Publications on Contract Architecture and Languages
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Jonathan Gelati, Guido Governatori, Antonino Rotolo and Giovanni Sartor.
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Normative Autonomy and Normative Co-ordination: Declarative Power,
Representation, and Mandate.
Artificial Intelligence and Law
12 (1-2): 53-81, 2004.
Copyright © Springer Science
Abstract: In this paper we provide a formal analysis of the
idea of normative co-ordination. We argue that this idea is based on
the assumption that agents can achieve flexible co-ordination by
conferring normative positions to other agents. These positions
include duties, permissions, and powers. In particular, we explain the
idea of declarative power, which consists in the capacity of the
power-holder of creating normative positions, involving other agents,
simply by ``proclaiming'' such positions. In addition, we account also
for the concepts of representation, namely the representative's
capacity of acting in the name of his principal, and of mandate, which
is the mandatee's duty to act as the mandator has requested. Finally,
we show how the framework can be applied to represent the contract-net
protocol. Some brief remarks on future research and applications
conclude this contribution.
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Guido Governatori.
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Representing Business Contracts in RuleML.
International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems
14 (2-3): 181-216, 2005.
Abstract: This paper presents an approach for the
specification and implementation of translating contracts from a
human-oriented form into an executable representation for
monitoring. This will be done in the setting of The task of monitoring
contract execution and performance requires a logical account of
deontic and defeasible aspects of legal language; currently such
aspects are not covered by accordingly we show how to extend it to
cover such notions. From its logical form, the contract will be thus
transformed into a machine readable rule notation and eventually
implemented as executable semantics via any mark-up languages
depending on the client's preference, for contract monitoring
purposes.
- Guido Governatori.
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A
logic framework of normative-based contract management.
In Satoshi Tojo, editor, Fourth International Workshop on
Juris-informatics (JURISIN 2010), November 18-19 2010.
Abstract: In this paper an extended Defeasible Logic framework is
presented to do the representation and reasoning work for the normative-based
contract management. A simple case based on FIDIC is followed as the usage
example. This paper is based on the idea that normative concepts and
normative rules should play the decisive roles in the normative-based
contract management. Those normative concepts and rules are based on the
normative literals and operators like action, obligation, permission and
violation. The normative reduction is based on the normative concepts,
normative connections and normative rules, especially on the superiority
relation over the defeasible rules.
 
