Debating over heterogeneous descriptions

Issue title: Formal Ontologies for Communicating Agents

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Morge, Maxime | Routier, Jean-Christophe

Affiliations: Dipartimento di Informatica, University of Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo, 3 I-56127 Pisa, Italy. E-mail: morge@di.unipi.it | Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale de Lille, F-59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France. E-mail: routier@lifl.fr

Abstract: A fundamental interoperability problem is caused by the semantic heterogeneity of agents'ontologies in open multi-agent systems. In this paper, we propose a formal framework for agents debating over heterogeneous terminologies. For this purpose, we propose an argumentation-based representation framework to manage conflicting descriptions. Moreover, we propose a model for the reasoning of agents where they justify the description to which they commit and take into account the description of their interlocutors. Finally, we provide a dialectical system allowing agents to participate in a dialogue in order to reach an agreement over heterogeneous descriptions.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, multiagent systems, dialogue, argumentation, ontology, description logic

Journal: Applied Ontology, vol. 2, no. 3-4, pp. 333-349, 2007