Title page for ETD etd-11032003-140115

Type of Document

Master's Thesis

Author

Chopra, Amit Khushwant,

URN

etd-11032003-140115

Title

Nonmonotonic Commitment Machines

Degree

Master of Science

Graduate Program

Computer Science

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name	Title
Dr Munindar P. Singh	Committee Chair
Dr. R. Michael Young	Committee Member
Dr. Rada Chirkova	Committee Member

Keywords

ecommerce
protocols
agents
commitments
logic

Date of Defense

2003-10-20

Availability

unrestricted

Abstract

Protocols in open and dynamic multiagent systems cannot be modeled via
formalisms such as finite state machines (FSMs). FSMs though formal,
lack content, that is, a protocol-level semantics, which leads to
rigidity in protocols. We propose formalism called Nonmonotonic
Commitment Machines (NCMs) for representing protocols. An NCM gives a
commitment-based semantics to actions and states in a protocol.
Protocols represented as NCMs afford the agent flexibility in
interactions with other agents. In particular, situations in protocols
when nonmonotonic reasoning is required can be efficiently represented
in NCMs. For applications that need efficient execution, we show how
to compile an NCM into an FSM and prove the compilation to be sound
and complete.

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