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Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce pp 126–147Cite as

On the Formal Specification of Electronic Institutions

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1991))

Abstract

In this article we argue that open agent organisations can be effectively designed and implemented as institutionalized electronic organisations (electronic institutions) composed of a vast amount of heterogeneous (human and software) agents playing different roles and interacting by means of speech acts. Here we take the view that the design and development of electronic institutions must be guided by a principled methodology. Along this direction, we advocate for the presence of an underlying formal method that underpins the use of structured design techniques and formal analysis, facilitating development, composition and reuse. For this purpose we propose a specification formalism for electronic institutions that founds their design, analysis and development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, IIIA, Spanish Council for Scientific Research, CSIC, 08193, Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

    Marc Esteva, Juan-Antonio Rodríguez-Aguilar, Carles Sierra, Pere Garcia & Josep L. Arcos

Authors
  1. Marc Esteva
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  2. Juan-Antonio Rodríguez-Aguilar
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  3. Carles Sierra
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  4. Pere Garcia
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  5. Josep L. Arcos
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, P.O.Box 80.089, 3508 TB, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Frank Dignum

  2. IIIA, CSIC Campus UAB, 08193, Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain

    Carles Sierra

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Esteva, M., Rodríguez-Aguilar, JA., Sierra, C., Garcia, P., Arcos, J.L. (2001). On the Formal Specification of Electronic Institutions. In: Dignum, F., Sierra, C. (eds) Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1991. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44682-6_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44682-6_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41671-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44682-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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