Modeling Institutions in Socio-Ecosystems

Abstract

In socio-ecosystems, human activities are structured in time and space by interactions between different regulatory systems with different collective goals. These regulatory systems are modeled by institutions and organizations, and the regulatory mechanisms by norms applied to agents in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). However, little is said about sharing resources, space and time. In particular, temporal and spatial expressivity is often limited in MAS for institutions and norms. This research proposes an institutional MAS model capable of representing multiple institutions and norms in the socio-ecosystem, in order to account for the multiplicity of interactions through agents, resources, space and time. We propose an extension of Descriptive Logic for the description of institutions and norms, and use Allen's algebra and the RCC8 to represent time and space. The resulting model allows us to know the norms applicable to an agent located socially, spatially and temporally.