This book addresses the question of how to achieve social coordination in Socio-Cognitive Technical Systems (SCTS). SCTS are a class of Socio-Technical Systems that are complex, open, systems where several humans and digital entities interact in order to achieve some collective endeavour. The book approaches the question from the conceptual background of regulated open multiagent systems, with the question being motivated by their design and construction requirements. The book captures the collective effort of eight groups from leading research centres and universities, each of which has developed a conceptual framework for the design of regulated multiagent systems and most have also developed technological artefacts that support the processes from specification to implementation of that type of systems. The first, introductory part of the book describes the challenge of developing frameworks for SCTS and articulates the premises and the main concepts involved in those frameworks. The second part discusses the eight frameworks and contrasts their main components. The final part maps the new field by discussing the types of activities in which SCTS are likely to be used, the features that such uses will exhibit, and the challenges that will drive the evolution of this field.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the International Workshop on Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms for Governance of Multi-Agent Systems, COINE 2022, which was held in Auckland, New Zealand, on May 9, 2022. The 14 papers included in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 15 submissions. They deal with autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, focusing on the scientific and technological aspects of social coordination, organizational theory, artificial (electronic) institutions, and normative and ethical MAS.

This book compiles the most visionary papers from 10 workshops held at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2017, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in May 2017. The 15 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this volume. They deal with novel ideas proposing a change in the way research is currently carried out.

This book constitutes the revised and selected papers from the 5th International Workshop on Engineering Multi-Agent Systems held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in May 2018, in conjunction with AAMAS 2018. The 11 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 18 submissions. The book contains also the best paper of the workshop that has been published previously in another LNCS volume. The EMAS workshop focusses on the cross-fertilisation of ideas and experiences in the various fields with the aim to enhance knowledge and expertise in MAS engineering , to improve the state-of-the-art, to define new directions for MAS engineering, to investigate how established methodologies for engineering and large-scale and open MAS can be adapted.

This book investigates how various scientific communities – e.g. legal scientists, political scientists, sociologists, mathematicians, and computer scientists – study law and public policies, which are portrayed here as complex systems. Today, research on law and public policies is rapidly developing at the international level, relying heavily on modeling that employs innovative methods for concrete implementation. Among the subject matter discussed, law as a network of evolving and interactive norms is now a prominent sphere of study. Similarly, public policies are now a topic in their own right, as policy can no longer be examined as a linear process; rather, its study should reflect the complexity of the networks of actors, norms and resources involved, as well as the uncertainty or weak predictability of their direct or indirect impacts. The book is divided into three maain parts: complexity faced by jurists, complexity in action and public policies, and complexity and networks. The main themes examined concern codification, governance, climate change, normative networks, health, water management, use-related conflicts, legal regime conflicts, and the use of indicators.

Why are so few electric cars in our streets today? Why is it difficult to introduce electronic patient records in our hospitals? To answer these questions we need to understand how state and non-state actors interact with the purpose of transforming so

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems, PRIMA 2018, held in Tokyo, Japan, in October/November 2018. The 27 full papers presented and 31 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 103 submissions. PRIMA presents subjects in many application domains, particularly in e-commerce, and also in planning, logistics, manufacturing, robotics, decision support, transportation, entertainment, emergency relief and disaster management, and data mining and analytics.