FOUNDATION FOR INTELLIGENT PHYSICAL AGENTS

 

 

FIPA Refuse Communicative Act Specification

 

Document title

FIPA Refuse Communicative Act Specification

Document number

DC00055B

Document source

FIPA TC C

Document status

Deprecated

Date of this status

2001/08/10

Supersedes

None

Contact

fab@fipa.org

Change history

2000/10/16

Deprecated by FIPA00037

2001/08/10

Line numbering added

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2000 Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents - http://www.fipa.org/

Geneva, Switzerland

Notice

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 its activities available to all interested parties and intends to contribute its results to the appropriate formal standards bodies.

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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 17countries worldwide. Further information about FIPA as an organization, membership information, FIPA specifications and upcoming meetings may be found at http://www.fipa.org/.

Contents

1     Scope. 3

2     Refuse. 3

3     References. 3

1         Scope

This document specifies the Refuse communicative act that is compliant to [FIPA00037] requirements.

 

2         Refuse

Summary

The action of refusing to perform a given action, and explaining the reason for the refusal.

Content

A tuple, consisting of an action expression and a proposition giving the reason for the refusal.

Description

The refuse act is an abbreviation for denying (strictly speaking, disconfirming - see [FIPA00044]) that an act is possible for the agent to perform, and stating the reason why that is so.

 

The refuse act is performed when the agent cannot meet all of the preconditions for the action to be carried out, both implicit and explicit. For example, the agent may not know something it is being asked for, or another agent requested an action for which it has insufficient privilege.

 

The agent receiving a refuse act is entitled to believe that:

 

·         the action has not been done,

 

·         the action is not feasible (from the point of view of the sender of the refusal), and,

 

·         the (causal) reason for the refusal is represented by the a proposition which is the third term of the tuple, (which may be the constant true). There is no guarantee that the reason is represented in a way that the receiving agent will understand: it could be a textual error message. However, a co-operative agent will attempt to explain the refusal constructively.

Formal Model

<i, refuse(j, <i, act>, f)> º

  <i, disconfirm(j, Feasible(<i, act>))>;

  <i, inform(j, fÙØDone(<i, act>) ÙØIi Done(<i, act>))>

    FP : BiØFeasible(<i, act>) Ù Bi (Bj Feasible(<i, act>) Ú

         Uj Feasible(<i, act>)) Ù BiaÙØBi (BifjaÚ Uifja)

    RE : BjØFeasible(<i, act>) Ù Bja

 

Where:

 

  a = fÙØDone(<i, act>) ÙØIi Done(<i, act>)

 

Agent i informs j that action act is not feasible, and further that, because of proposition f, act has not been done and i has no intention to do act.

Example

Agent j refuses to i reserve a ticket for i, since i there are insufficient funds in i's account.

 

(refuse

  :sender j

  :receiver i

  :content

    ((action j

      (reserve-ticket LHR MUC 27-sept-97))

     (insufficient-funds ac12345))

  :language FIPA-SL)

                                                            


3         References

[FIPA00037]      FIPA Communicative Act Library Specification. Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents, 2000. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00037/

[FIPA00044]      FIPA Disconfirm Communicative Act Specification. Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents, 2000. http://www.fipa.org/specs/fipa00044/