OWL-DL as a Power Tool to Model Negotiation Mechanisms with Incomplete Information

We propose a logic-based framework to model negotiations among agents in scenarios with fully incomplete information. In particular, we address multi-issue bilateral negotiations, with issues are expressed and related to each other via an OWL ontology. In particular we use OWL-DL sub-language and exploit its formal semantics, based on SHOIN (D). Agents goals are expressed through OWL-DL as (complex) concept expressions, and the worth of goals as weights over concepts. Noteworthily, we adopt a very general setting with incomplete information by letting agents keep both goals and worths of goals as private information. Moreover we propose a protocol for agents to negotiate on and reach an agreement, exploiting inference services. Agents, according to the protocol, can pursue different sets of strategies —depending on their type— and we illustrate and motivate two possible strategies.