In argument-based inquiry, agents jointly construct arguments supporting or attacking a topic claim to find out if the claim can be accepted given the agents' knowledge bases. While such inquiry systems can be used for various forms of automated information intake, several efficiency issues have so far prevented widespread application. In this paper, we aim to tackle these efficiency issues by exploring the notion of stability: can additional information change the justification status of the claim under discussion? Detecting stability is not tractable for every input, since the problem is CoNP-complete, yet in practical applications it is essential to guarantee efficient computation. This makes approximation a viable alternative. We present a sound approximation algorithm that recognises stability for many inputs in polynomial time and discuss several of its properties. In particular, we show that the algorithm is sound and identify constraints on the input under which it is complete. As a final contribution of this paper, we describe how the proposed algorithm is used in three different case studies at the Netherlands Police.

In this paper we describe a method for efficient argument-based inquiry. In this method, an agent creates arguments for and against a particular topic by matching argumentation rules with observations gathered by querying the environment. To avoid making superfluous queries, the agent needs to determine if the acceptability status of the topic can change given more information. We define a notion of stability, where a structured argumentation setup is stable if no new arguments can be added, or if adding new arguments will not change the status of the topic. Because determining stability requires hypothesizing over all future argumentation setups, which is computationally very expensive, we define a less complex approximation algorithm and show that this is a sound approximation of stability. Finally, we show how stability (or our approximation of it) can be used in determining an optimal inquiry policy, and discuss how this policy can be used to, for example, determine a strategy in an argument-based inquiry dialogue.

The number of messages that the Netherlands National Police (NNP) receives (e.g. from international partner institutes and citizens) grows steadily every year. The NNP has initiated a number of projects to develop artificial intelligence systems that assist in the processing of such messages. In this demo, we show a prototype of one such system that will be used for supporting the processing of messages from international (Interpol) partners.

Autonomous vehicles will most likely participate in traffic in the near future. The advent of autonomous vehicles allows us to explore innovative ideas for traffic control such as norm-based traffic control. A norm is a violable rule that describes correct behavior. Norm-based traffic controllers monitor traffic and effectuate sanctions in case vehicles violate norms. In this paper, we present an extension of SUMO that enables the user to apply norm-based traffic controllers to traffic simulations. In our extension, named TrafficMAS, vehicles are capable of making an autonomous decision on whether to comply with norms. We provide a description of the extension, a summary on its implementation and demonstrative experiments.

Dialogue systems attempt to capture aspects of multi-agent communication with the aim of understanding, improving, and automatically recreating such communication. Though there is ample research into the formal aspects of dialogue games for argumentation, actual software and development tools that allow for the deployment of open, multiagent dialogue environments are lacking. This demo presents the first steps towards a development framework for an open multi-agent system in which agents can engage in peer-to-peer argumentation dialogues.

In this paper, we propose a generic specification framework for argumentation dialogue protocols in an open multi-agent system. The specification framework is based on reusable elements – dialogue templates – which are realized as an open-source implementation. We provide operational semantics and show formally how templates can be used to determine the possible dialogues. Furthermore, for open multi-agent systems we need to be able to specify peer-to-peer dialogues, where the agents themselves are in a position to know whether their dialogue actions are legal according to the protocol without relying on central entities, institutes or middleware. We prove that all protocols that can be specified in our framework are peer-to-peer suitable.

Decentralized monitors can be subject to robustness and security risks. Robustness risks include attacks on the monitor’s infrastructure in order to disable parts of its functionality. Security risks include attacks that try to extract information from the monitor and thereby possibly leak sensitive information. Formal methods to analyze the design of a monitor with respect to these issues can help to create more secure designs and/or identify critical parts. In this paper we specify a model for analyzing robustness and security risks for collaborative monitors constructed from a network of local monitors.

