1. Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents
August 2004
Chapter 17: Organizations
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents – Munindar P. Singh and Michael N. Huhns, Wiley, 2005
© Singh & Huhns

2. Highlights of this Chapter
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents
August 2004
Highlights of this Chapter
Contracts
Spheres of Commitment
Policies
Negotiation  Omitted
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
© Singh & Huhns

3. Why Organizations?
Computational representation inspired by human organizations
Map to business partners providing or using services
Promote coherence in interactions
Offer a conceptually natural, high-level basis for understanding and designing service interactions
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

4. Organizations Organizations nest, though usually not as trees
All organizations are agents
Some agents are organizations
Organizations help overcome limitations of individuals in
Reasoning
Capabilities
Perception
Lifetime, persistence
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

5. Three Kinds of Organizations
Concrete (instantiated): agents playing roles
Configured, run-time concept
Abstract (templates): roles and relationships among roles
Design-time concept
Institutions: part abstract and part concrete
Run-time concept, but the membership can change
Example: eBay
Buyers and sellers can change
But eBay itself is a fixed participant
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

6. Legal Abstractions Contracts Directed obligations Hohfeldian concepts
Compliance
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

7. Contracts as Service Agreements
Contracts structure interactions (i.e., service engagements) among autonomous parties
People and corporations
Governmental agencies
Compare with contracts in programming
Each needs a computational representation
Key questions: how to create, modify, perform, or monitor contracts
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

8. Motivation for Contracts
Provide a basis for service agreements
Crucial in open environments
Emphasize public behavior: observable by others
Constrain behavior: limit autonomy
Mostly disregard internal implementations, thus supporting heterogeneity
May expose some implementation
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

9. Legal Concepts
Inherently multiagent: about interactions among autonomous parties
Directed obligations
One party being obliged to another party
Multiagent flavor
Contrast with traditional deontic logic
Zero-agent: it is obligatory that …
One-agent: you are obliged to do …
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

10. Rights The rights or claims a party has on another party
Not the right (ethical) thing to do
The claims of one party are the duties of another: claim is a correlate of duty
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

11. Hohfeldian Concepts: 1 The term right is used ambiguously
Sixteen concepts distinguish the main situations:
Four main concepts
Their correlates
Their negations
Their negations’ correlates
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

12. Hohfeldian Concepts: 2 Claim-duty: as above
Privilege-exposure: freedom from the claims of another agent
Power-liability: when an agent can change the claim-duty relationship of another agent
Immunity-disability: freedom from the power of another agent
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

13. Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents
August 2004
Commitments
A commitment
Involves three parties: a debtor commits to a creditor within an organizational context
Is scoped by its (organizational) context
May be manipulated, subject to additional commitments
Is public (unlike beliefs)
Commitments provide
Flexible interactions, thus promoting coherence
A basis for judging compliance
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
© Singh & Huhns

14. Manipulating Commitments
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents
August 2004
Manipulating Commitments
Operations on commitments:
Create
Discharge (satisfy)
Cancel
Release (eliminate)
Delegate (change debtor)
Assign (change creditor)
Metacommitments constrain the manipulation of commitments
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
© Singh & Huhns

15. Commitments for Contracts
A contract is a set of related commitments
Provides a notional context to the commitments
Applies between specified parties, in a context (e.g., UCC, real-estate, Internet commerce)
In contrast to commitments, other approaches:
Single-agent focused, e.g., deontic logic
Don’t handle organizational aspects of contracts
Don’t accommodate manipulation of contracts
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

16. SoCom: Sphere of Commitment
A computational abstraction based on organizations
An institution with additional features
Involves roles (abstract) or agents (concrete)
A witness for the commitment
Trusted party to decide satisfaction or violation
A locus for testing compliance and enforcing corrections (e.g., compensation)
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

17. Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents
August 2004
SoComs and Structure
A SoCom inherits policies from surrounding (contextual) SoCom
E.g., UCC applies to commercial interactions
Inherited policies can conflict because of
Nonunique nesting
When agents play multiple roles
- Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
© Singh & Huhns

18. Virtual Enterprises (VE)
A VE offers commitments beyond those of its members to support business atomicity
Sellers come together with a new proxy agent called VE
Example of VE agent commitments:
Entertain order updates
Notify on change of order
Price guarantee
Delivery date guarantee
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

19. A Selling VE (Composition Example)
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

20. Teams Tightly knit organizations Goals shared by all team members
Commitments to help team members
Commitments to adopt additional roles and offer capabilities on behalf of a disabled member
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

21. Teamwork When a team carries out some complex activity
Negotiating what to do
Monitoring actions jointly
Supporting each other
Repairing plans
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns

22. Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents
August 2004
Chapter 17 Summary
Organizations are a natural metaphor for understanding and designing systems of services
Organizations provide a basis for realizing coherent interactions
Legal and contractual concepts such as commitments
Teamwork
Understanding and formalizing negotiation
Chapter 17
Service-Oriented Computing: Semantics, Processes, Agents - Munindar Singh and Michael Huhns
© Singh & Huhns