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In the current discussions around Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, we find a lack of theory to conceptualize and understand application scenarios. In this paper we propose to conceptualize distributed ledger technologies as trust mechanisms. Whereas previously one had to rely on a trusted third party (e.g. notary), now one must trust a complex software system – the Blockchain and distributed ledger application– as well as the parties that host the software system and ensure its effectiveness. Based on theories of e-commerce, business networks, and trust, we explore relations between trust and Blockchain design. We analyze three case studies of Blockchain applications in the diamond industry. In each case we study two complementary research questions: (1) how does the blockchain application influence trust, and (2) how do trust based requirements affect the design of a blockchain application? We formulate two propositions and find dynamic interactions between trust requirements, blockchain application design, and transaction trust.

Abstract: Current legal frameworks for data protection are based on public law. They have a number of flaws. The notion of informed consent does not work in practice. Public legislation only covers the protection of personal data, but it doesn’t cover data about groups and it doesn’t cover conditions on usage of data for certain purposes. Moreover, in order to function in practice, businesses need to adopt these conditions as part of privacy policies and processes such as audits and impact assessments. Supervision by means of public entities is limited as regulatory agencies have little capacity. This gives private actors room for designing tools to protect their personal data. In this article, we will therefore suggest to utilize private law instruments for data protection. By incorporating conditions on usage of sensitive data in contracts and by setting up platforms for monitoring contract fulfilment, end users can be empowered to take enforcement into their own hands. We will propose a platform for assisting users in drafting contracts that take data protection into account, and for monitoring contract fulfilment. Feasibility of the proposal is illustrated by an application scenario, the sports tracker app. Résumé: Les cadres juridiques actuels en matière de protection des données sont basés sur le droit public. Ils ont plusieurs inconvénients. La notion de ‘consentement éclairé’ ne fonctionnne pas dans la pratique. La législation de droit public couvre seulement la protection de données personnelles, mais ne couvre pas les données concernant des groupes et ne couvre pas non plus les conditions de l’usage de données dans certains buts. De plus, afin de fonctionner dans la pratique, les entreprises doivent adopter ces conditions comme faisant partie de politiques de protection de la vie privée et de méthodes telles que audits et évaluations d’impact. Le contrôle exercé par des organismes publics est limité car les agences de réglementation ont peu de pouvoirs. Ceci offre la possibilité aux acteurs privés de créer des outils permettant de protéger leurs données personnelles. Par conséquent nous proposons dans cet article d’utilizer des instruments de droit privé pour la protection des données. En incorporant des conditions concernant l’usage de données sensibles dans des contrats et en mettant en place des plateformes permettant de surveiller l’exécution du contrat, l’utilisateur final peut être habilité à se charger lui-même de l’exécution. Nous proposons une plateforme qui aide les utilisateurs à rédiger des contrats qui prennent en compte la protection des données et surveillent l’exécution du contrat. La faisabilité de la proposition est illustrée par un modèle d’application, l’application Sports Tracker.

Tools and techniques for monitoring and auditing continuous streams of data are increasingly being used. However, adoption has only been investigated in the private sector. In this paper we examine the feasibility of continuous auditing and continuous monitoring in the public sector, specifically for municipalities in the Netherlands. A multiple case study is conducted about the opportunities and needs of continuously monitoring and assessing financial data concerning the social domain: care-related and social services, which have recently been decentralized from the national government to the municipal level. Interviews were held with representatives of six municipalities, administrative bodies, and an accounting firm. The research indicates that continuous monitoring is feasible, and that there is a need for continuous monitoring in the public domain. The ease of adoption depends to a large extent on the choice of whether and how a municipality wants to collaborate in offering social domain services.

Much compliance effort concerns adherence to contracts. Parties to a contract need to make sure that the other parties will deliver. To this end they may require additional controls in the business process to monitor delivery and induce contractual penalties when needed. Controls have costs. In this paper the authors argue that introducing fully automated controls will help to reduce control costs, because (i) they can prevent misstatements (compliance by design) or (ii) they increase the quality of evidence and thereby reduce the audit risk for the external auditor and corresponding audit fees. The line of reasoning is illustrated by a case study of the implementation process of automated controls on the procurement process for public transport services for the elderly and disabled. This is a complex and heavily regulated domain. The case study indicates that control automation makes monitoring compliance to contracts in such complex domains feasible and that using control automation can in fact reduce the costs of control.

