Using Normative Markov Decision Processes for evaluating electronic contracts

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Fagundes, Moser Silva^; | Ossowski, Sascha | Luck, Michael | Miles, Simon

Affiliations: Centre for Intelligent Information Technologies, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain. E-mails: {moser.fagundes, sascha.ossowski}@urjc.es | Department of Informatics, King's College London, London, UK. E-mails: {michael.luck, simon.miles}@kcl.ac.uk

Note: [] Corresponding author: Moser Silva Fagundes, Room 2013-B (Annexe to the Rectorate), Calle Tulipán S/N, Móstoles (28933), Madrid, Spain. E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract: Before signing electronic contracts, a rational agent should estimate the expected utilities of these contracts and calculate the violation risks related to them. In order to perform such pre-signing procedures, this agent has to be capable of computing a policy taking into account the norms and sanctions in the contracts. In relation to this, the contribution of this work is threefold. First, we present the Normative Markov Decision Process, an extension of the Markov Decision Process for explicitly representing norms. In order to illustrate the usage of our framework, we model an example in a simulated aerospace aftermarket. Second, we specify an algorithm for identifying the states of the process which characterize the violation of norms. Finally, we show how to compute policies with our framework and how to calculate the risk of violating the norms in the contracts by adopting a particular policy.

Keywords: Norms, electronic contracts, MDP, NMDP

DOI: 10.3233/AIC-2012-0511

Journal: AI Communications, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 1-17, 2012