- Guido Governatori, Joris Hulstijn, Règis Riveret, and
Antonino Rotolo.
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On the representation of deadlines in a rental agreement.
In Arno R. Lodder and Laurens Mommers, editors, Legal Knowledge and
Information Systems, pages 167-168. IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2007.
Abstract: The paper provides a conceptual analysis of deadlines,
represented in Temporal Modal Defeasible Logic. The typology is based on the
following parameters: kind of deontic operator, maintenance or achievement,
presence of explicit sanctions, and persistence after the deadline. The
adequacy of the typology is validated against a case study of a rental
agreement.
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Guido Governatori and Zoran Milosevic.
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A Formal Analysis of a Business Contract Language.
International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems
15 (4): 659-685, 2006.
Copyright © World Scientific
Abstract: This paper presents a formal system for reasoning
about violations of obligations in contracts. The system is based on
the formalism for the representation of contrary-to-duty
obligations. These are the obligations that take place when other
obligations are violated as typically applied to penalties in
contracts. The paper shows how this formalism can be mapped onto the
key policy concepts of a contract specification language, called
Business Contract Language (BCL), previously developed to express
contract conditions for run time contract monitoring. The aim of this
mapping is to establish a formal underpinning for this key subset of
BCL.
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Guido Governatori and Zoran Milosevic.
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Dealing with contract violations: formalism and domain specific language.
9th International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing
Conference (EDOC 2005), Enschede, NL, September 19-23. pages 46-57.
IEEE Computer Society, 2005.
Copyright © IEEE
Abstract: This paper presents a formal system for reasoning
about violations of obligations in contracts. The system is based on
the formalism for the representation of contrary-to-duty
obligations. These are the obligations that take place when other
obligations are violated as typically applied to penalties in
contracts. The paper shows how this formalism can be mapped onto the
key policy concepts of a contract specification language. This
language, called Business Contract Language (BCL) was previously
developed to express contract conditions of relevance for run time
contract monitoring. The aim of this mapping is to establish a formal
underpinning for this key subset of BCL.
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Guido Governatori and Zoran Milosevic.
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An Approach for Validating BCL Contract Specifications.
In Claudio Bartolini, Guido Governatori and Zoran Milosevic, editor,
2nd EDOC Workshop on Contract Architectures and Languages (CoALA
2005),Enschede, NL, 20 September, 2005.
Abstract: We continue the study, started in [5], on the
formal relationships between a domain specific contract language (BCL)
and the logic of violation (FCL) proposed in [6,7]. We discuss the use
of logical methods for the representation and analysis of business
contracts. The proposed analysis is based on the notions of normal and
canonical forms of contracts expressed in FCL. Finally we present a
mapping from FCL to BCL that can be used to provide an executable
model of a formal representation of a contract.
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Guido Governatori, Zoran Milosevic and Shazia Sadiq.
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Compliance checking between business processes and business contracts.
In Patrick C. K. Hung, editor,
10th International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing
Conference (EDOC 2006), Hong Kong, 16-20 October. pages 221-232.
IEEE Computing Society, 2006.
Copyright © IEEE
Abstract: It is a typical scenario that many organisations have
their business processes specified independently of their business
contracts. This is because of the lack of guidelines and tools that
facilitate derivation of processes from contracts but also because of
the traditional mindset of treating contracts separately from business
processes. This paper provides a solution to one specific problem that
arises from this situation, namely the lack of mechanisms to check
whether business processes are compliant with business contracts. The
central part of the paper are logic based formalism for describing
both the semantics of contract and the semantics of compliance
checking procedures.
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Guido Governatori, Zoran Milosevic, Shazia Sadiq and Maria Orlowska.
- On Compliance of business processes with business
contracts
Technical Report, School of Information Technology and
Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland.
2006.
Abstract:
This paper addresses the problem of ensuring compliance of business
processes, implemented within and across organisational boundaries,
with the constraints stated in related business contracts. In order
to deal with the complexity of this problem we propose two solutions
that allow for a systematic and increasingly automated support for
addressing two specific compliance issues. One solution provides a
set of guidelines for progressively transforming contract conditions
into business processes that are consistent with contract conditions
thus avoiding violation of the rules in contract. Another solution
compares rules in business contracts and rules in business processes
to check for possible inconsistencies. Both approaches rely on a
computer interpretable representation of contract conditions that
embodies contract semantics. This semantics is described in terms of
a logic based formalism allowing for the description of obligations,
prohibitions, permissions and violations conditions in
contracts. This semantics was based on an analysis of typical
building blocks of many commercial, financial and government
contracts. The study proved that our contract formalism
provides a good foundation for describing key types of conditions in
contracts, and has also given several insights into valuable
transformation techniques and formalisms needed to establish better
alignment between these two, traditionally separate areas of
research and endeavour. The study also revealed a number of new
areas of research, some of which we intend to address in near
future.
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Guido Governatori and Duy Hoang Pham.
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DR-CONTRACT: An Architecture for e-Contracts in Defeasible Logic.
In Claudio Bartolini, Guido Governatori and Zoran Milosevic, editors,
2nd EDOC Workshop on Contract Architectures and Languages (CoALA
2005), Enschede, NL, 20 September. 2005.
Abstract: In this paper we present an architecture to
represent and reason on e-Contracts based on the DR-device
architecture supplemented with a deontic defeasible logic of
violation. We motivate the choice for the logic and we show how to
extend RuleML to capture the notions relevant to describe e-contracts
for a monitoring perspective in Defeasible Logic.
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Guido Governatori and Duy Hoang Pham.
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A Semantic Web Based Architecture for e-Contracts in Defeasible Logic.
In Asaf Adi, Suzette Stoutenburg and Said Tabet, editors
First International Conference on Rules and Rule Markup Languages
for the Semantic Web, (RuleML 2005), Galway, Ireland, November
10-12. pages 145-159. LNAI 3791. Springer, Berlin, 2005.
Copyright © Springer
Abstract: We introduce the DR-CONTRACT architecture to
represent and reason on e-Contracts. The architecture extends the
DR-device architecture by a deontic defeasible logic of violation. We
motivate the choice for the logic and we show how to extend to capture
the notions relevant to describe e-contracts for a monitoring
perspective in Defeasible Logic.
- Guido Governatori and Duy Hoang Pham.
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DR-CONTRACT: An Architecture for e-Contracts in Defeasible
Logic.
International Journal of Business Process Integration and
Management, 5(4), 2009.
Abstract: We introduce the DR-CONTRACT architecture to represent
and reason on e-Contracts. The architecture extends the DR-device
architecture by a deontic defeasible logic of violation. We motivate the
choice for the logic and we show how to extend RuleML to capture the notions
relevant to describe e-contracts for a monitoring perspective in Defeasible
Logic.
 
