FOUNDATION FOR INTELLIGENT
PHYSICAL AGENTS
FIPA Inform Ref Communicative Act Specification
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Document title |
FIPA Inform Ref Communicative Act Specification |
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Document number |
DC00048A |
Document source |
FIPA TC C |
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Document status |
Deprecated |
Date of this status |
2000/10/16 |
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Supersedes |
None |
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Contact |
fab@fipa.org |
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Change history |
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2000/10/16 |
Deprecated by FIPA00037 |
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© 2000 Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents - http://www.fipa.org/
Geneva, Switzerland
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Notice |
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Use of the technologies described in this specification may infringe
patents, copyrights or other intellectual property rights of FIPA Members and
non-members. Nothing in this specification should be construed as granting
permission to use any of the technologies described. Anyone planning to make
use of technology covered by the intellectual property rights of others
should first obtain permission from the holder(s) of the rights. FIPA
strongly encourages anyone implementing
any part of this specification to determine first whether part(s)
sought to be implemented are covered by the intellectual property of others,
and, if so, to obtain appropriate licenses or other permission from the
holder(s) of such intellectual property prior to implementation. This
specification is subject to change without notice. Neither FIPA nor any of
its Members accept any responsibility whatsoever for damages or liability,
direct or consequential, which may result from the use of this specification. |
Foreword
The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents
(FIPA) is an international organization that is dedicated to promoting the
industry of intelligent agents by openly developing specifications supporting
interoperability among agents and agent-based applications. This occurs through
open collaboration among its member organizations, which are companies and
universities that are active in the field of agents. FIPA makes the results of
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its results to the appropriate formal standards bodies.
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collectively committed to open competition in the development of agent-based
applications, services and equipment. Membership in FIPA is open to any
corporation and individual firm, partnership, governmental body or
international organization without restriction. In particular, members are not
bound to implement or use specific agent-based standards, recommendations and
FIPA specifications by virtue of their participation in FIPA.
The FIPA specifications are developed through
direct involvement of the FIPA membership. The status of a specification can be
either Preliminary, Experimental, Standard, Deprecated or Obsolete. More detail about the process of
specification may be found in the FIPA Procedures for Technical Work. A
complete overview of the FIPA specifications and their current status may be
found in the FIPA List of Specifications. A list of terms and abbreviations
used in the FIPA specifications may be found in the FIPA Glossary.
FIPA is a non-profit association registered in
Geneva, Switzerland. As of January 2000, the 56 members of FIPA represented 17 countries worldwide. Further
information about FIPA as an organization, membership information, FIPA
specifications and upcoming meetings may be found at http://www.fipa.org/.
Contents
This document specifies
the Inform Ref communicative act which is compliant to [FIPA00037]
requirements.
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Summary |
A macro action for sender to inform the receiver the object which corresponds to a descriptor, for example, a name. |
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Content |
An object description (a referential expression). |
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Description |
The inform-ref macro action allows the sender to inform the receiver some object that the sender believes corresponds to a descriptor, such as a name or other identifying description. Inform-ref is a macro action, since it corresponds to a (possibly infinite) disjunction of inform acts (see [FIPA00046]), each of which informs the receiver that “the object corresponding to name is x” for some given x. For example, an agent can plan an inform-ref of the current time to agent j, and then perform the act “inform j that the time is 10.45”. The agent performing the act should believe that the object or set of objects corresponding to the reference expression is the one supplied, and should not believe that the receiver of the act already knows which object or set of objects corresponds to the reference expression. The agent may elect to send a refuse message (see [FIPA00055]) if it is unable to establish the preconditions of the act. |
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Formal
Model |
<i, inform-ref(j, Ref
x d(x))>º
<i, Inform(j, Ref x d(x) = r1)>
| ... |
(<i, Inform(j, Ref x d(x) = rk)>
FP: Brefi Ref x d(x)
Ù ØBi(Brefj Ref x d(x)
Ú Urefj Ref
x d(x)) Note that Ref x d(x) is one of the referential expressions: ix d(x), any x d(x) or all x d(x). Inform-ref represents an unbounded, possibly infinite set of possible courses
of action, in which i informs j of the referent of x. |
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Example |
Agent i requests j to tell it the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. (request
(iota ?x (UKPrimeMinister ?x)) Agent j replies: (inform
(= (iota ?x (UKPrimeMinister ?x)) "Tony Blair") Note that a standard abbreviation for the
request (see [FIPA00057]) of inform-ref used in this example is the
act query-ref (see [FIPA00054]). |
[FIPA00037] FIPA Communicative
Act Library Specification. Foundation for Intelligent
Physical Agents, 2000. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00037/
[FIPA00046] FIPA Inform
Communicative Act Specification. Foundation for
Intelligent Physical Agents, 2000. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00046/
[FIPA00054] FIPA Query Ref
Communicative Act Specification. Foundation for
Intelligent Physical Agents, 2000. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00054/
[FIPA00055] FIPA Refuse
Communicative Act Specification. Foundation for
Intelligent Physical Agents, 2000. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00055/
[FIPA00057] FIPA Request Communicative Act Specification. Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents, 2000. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00057/