Modeling and regulating interactions among agents is a critical step in the development of Multiagent Systems (MASs). Some recent works assume a normative view, and suggest to model interaction protocols in terms of obligations. In this paper we propose to model interaction protocols in terms of goals and commitments, and show how such a formalization promotes a deliberative process inside the ...

Iasson Karafyllis , Pierdomenico Pepe and Zhong-Ping Jiang Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, 73100, Chania, Greece; Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dell'Informazione, Università degli Studi dell'Aquila, Monteluco di Roio, 67040, L'Aquila, Italy; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Six Metro...

I would like to thank Ram Neta, Laura Schroeter, and Jason Stanley for their generous and probing comments on Constructing the World. 1 All three of them home in on key issues in the argumentation of the book. Neta and Schroeter focus on the argument for A Priori Scrutability, and especially the key frontloading argument for that thesis. Stanley focuses on whether the semantic values that are d...

Additional Info: I would like to thank Timothy Colton for providing access to the 1999-2000 data used in this paper. M. Steven Fish, Matthew Grossman, Loan Le, Yuliya Tverdova, and Jason Wittenberg provided many useful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. This current version also benefited from comments received at the Democracy and Its Development Conference held by the Center for the...

The Institute of Sports Law and Ethics (ISLE) has a strong focus on the ethical aspects of sports. In September, 2012, ISLE presented its third annual symposium, “The Role of Sports in Higher Education” (see http://law.scu.edu/sportslaw/). Widely divergent views on this controversial subject were voiced at the Symposium, from op-ed columnist Joe Nocera of the New York Times (a vociferous critic...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My half a decade in Georgia Tech was the most precious and valuable time in my life. This dissertation is the result of not only countless nights to roll carts out, but also unconditional support from my beloved wife and daughter. I wouldn't have been able to stand here without their love and sacrifice. Numerous people have helped and supported me to complete this dissertation. ...

Roy Bahl, Jorge Martinez–Vazquez, & Sally Wallace The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA, 30303 Abstract Economists have devoted relatively little attention to explaining why some state and local governments choose more progressive fiscal instruments than others. This paper provides an empirical model to identify the determinants of income redistribution...

Constrained global types are a powerful means to represent agent interaction protocols. In our recent research we demonstrated that they can be used to represent complex protocols in a very compact way, and we exploited them to dynamically verify correct implementation of a protocol in a real MAS framework, Jason. The main drawback of our previous approach is the full centralization of the moni...

More than 27 years of high precision satellite altimetry enables analysis recent changes in global mean sea level (GMSL). Several previous studies present estimates the trend and acceleration GMSL; however, all are exclusively performed with data from TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2 Jason-3 missions (TPJ data). In this study we extend record both time space by including independent ERS-1, ERS-...

This thesis focuses on the problem of extracting information from informal communication. Textual informal communication, such as e-mail, bulletin boards and blogs, has become a vast information resource. However, such information is poorly organized and difficult for a computer to understand due to lack of editing and structure. Thus, techniques which work well for formal text, such as newspap...