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Guido Governatori and Antonino Rotolo.
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Modelling Contracts Using RuleML.
In Thomas Gordon, editor,
Legal Knowledge and Information Systems
pages 141-150.
Frontieres in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 120.
IOS Press, Amsterdam, 2004.
Abstract: This paper presents an approach for the specification
and implementation of e-contracts for Web monitoring. This is done in
the setting of RuleML. We argue that monitoring contract
execution requires also a logical account of deontic concepts and of
violations. Accordingly, RuleML is extended to cover these
aspects.
- Guido Governatori and Antonino Rotolo.
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A
conceptually rich model of business process compliance.
In Sebastian Link and Aditya Ghose, editors, 7th Asia-Pacific Conference
on Conceptual Modelling (APCCM 2010), CRPIT. ACS, 2010.
Abstract: In this paper we extend the preliminary work developed
elsewhere and investigate how to characterise many aspects of the compliance
problem in business process modeling. We first define a formal and
conceptually rich language able to represent, and reason about, chains of
reparational obligations of various types. Second, we devise a mechanism for
normalising a system of legal norms. Third, we specify a suitable language
for business process modeling able to automate and optimise business
procedures and to embed normative constraints. Fourth, we develop an
algorithm for compliance checking and discuss some computational issues
regarding the possibility of checking compliance runtime or of enforcing it
at design time.
 
- Aqueo Kamada, Guido Governatori, and Shazia Sadiq.
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Transformation of SBVR compliant business rules to executable FCL rules.
In Mike Dean, John Hall, Antonino Rotolo, and Said Tabet, editors, RuleML
2010: 4th International Web Rule Symposium, number 6403 in LNCS, pages
151-159, Berlin, 2010. Springer. © 2010 Springer.
Abstract: The main source of changing requirements of the dynamic
business environment is response to changes in regulations and contracts
towards which businesses are obligated to comply. At the same time, many
organizations have their business processes specified independently of their
business obligations (which include adherence to contracts laws and
regulations). Thus, the problem of mapping business changes into
computational systems becomes much more complicated. In this paper we address
the problem by providing an automated transformation of business rules into a
formal language capable of directly mapping onto executable specifications.
The model transformation is consistent with MDA/MOF/QVT concepts using ATL to
perform the mapping. Business rules are compliant to SBVR metamodel, and are
transformed into FCL, a logic based formalism, known to have a direct mapping
onto executable specifications. Both, source and target rules are based on
principles of deontic logic, the core of which are obligations, permissions
and prohibitions.
 
- Guido Governatori and Giovanni Sartor.
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Burdens
of proof in monological argumentation.
In Radboud Winkels, editor, Legal Knowledge and Information Systems JURIX
2010: The Twenty-Third Annual Conference, Frontiers in Artificial
Intelligence and Applications, Amsterdam, 2010. IOS Press.
Abstract: We shall argue that burdens of proof are relevant also
to monological reasoning, i.e., for deriving the conclusions of a
knowledge-base allowing for conflicting arguments. Reasoning with burdens of
proof can provide a useful extension of current argument-based non-monotonic
logics, at least a different perspective on them. Firstly we shall provide an
objective characterisation of burdens of proof, assuming that burdens
concerns rule antecedents (literals in the body of rules), rather than
agents. Secondly, we shall analyse the conditions for a burden to be
satisfied, by considering credulous or skeptical derivability of the
concerned antecedent or of its complement. Finally, we shall develop a method
for developing inferences out of a knowledge base merging rules and proof
burdens in the framework of defeasible logic.
 
- Kalliopi Kravari, Grammati-Eirini Kastori, Nick
Bassiliades, and Guido Governatori.
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A
contract agreement policy-based workflow methodology for agents interacting
in the semantic web.
In Mike Dean, John Hall, Antonino Rotolo, and Said Tabet, editors, RuleML
2010: 4th International Web Rule Symposium, number 6403 in LNCS, pages
223-237, Berlin, 2010. Springer. Copyrigth © 2010 Springer.
Abstract: The Semantic Web aims at automating Web content
understanding and user request satisfaction. Intelligent agents assist
towards this by performing complex actions on behalf of their users into
real-life applications, such as e-Contracts, which make transactions simple
by modeling the processes involved. This paper, presents a policy-based
workflow methodology for efficient contract agreement among agents
interacting in the Semantic Web. In addition, we present the integration of
this methodology into a multi-agent knowledge-based framework, providing
flexibility, reusability and interoperability of behavior between agents. The
main advantage of our approach is that it provides a safe, generic, and
reusable framework for modeling and monitoring e-Contract agreements, which
could be used for different types of on-line transactions among agents.
Furthermore, our framework is based on Semantic Web and FIPA standards, to
maximize interoperability and reusability. Finally, an e-Commerce contract
negotiation scenario is presented that illustrates the usability of the
approach.
 
- Miao Wang and Guido Governatori.
- A Logic
Framework of Normative-based Contract Management. Formal Methods in
Electronic Commerce 2007. Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. June 4,
2007.
Abstract: We explore of the feasibility of the
computationally oriented institutional agency framework proposed by
Governatori and Rotolo testing it against an industrial strength scenario. In
particular we show how to encode in defeasible logic the dispute resolution
policy described in Article 67 of FIDIC.