Dialogue in team formation: a formal approach

Frank Dignum
   Faculty of Mathematics and Computing Science
   Technical University Eindhoven
   P.O. Box 513,  5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
   e-mail: dignum@win.tue.nl 
Tel: +31-40-2473705, Fax: +31-40-2463992

Barbara Dunin-Keplicz
    Institute of Informatics Warsaw University
    Banacha 2,   02-097 Warsaw, Poland
    E-mail: keplicz@mimuw.edu.pl 
Tel: +48 22 6584594, Fax: +48 22 6583164
  
Rineke Verbrugge
   Cognitive Science and Engineering
   University of Groningen
   Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, 9712 TS Groningen, The Netherlands
     E-mail: rineke@tcw2.ppsw.rug.nl
Tel: +31-50-3636334, Fax: +31-50-3636784
      

ABSTRACT

The process of cooperative problem solving can be
divided into four stages. First, finding potential team members,
then forming a team followed by constructing a plan for that
team. Finally, the plan is executed by the team. Traditionally,
very simple protocols like the Contract Net protocol are used
for performing the first two stages of the process. And often
the team is already taken for granted. In an open environment
(like in e.g. electronic commerce) however, there can be
discussion among the agents in order to form a team that can
achieve the collective goal of solving the problem. For these
cases fixed protocols like contract net do not suffice. In this
paper we present an alternative solution, using structured
dialogues that can be shown to lead to the required team
formation. The dialogues are described formally (using some
modal logics), thus making it possible to actually prove that a
certain dialogue has a specific outcome.