Designing security measures often involves trade-offs between various types of objectives. Multiple stakeholders may have conflicting demands and may have different ideas on how to resolve the resulting design conflicts. This paper reports on an application of value-sensitive design. Based on argumentation theory and social values, the paper develops a structured approach for discussing design conflicts, called value-based argumentation. The application domain examined in the paper is concerned with physical safety and security issues that arise in cross-border shipments. We first identify the kinds of dialogues that take place in this domain, in particular, audit dialogues to determine whether security measures comply with regulations. Based on argumentation theory we develop a formal language and a diagramming approach intended to facilitate parties in identifying, discussing and reaching agreement about security risks and corresponding mitigation measures. Trade-offs can be dealt with by making underlying values explicit. Using a stylized example, the approach was successfully taught to practitioners working with EU customs regulations. Practitioners generally found the approach helpful, in particular to bring out implicit underlying motivations. We conclude by discussing how our approach can be generalized to other kinds of dialogues involving design conflicts.

Transforming Business-to-Government (B2G) information exchange is a next frontier for reducing government spending while improving performance. This paper examines two different B2G information exchange architectures that reflect continuing transformations that empower some government agencies to do better compliance monitoring tasks with fewer resources. The win for the reporting companies is the lower cost of compliance. Instead of focusing on collecting compliance information from individual companies, the government agencies in this study focus on collecting information on the supply chain level, allowing for automated data reconciliation. Our findings reveal that pushing controls (automated checks) upstream (in company software and data sources) results in more efficiency, higher information quality and reduces redundant controls. The examined architectures exhibit high levels of compliance by design, meaning that many control objectives are by default encompassed in the design. This requires a well-aligned combination of data standardization (using shared syntax and semantics) and automated information processing (using an intelligent gateway between businesses and government agencies). However, achieving such an alignment is a difficult challenge; especially when taking into account that such transformations require solid governance, trust and high initial investments — prerequisites that are rare in many public-private partnerships.

Big data has been acknowledged for its enormous potential. In contrast to the potential, in a recent survey more than half of financial service organizations reported that big data has not delivered the expected value. One of the main reasons for this is related to data quality. The objective of this research is to identify the antecedents of big data quality in financial institutions. This will help to understand how data quality from big data analysis can be improved. For this, a literature review was performed and data was collected using three case studies, followed by content analysis. The overall findings indicate that there are no fundamentally new data quality issues in big data projects. Nevertheless, the complexity of the issues is higher, which makes it harder to assess and attain data quality in big data projects compared to the traditional projects. Ten antecedents of big data quality were identified encompassing data, technology, people, process and procedure, organization, and external aspects.

Companies are required by law to report all kinds of information to various public agencies. Since most public agencies are autonomous and define their information demands independent of each other, companies have to report information to various agencies in different ways. Accordingly, governments are initiating programs that aim to transform business-to government information exchange to reduce the administrative burden for companies and improve the accountability at the same time. Yet little research is available on the type of transformations needed and the role of the infrastructure. Drawing on a case study, this paper investigates the interplay between technical infrastructure and transformation. In this case study an information brokerage infrastructure based on the Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) was developed providing a one stop shop for companies and public agencies. The case study shows that the infrastructure should be flexible enough to accommodate changes over time but stable enough to attract a large user-base. The increase in efficiency and effectiveness of information exchange processes requires extensive transformation from both public and private parties.