This paper focuses on computational mechanisms that control the behavior of autonomous systems at runtime without necessarily restricting their autonomy. We build on existing approaches from runtime verification, control automata, and norm-based systems, and define norm-based controllers that enforce norms by modifying system behavior at runtime to make it norm compliant. For many applications, an autonomous system should comply with a set of norms. We extend our approach to a distributed setting, where a set of norm-based controllers jointly modify the runtime behavior of an autonomous system. The norms that a set of norm-based controllers jointly enforce are investigated and characterized in terms of the norms that are enforced by individual norm-based controllers. We show that a set of norm-based controllers is able to modify the runtime behavior of an autonomous system to make it compliant with all norms that the individual norm-based controllers aim at enforcing.

Various agent-based programming languages and frameworks have been proposed to support the development of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. They have provided a valuable contribution to the identification and operationalisation of agent concepts and abstractions by proposing specific programming constructs. Unfortunately, these contributions have not yet been widely adopted by industry. In this paper, we follow the argument that multi-agent programming technology can find its way to industry by providing a methodology that guides the development of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems in standard programming technology. The proposed methodology explains how some characteristic concepts and abstractions related to autonomous agents and multi-agent systems can be implemented in object-oriented technology. This is done by initiating a Java library of object-oriented design patterns for some characteristic but established programming constructs that have been developed in some agent-based programming languages.

There exists a mismatch between the sort of crime reports that police would prefer to have and the stories people tell when filing a criminal complaint. Modern crimes such as trade fraud can be reported online, but a combination of static interfaces and a followup process that is dependent on manual analysis hamper the intake and investigation process. In this paper, we present our project Intelligence Amplification for Cybercrime (IAC), in which we aim to apply various AI techniques to allow natural dialogues about fraud cases. In this way, different parties such as citizens registering a complaint and police investigators can interface with cases composed of scenarios and evidence through natural language dialogues. This will not only solve an urgent practical problem, but also lead to new insights regarding computational models of evidence assessment.

In this demo we present our progress in the project Intelligence Amplification for Cybercrime (IAC), in which we apply AI techniques to allow natural dialogues for online criminal complaints concerning fraud cases. We show the natural language processing and dialogue modules of the system. The dialogue module allows for mixed-initiative dialogues between human complainants and software agents for crime intake. An interface is provided that allows the complainant to input free text and form elements, which are then integrated into a structured knowledge graph by the NLP module. This knowledge graph then serves as input for the intake agent, who can use it to reason about the incident that has occurred and formulate follow up questions to the user. A paper with full details regarding the background of this demo application has been accepted in the AI4J workshop at ECAI 2016 [2].

Electronic organizations are not operating in an isolated manner. Instead, they form an ecosystem defined by various relationships. We will look at organizations that can share norms and/or a hierarchical bond. Determining what is the set of norms that should be shared and acknowledged among organizations that implement identical concepts, as well as how responsibility is delegated between an organization and sub-organizations, represent issues that require a thorough investigation. This paper presents a taxonomy for the possible relationships that may bind two organizations and defines how the normative specifications are inherited from the abstract concepts of organizations to the actual entities instantiating these concepts.

