Vahid Yazdanpanah

Distant Group Responsibility in Multi-agent Systems

In this paper, we introduce a specific form of graded group responsibility called “distant responsibility” and provides a formal analysis for this concept in multi-agent settings. This concept of responsibility is formalized in concurrent structures based on the power of agent groups in such structures. A group of agents is called responsible for a state of affairs by a number of collective decision steps if there exists a strategy for the agent group to preclude the specified state of affairs in the given number of steps. Otherwise, the group is partially responsible based on its maximum contribution to fully responsible groups. We argue that the notion of distant responsibility is applicable as a managerial decision support tool for allocation of limited resources in multi-agent organizations.

Normative industrial symbiotic networks : a position paper

In this paper, we introduce a normative, multi-agent perspective on the field of industrial symbiosis research and propose normative institutions as a key technology for operating Industrial Symbiotic Networks (ISNs), both as a framework to represent and reason about dynamic behaviour of ISNs and as a platform for design and maintenance of such networks. We discuss the requirements of normative agent-based frameworks for ISNs with respect to agent interactions, joint commitments, and the organisation to monitor interactions in ISNs.

Quantified degrees of group responsibility

This paper builds on an existing notion of group responsibility and proposes two ways to define the degree of group responsibility: structural and functional degrees of responsibility. These notions measure potential responsibilities of agent groups for avoiding a state of affairs. According to these notions, a degree of responsibility for a state of affairs can be assigned to a group of agents if, and to the extent that, the group of the agents have potential to preclude the state of affairs. These notions will be formally specified and their properties will be analyzed.

Norm enforcement as supervisory control

In this paper, we study normative multi-agent systems from a supervisory control theory perspective. Concretely, we show how to model three well-known types of norm enforcement mechanisms by adopting well-studied supervisory control theory techniques for discrete event systems. Doing so provides a semantics for normative multi-agent systems rooted in formal languages and the ability to automatically synthesize SCT-based norm enforcement mechanisms for special, but still fairly expressive, type of systems and properties.

Normative industrial symbiotic networks: a position paper

The Pocket Negotiator (PN) is a negotiation support system developed at TU Delft as a tool for supporting people in bilateral negotiations over multi-issue negotiation problems in arbitrary domains. Users are supported in setting their preferences, estimating those of their opponent, during the bidding phase and sealing the deal. We describe the overall architecture, the essentials of the underlying techniques, the form that support takes during the negotiation phases, and we share evidence of the effectiveness of the Pocket Negotiator.