Compliance is often achieved 'by design' through a coherent system of controls consisting of information systems and procedures. This system-based control requires a new approach to auditing in which companies must demonstrate to the regulator that they are 'in control'. They must determine the relevance of a regulation for their business, justify which set of control measures they have taken to comply with it, and demonstrate that the control measures are operationally effective. In this paper we show how value-based argumentation theory can be applied to the compliance domain. Corporate values motivate the selection of control measures (actions) which aim to fulfil control objectives, i.e. adopted norms (goals). In particular, we show how to formalize the audit dialogue in which companies justify their compliance decisions to regulators using value-based argunlentation. The approach is illustrated by a case study of the safety and security measures adopted in the context of EU customs regulation.

Customs administrations are exploring system-based approaches to regulatory supervision, taking the entire set of controls in a process into account. In addition to Trusted Traders, which are recognized by a certification process, customs are considering to identify so called Trusted Trade Lanes: companies that collaborate in a trade lane in a reliable manner. In this paper we explore the concept of a trusted trade lane. We identify essential characteristics of a trusted trade-lane, and develop various scenarios in which trade lanes may develop and find ways to demonstrate to the authorities and commercial partners that they conform to these requirements. The characteristics have been evaluated in a workshop with experts. The scenarios are tested against three pilot projects, that aim to improve supply chain visibility. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2016.

Much legal evidence is being generated by and stored in information systems. In this paper we look at evidence from an auditing point of view. Auditors rely on evidence of the party being audited, who may have a legitimate or illegitimate interest to manipulate it. To assess the quality of audit evidence, we argue for an approach called model-based auditing. It is based on a mathematically precise model of the expected relationships between the flow of money and the flow of goods or services. Such equations are used for cross verification. If the equations do not hold, either something is wrong (violation) or some underlying assumption is false (exception). To show the usefulness of the approach, we look in particular at a case study of a legal dispute about automated contract monitoring. A precise revenue model is instrumental in demonstrating that the data set does indeed constitute appropriate evidence to settle the case.

If an organization is to be held accountable for its actions, the public need to know what happened. Organizations must therefore “open up” and provide evidence of performance to stakeholders, such as principals who have delegated tasks, employees, suppliers or clients, or regulators overseeing compliance. The social J. Hulstijn (*) Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands e-mail: j.hulstijn@tudelft.nl B. Burgemeestre Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Pandar, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: brigitte@burgemeestre.nl # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 J. van den Hoven et al. (eds.), Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_12 303 values of transparency – the tendency to be open in communication – and accountability – providing evidence of past actions – are crucial in this respect. More and more aspects of the internal control systems, policies, and procedures to gather evidence of organizational performance are implemented by information systems. Business processes are executed and supported by software applications, which therefore effectively shape the behavior of the organization. Such applications are designed, unlike practices which generally grow. Therefore, it makes sense to take the core values of accountability and transparency explicitly into account during system development. In this chapter we provide an account of the way in which transparency and accountability can be built into the design of business processes, internal controls, and specifically the software applications to support them. We propose to make trade-offs concerning core values explicit, using an approach called valuebased argumentation. The approach is illustrated by a case study of the cooperation between providers of accounting software and the Dutch Tax and Customs Authority to develop a certificate, in order to improve the reliability of accounting software. Widespread adoption of the certificate is expected to stimulate accountability and indeed transparency in the retail sector. Although the approach is developed and tested for designing software, the idea that trade-offs concerning core values can be made explicit by means of a critical dialogue is generic. We believe that any engineering discipline, like civil engineering, water management, or cyber security, could benefit from such a systematic approach to debating core values.

Data analytics promises to detect behavioral patterns, which may be used to improve decision making. However, decisions need to motivated, and they are often motivated by models. In this paper we explore the interplay between data analytics and process modeling, specifically in normative settings. We look specifically at value nets, mathematical models of the flow of money and goods, as used in accounting. Such models can be used to analyze the proportions of various flows, such as resources consumed and products produced. Such analyses can be used in the planning and control cycle, for forecasting, setting a budget, testing and possibly adjusting the budget. In other words, it can be used for adaptive normative modeling. We look in particular at a case study of a provider of public transport services for school children. The case shows that the use of value nets for analysis of proportions is (i) feasible, and (ii) useful, in the sense that it provides valuable new insights about the revenue model.

