS is defined as follows:

<contextDesc> defines the description of a global state occupied by the OE.

<transition> defines a one way transition from a source context to a target context. The trigger of the transition is done by the production in the OE of an event <event>.

 

Normative Specification

Normative specification NS which is composed of norms. In MoiseInst, a norm will define a right or a duty for a role or a group to execute a mission in a particular context and during a given time supervised by an issuer which can apply a sanction if the norm is not respected.

:bearer field refers either to a role or a group of the SS on which the norm is applied. When the :bearer is a group, all roles belonging to this group in the SS, are the :bearer of this norm.

:issuer defines the entity which has the responsibility to control if the norm is not violated. If the :issuer is a group then all roles that belong to the group have the responsibility to detect a violation and to trigger a sanction.

:context refers to the particular context of the CS in which the norm must be considered.

:action connects missions of the FS to the :bearer of the norm. A :deadline may specify when the norm is valid: before ('<'), when/while ('=') or after ('>') a date expressed by the :relation field.

:sanction refers to a norm in the NS itself. It expresses a \sanction" to apply in case of norm violation.

:condition expressing the particular state of the OE in which the norm may be applied. Tests on the state of the OE are expressed by functions <function> referring to global variables that are accessible by the :issuer and :bearer of the norm.

:operator defines if the norm is an obligation (O), a permission (P) or a prohibition (F).

:weight field defines a priority level used for solving conflicts between norms, when for instance an agent could be constrained by two contradictory norms.

For the management of the organisation, we want an institutional norm defining the Obligation for the \OrgCandidate" role to join a team in order to play a role in the game:

(Norm :id N1 :weight 1 :condition (number(Team)! =cardinalityMax(Team)) :operator O :issuer OrgManager :bearer OrgCandidate :context Begin :action do(m1))

Obligation for the “GameMaster” role to ask questions and verify answer represented by:

(Norm :id N4 :weight 1 :operator O :issuer GameMaster :bearer GameMaster :context Game :action do(m4))

 

参考文献：

[1] B Gâteau, O Boissier, D Khadraoui. Moiseinst An organizational model for specifying rights and duties of autonomous agents. Workshop on Multi-Agent system, 2007.

转载于:https://www.cnblogs.com/6DAN_HUST/archive/2010/09/24/1833774.html