Dear reader, You are holding in your hands a volume of the series „Reports of the DLR-Institute of Transportation Systems“. We are publishing in this series fascinating, scientific topics from the Institute of Transportation Systems of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. - DLR) and from his environment. We are providing libraries with a part of the circulation. Outstanding scientific contributions and dissertations are here published as well as projects reports and proceedings of conferences in our house with different contributors from science, economy and politics. With this series we are pursuing the objective to enable a broad access to scientific works and results. We are using the series as well as to promote practically young researchers by the publication of the dissertation of our staff and external doctoral candidates, too. Publications are important milestones on the academic career path. With the series „Reports of the DLR-Institute of Transportation Systems / Berichte aus dem DLR-Institut fur Verkehrssystem¬technik“ we are widening the spectrum of possible publications with a bulding block. Beyond that we understand the communication of our scientific fields of research as a contribution to the national and international research landscape in the fiels of automotive, railway systems and traffic management. This volume contains the proceedings of the SUMO2015 – Intermodal Simulation for Intermodal Transport Data, which was held from 7th to 8th May 2015 in Berlin-Adlershof, Germany. SUMO is a well established microscopic traffic simulation suite which has been available since 2002 and provides a wide range of traffic planning and simulation tools. The conference proceedings give a good overview of the applicability and usefulness of simulation tools like SUMO ranging from new methods in traffic control and vehicular communication to the simulation of complete cities. Another aspect of the tool suite, its universal extensibility due to the availability of the source code, is reflected in contributions covering rapid scenario prototyping and interfacing improvements to govern microscopic traffic simulation results. The major topic of this third edition of the SUMO conference is the interaction of different types of traffic and intermodality. Several articles cover heterogeneous traffic networks as well as logistics and pedestrian extensions to the simulation. Subsequent specialized issues such as disaster management aspects and applying agile development techniques to scenario building are targeted as well. The conference’s aim was bringing together the large international user community and exchanging experience in using SUMO, while presenting results or solutions obtained using the software or modeling mobility with open data. Let you inspire to try your next project with the SUMO suite. There are many new applications in your environment. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karsten Lemmer

Runtime verification concerns checking whether a system execution satisfies a given property. In this paper we propose a model for collaborative runtime verification where a network of local monitors collaborates in order to verify properties of the system. A local monitor has only a local view on the execution of the system; thus, it can verify a specific system property with respect to its local view. However, the local monitor can also receive inputs from other local monitors about the evaluation of the properties that they are trying to verify. This information can be combined to allow the verification of more complex properties. A network built from such collaborating local monitors is called a collaborative monitor.

Due to external requirements we cannot always construct a centralized organization, but have to construct one that is distributed. A distributed organization is a network of organizations which can locally observe and control the environment. In this paper we analyze how norms can be enforced through the joint effort of the individual local organizations. Norm violations are detected by monitoring. Sanctioning compensates the violations of norms. The main problem is to map the required data for monitoring, and the required control capabilities for sanctioning, to the local observe/control capabilities of organizations. Our investigation focuses on exploring the solution space of this problem, the properties of proper solutions and practical considerations when developing a solution.

The behavior of agents in multi-agent systems is hard to control without restricting the agents’ autonomy. Normative organizations have been deployed successfully to deal with this. A core requirement of a normative organization is that norm violations can be observed and dealt with. Due to the distributed nature of multi-agent systems it is often fitting that this is done decentrally. In this paper we discuss a decentralized method to monitor whether norms are violated in a multi-agent system. The setting we consider is one where the organization depends on a network of monitors that share observations among each other.

We propose a programming framework for the implementation of norm-aware multi-agent systems . The framework integrates the N-2APL norm-aware agent programming language with the 2OPL organisation programming language. Integration of N-2APL and 2OPL is achieved using a tuple space which represents both the (brute) state of the multi-agent environment and the detached norms and sanctions comprising its normative state. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first implementation of an integrated framework for norm-aware MAS in which autonomous agents deliberate about whether to conform to the norms imposed by a normative organisation. The use of a tuple space makes it straightforward to integrate other system components. To illustrate the flexibility of our framework, we briefly describe its application in a novel normative application, a mixed reality game called GeoSense. We show how GeoSense game rules can be expressed as conditional norms with deadlines and sanctions, and how agents can deliberate about their individual goals and the norms imposed by the game.

Various agent-based programming languages and frameworks have been proposed to support the development of multi-agent systems. They have contributed to the identification and operationalisation of multi-agent system concepts, features and abstractions by proposing specific programming constructs. Unfortunately, these contributions have not yet been widely adopted by industry. In this paper, we follow the argument that multi-agent programming technology can find its way to industry by introducing design patterns for the existing agent constructs in standard software technology. We provide some object-oriented design patterns based on the programming constructs that have been developed in agent-based programming languages.