With increasing international trade and growing emphasis on security and efficiency, enhanced information and data sharing between different stakeholders in global supply chains is required. Currently data quality is not only problematic for traders, but also for various government agencies involved in border control, such as customs authorities and border force. We adapt principles from value cycle modelling in accounting, and show how these principles enabled by ICT can be extended to supply chain management to ensure quality of data reported to customs. We then describe a typical application scenario based on a real but anonymsed case to show that value cycle monitoring can be applied (feasibility), and if applied, what the expected benefits are (usefulness).

The eXtensible Business Reporting Languagea(XBRL) has been developed to standardize financial reporting. It could also improve internal business processes. Yet there is no scientific research to substantiate this claim. In this paper we use discrete-event simulation to determine the impact of XBRL on internal business processes. Simulation models of the existing and possible new situation are developed in a case study within the accounting domain. The redesigned processes are validated in a workshop. XBRL allows the merging of accounting and fiscal reporting processes resulting in a reduction of the duplication of activities and higher information quality. In particular, it is demonstrated that information quality, efficiency and lead-time can be improved by adoption of XBRL. In addition to technology-standardization on XBRL, data-standardization is a necessary precondition for realizing benefits.

Business process compliance with regulations has been a topic of many research areas in Computer Science such as Requirements Engineering RE, Artificial Intelligence AI, Logic and Natural Language Processing NLP. This work aims to provide a systematic way of establishing and managing compliance to assist decision-making and reporting. Despite many notable advances, few systems deal adequately with legal interpretation and modeling norms in an expressive way that is well-integrated with business modeling practices. In this paper, we bring together two leading systems, Legal-URN and Eunomos, for a comprehensive compliance management solution.

Maintaining regulatory compliance is an increasing area of concern for business. Legal Knowledge Management systems that combine repositories of legislation with legal ontologies can support the work of in-house compliance managers. But there are challenges to overcome, of interpreting legal knowledge and mapping that knowledge onto business processes, and developing systems that can adequately handle the complexity with clarity and ease. In this paper we extend the Legal Knowledge Management system Eunomos to deal with alternative interpretations of norms connecting it with Business Process Management systems. Moreover, we propose a workflow involving the different roles in a company, which takes legal interpretation into account in mapping norms and processes, using Eunomos as a support.

Companies are required by law to report all kinds of information to various public agencies. Since most public agencies are autonomous and define their information demands independent of each other, companies have to report information to various agencies in different ways. Accordingly, governments are initiating programs that aim to transform business-to government information exchange to reduce the administrative burden for companies and improve the accountability at the same time. Yet little research is available on the type of transformations needed and the role of the infrastructure. Drawing on a case study, this paper investigates the interplay between technical infrastructure and transformation. In this case study an information brokerage infrastructure based on the Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) was developed providing a one stop shop for companies and public agencies. The case study shows that the infrastructure should be flexible enough to accommodate changes over time but stable enough to attract a large user-base. The increase in efficiency and effectiveness of information exchange processes requires extensive transformation from both public and private parties.

Much compliance effort concerns adherence to contracts. Parties to a contract need to make sure the other party fulfills the contract. To this end they may require additional controls in the business process. Controls have costs. In this paper we argue that fully automated controls help to lower control costs, because (i) the can help prevent misstatements (compliance by design) or (ii) they increase the quality of audit evidence and thereby reduce the audit risk and additional audit fees. The line of reasoning is illustrated by a case study of the implementation of automated controls on the procurement process for public transport services for the elderly and disabled. The case study suggests open issues, which can be linked to concepts from Normative Multi Agent Systems.

Regulatory compliance in international trade can be enhanced by facilitating electronic exchange of trade documents to increase the supply chain visibility. Crucial for acceptance of the supply chain visibility concept is trust in the reliability of the data. This depends on both the integrity of information (no data is altered illicitly) and integrity of the flow of goods (no goods are unknowingly added or taken away). The challenge is to determine how these concepts of integrity are interconnected. In this paper, we discuss control measures to ensure integrity of supply chain information and the related goods flow. Such controls consist of three components. First, only trusted traders take part. Second, technical control measures ensure internal consistency of the information system, i.e., the system maintains integrity constraints based on a model of the transactions taking place. Third, physical and organizational control measures mitigate the risk that events in the real world do not correspond to the reported transactions. The usefulness and adequacy of the approach is illustrated with two case studies: the use of electronic seals in the Smart-CM project, and the use of biometrics for authentication in the E-Link project at Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands.

