Advances in Agent Communication: International Workshop on Agent Communication Languages, ACL 2003, Melbourne, Australia, July 14, 2003. Revised and Invited Papers

Andrew J. I. Jones, Xavier Parent (auth.), Frank Dignum (eds.)3540207694, 9783540207696, 9783540246084

InthisbookwepresentacollectionofpapersaroundthetopicofAgentCom- nication. The communication between agents has been one of the major topics of research in multi-agent systems. The current work can therefore build on a number of previous workshops, the proceedings of which have been published in earlier volumes in this series. The basis of this collection is the accepted s- missions of the workshop on Agent Communication Languages which was held in conjunction with the AAMAS conference in July 2003 in Melbourne. The workshop received 15 submissions of which 12 were selected for publication in this volume. Although the number of submissions was less than expected for an important area like Agent Communication there is no reason to worry that this area does not get enough attention from the agent community. First of all, the 12 selected papers are all of high quality. The high acceptance rate is only due to this high quality and not to the necessity to select a certain number of papers. Besides the high-quality workshop papers, we noticed that many papers on Agent Communication found their way to the main conference. We decided therefore to invite a number of authors to revise and extend their papers from this conference and to combine them with the workshop papers. We believe that the current collection comprises a very good and quite complete overview of the state of the art in this area of research and gives a good indication of the topics that are of major interest at the moment.

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Table of contents :
Front Matter….Pages –
Conventional Signalling Acts and Conversation….Pages 1-17
An Empirical Model of Communication in Multiagent Systems….Pages 18-36
An Exploration in Using Cognitive Coherence Theory to Automate BDI Agents’ Communicational Behavior….Pages 37-58
A Performative Type Hierarchy and Other Interesting Considerations in the Design of the CASA Agent Architecture….Pages 59-74
Model Checking for ACL Compliance Verification….Pages 75-90
Logic-Based Agent Communication Protocols….Pages 91-107
Protocol Specification Using a Commitment Based ACL….Pages 108-127
A Logical Model of Social Commitment for Agent Communication….Pages 128-145
Commitment and Argument Network: A New Formalism for Agent Communication….Pages 146-165
Resolving Commitments among Autonomous Agents….Pages 166-182
Nonmonotonic Commitment Machines….Pages 183-200
Issues in Multiparty Dialogues….Pages 201-211
Towards a Testbed for Multi-party Dialogues….Pages 212-230
Intra-role Coordination Using Group Communication: A Preliminary Report….Pages 231-253
LOTTO: Group Formation by Overhearing in Large Teams….Pages 254-270
Proactive Communications in Agent Teamwork….Pages 271-290
Modularity in Interaction Protocols….Pages 291-309
Concepts of Optimal Utterance in Dialogue: Selection and Complexity….Pages 310-328
The Mechanics of Some Formal Inter-agent Dialogues….Pages 329-348
A Cooperative Dialogue Game for Resolving Ontological Discrepancies….Pages 349-363
The Posit Spaces Protocol for Multi-agent Negotiation….Pages 364-382
On Interest-Based Negotiation….Pages 383-401
Back Matter….Pages –