Computational Logic in Multi-Agent Systems

Multi-agent systems are communities of problem-solving entities that can exhibit varying degrees of intelligence. They can perceive and react to their environment, they can have individual or joint goals, for which they can plan and execute actions. Work on such systems integrates many technologies and concepts in - ti?cial intelligence and other areas of computing as well as other disciplines. The agent paradigm has become widely popular and widely used in recent years, due to its applicability to a large range of domains, from search engines to edu- tional aids to electronic commerce and trade, e-procurement, recommendation systems, simulation and routing, and ambient intelligence, to cite only some. Computational logic provides a well-de?ned, general, and rigorous framework for studying syntax, semantics, and procedures for various capabilities and fu- tionalities of individual agents, as well as interaction amongst agents in multi-agent systems. It also provides a well-de?ned and rigorous framework for implemen- tions, environments, tools, and standards, and for linking together speci?cation and veri?cation of properties of individual agents and multi-agent systems. The CLIMA workshop series was founded to provide a forum for discussing, presenting, and promoting computational logic-based approaches in the design, development, analysis, and application of multi-agent systems.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Computational Logic for Multi-Agent Systems, CLIMA VIII, held in Porto, Portugal, in September 2007 - co-located with ICLP 2008, the International Conference on Logic Programming.

The 14 revised full technical papers and 1 system description paper presented together with 1 invited paper were carefully selected from 33 submissions and went through at least two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The regular papers address topics such as interdependencies and co-ordination of task-based planning in multi-agent systems, interval temporal logic, game theoretic concepts for reasoning about rational agents, proof theory for multi-agent epistemic logic, transformational semantics for evolving logic programs (EVOLP), programming languages based on BDI models, agent oriented early requirements engineering framework, heuristic algorithms for agent negotiation, as well as argumentation.