Recent turmoil in financial markets has invoked governments to monitor activities and transactions in the private sector more strictly. At the same time, policy makers strive to cut back on government spending by reducing the size of government agencies. These contradicting developments require governments to become leaner, meaning that more (new) tasks can be performed with fewer resources. In order to achieve these goals, we see a transformation from paper-based business-to-government information exchange to IT-enabled compliance architectures. However, the shape of these architectures is not yet clear, as are the challenges that come with a specific architecture design. The objective of this paper is to specify the dimensions of IT-enabled compliance architectures and the challenges that rise when transforming to such architectures. Drawing on dimensions described in literature, this paper compares two new compliance architectures, one in the meat processing industry and one in financial reporting. Findings indicate that compliance architectures require different choices regarding the frequency of reporting, the style of control, the formation of regulation, the type of dependencies, the auditing base and the way the underlying infrastructure accommodates business-to-government information exchange. This paper shows that while the transformation to IT-enabled compliance monitoring helps realize a lean-government, the design of the underlying architectures is subject to several, sector specific conditions, including established laws and regulations.

Stricter laws and regulations demand that companies provide business information more timely and accurately to various government agencies. However, this trend increases the administrative burden for companies and the regulatory burden for government agencies. Standard Business Reporting (SBR) is a program that aims to reduce these burdens. Led by government agencies, stakeholders in this program are working towards a national data taxonomy, a single reporting gateway and a secure electronic infrastructure. Anticipated benefits include reduced time and costs for assembling, analyzing and providing business data to government agencies. However, stakeholders face several hurdles that need to be addressed before such benefits can be reaped. Typical hurdles in this transformation include conflicting public and private interests, legal constraints and high security demands. This policy paper presents seven transformation principles gained from the launch of SBR in the Netherlands. The principles are meant to guide stakeholders in proactively dealing with some of the transformation issues that may manifest when launching SBR. While the current scope of SBR is focused on financial reporting, the possibilities for its future application are broader, opening new avenues for digital government research.

Businesses have to file many reports to show compliance with rules and regulations. Regulators try to reduce the administrative burden, by providing a standardized representation format and agreements about reporting procedures and the use of technical infrastructure. However, developing and managing such a standardized reporting scheme is hard. It involves inter-dependencies between processes, data and technology and the interests of many stakeholders. Drawing on existing practice this paper presents Public Process Management (PPM): a general method for process management in the public sector. In this paper we apply PPM specifically to the problem of introducing a standardized reporting scheme in an application domain. The method is driven by quality management and process redesign approaches, but deals with unique characteristics of compliance reporting: legal data requirements, provenance, process compliance and multiple stakeholders. In particular, PPM stresses strict adherence to an iterative development schedule, and shared conceptual models of processes, data definitions, technological infrastructure and governance agreements. The usefulness and adequacy of the method are illustrated by a case study on Standard Business Reporting, a standardized reporting channel in the Netherlands for both public and private agencies.

Part 5: Transformation, Values and Change; International audience; The ongoing financial crisis is forcing governments to consider leaner (less resource intensive) forms of public service delivery. This is a difficult process, especially since recent private sector scandals demand that governments become more vigilant. Public-private collaboration (PPC) needs to address this ‘lean yet vigilant’ challenge. However, PPCs have proven to take a long time to establish and bring to fruition. Hurdles that delay the achievement of goals include the need to agree on standards in an environment with heterogeneous interests, changing laws and unclear revenue models. While literature on managing PPC hints towards the need for both compulsory measures (plan-driven, restrictive) and adaptive measures (learning-driven, leeway), case studies illustrating how these measures can be integrated in practice are scarce. Drawing on the Standard Business Reporting case in the Netherlands, this paper shows that both compulsory and adaptive measures are necessary to advance in multi-actor standardization processes. Our findings indicate that PPC managers need to impose with leeway by taking an engineering approach to architecture development yet providing leeway in the details.

