Protocols and intentional specifications of multi-party agent conversions for brokerage and auctions

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Conversations involving three or more agents often occur in multi-agent systems, for example in brokering and auctions. For developing agents in open systems, it is important that the interactions in such conversations have a precise and un- ambiguous meaning. We address this issue by generalising a protocol-based semantic framework for expressing the se- mantics of Agent Communication Languages. The generali- sations involve exploiting mechanistic aspects of the interac- tion (conversation identifiers), greater flexibility in the space of possible replies, and a richer representation of protocol states. We define intentional specifications for some broker- age and auction protocols, including event-based clocks to determine the ordering of events. We conclude that this ap- proach to specifying multi-party protocols leads to clearer interfaces for open systems and easier re-use, with a poten- tially significant impact on standardisation efforts.

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit: