A context-aware normative structure in MAS

Concrete Contextualization Abstract Norm Net Operationalization Contextual Norm Net Operational Norm Net Figure 2: Contextualization and operationalization Moreover, a contextual norm net can again be further contextualized in a recursive manner, which enables a flexible normative structure and makes it possible for designers at different levels to decide their norm elaborations. Finally, based on the contextual norm nets which contain enough information for the actors to reason about their dos and don’ts in a specific situation, the norms will be extended with operational aspects to capture the operational meaning of the norms. 4. CONCLUSIONSIn this paper, we proposed a normative structure that notonly captures the characteristics of a single norm but alsothe relationships between norms. Given that agents in MASinteract with each other to achieve certain goals, the interre-lated effects of norms on their behavior are very importantfor both individuals and the system. Therefore, the con-nections between norms should be explicitly indicated in astructural way. Moreover, contexts play an important rolein the construction of norms, in the sense that the applica-tion of a norm heavily depends on its institutional contextand a norm may have different interpretations in differentsituations. To this end, the concept of norm net in this pa-per expresses how a set of recursive norm sets organize in ahierarchy of contexts.Most importantly, this paper presents a norm net contex-tualization process that describes norms from general to spe-cific. This enables a modular approach for building norma-tive structure and also distributes its complexity. Further-more, following this contextualization process, actors canhave a better understand of their dos and don’ts with theevolution of contextual norm nets. To verify the proposal,we map norm nets to Colored Petri Nets (CPNs) and in-corporate agents/actors as colored tokens in the analysis,which presents the state transition process of norm nets andprovides a potential approach for compliance checking onnorms.In future work, the normative structure will be extendedto the operational level and a complete mapping for contex-tual norm nets will be built using advanced CPNs. 5. REFERENCES[1] E. Ostrom. Understanding institutional diversity.Princeton University Press, 2005.