A generic ontology of rational negotiation

Abstract

The paper presents the generic conceptual framework for modeling rational negotiation processes. The central piece of the presented work is the upper-level negotiation ontology. This ontology is designed to be capable to model the arbitrary types of negotiation dialogues by providing the upper-level namespace for that. The models of the specific negotiation types refine this namespace by providing the instances of its concepts, applying additional restrictions on the properties, possibly adding new subclasses and properties. The approach to model negotiations with the Generic Negotiation Ontology (GNO) is initially evaluated by applying to contracting negotiation type. The choice of the negotiation type for the evaluation is suggested by the fact that contracting negotiations are the typical encounters among the agents taking part in the simulation of a Dynamic Engineering Design Process (DEDP). This modeling activity is performed in the frame of our PSI project1.