From Signed Information to Belief in Multi-Agent Systems

The aim of this paper is to propose a logical framework for reasoning about signed information. That is, as long as agents receive information in a multi-agent system, they keep track of the information source. The main advantage is that by considering a reliability relation over the sources of information, agents can justify their own current belief state. Agents believe at first information issued from the most reliable sources. Keeping track of belief’s origin also enables agents to improve communication by asking and gaining details about exchanged information. This is a key issue in trust handling and improvement: an agent believes some statement because it may justify the statement’s origin and its reliability.