Regulation based on Continuous Control Monitoring could reduce the administrative burden for companies. Often, companies already have elaborate internal control and quality management systems. Instead of periodic physical inspections, regulatory supervision can partly be automated and performed on a continuous basis. The regulator gets access to a validated copy of key data elements from the company’s internal information systems, which serve as indicator of compliance to specific control objectives. In this paper we describe an information architecture for continuous control monitoring, and show how it can be applied to supervision of regulatory compliance. The approach is illustrated by a pilot project in the Netherlands of applying continuous control monitoring to food safety regulations in the meat processing industry. Participants concluded that the approach is technically feasible but requires a different mindset towards regulation, and a clear business case.

Norm-enforcement models applied in human societies may serve as an inspiration for the design of multi-agent systems. Models for norm-enforcement in multi-agent systems often focus either on the intra- or interagent level. We propose a combined approach to identify objectives for an architecture for self-regulating agents. In this paper we assess how changes on the inter-agent level affect the intra-agent level and how a generic BDI architecture IRMA can be adapted for self-regulation. The approach is validated with a case study of AEO certification, a European wide customs initiative to secure the supply chain while facilitating international trade.

Compliance is often achieved 'by design' through a coherent system of controls consisting of information systems and procedures. This system-based control requires a new approach to auditing in which companies must demonstrate to the regulator that they are 'in control'. They must determine the relevance of a regulation for their business, justify which set of control measures they have taken to comply with it, and demonstrate that the control measures are operationally effective. In this paper we show how value-based argumentation theory can be applied to the compliance domain. Corporate values motivate the selection of control measures (actions) which aim to fulfill control objectives, i.e. adopted norms (goals). In particular, we show how to formalize the dialogue in which companies justify their compliance decisions to regulators using value-based argumentation. The approach is illustrated by a case study of the safety and security measures adopted in the context of EU customs regulation.

Building collaborative relationships with trusted businesses is a long-term strategy for EU governments. Recently, for the EU Tax and Customs Administration (TCA), the realization of this goal has become more visible with the emerging concept of the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO). Businesses in the member states can apply for the AEO certificate. When it is being granted, simplified control procedures and trade facilitation will be provided by the TCA. A possible "win-win situation" can be achieved, with increased trade efficiency and lowered administrative burden. However, without proper selection of trusted business partners, governments may be worse off due to the adverse selection problem caused by information asymmetry. In this paper, we analyze the cause and effect of the adverse selection in the Government-to-Business relationship building. Further, we show that an IT enabled risk assessment approach can effectively eliminate the G2B information asymmetry and solve the adverse selection problem. The AEO assessment approach of DutchTCA is analysed to give a real life application on how IT is enabling the general risk management approach of the DutchTCA.

Aqvist's paradox of epistemic obligation can be solved, if we use knowledge-wh instead of knowledge-that in specifications of the `need to know': the knowledge which an agent in a certain organisational role is required to have. Knowledge-wh is knowledge of an answer to a question, which depends on the context. We show how knowledge-wh can be formalised in a logic of questions, which is combined with standard deontic logic to represent epistemic obligations. We demonstrate that under the new interpretation, the paradox can no longer be derived. The resulting logic is useful for representation of access control policies.

Norms are implemented by administrative procedures. This paper addresses the delegation of control in administrative procedures. Instead of having to check all details, a controlling actor can trust the data provided by other actors, provided they can demonstrate to be `in control'. In this paper we provide a conceptual analysis of situations in which control has been delegated. The approach is based on an analysis of the dependencies between activities performed by the actors involved and on evidence documents. To motivate and illustrate the approach, we discuss a case study about the redesign of EU customs procedures for collecting excise duties.

We provide a conceptual analysis of several kinds of deadlines, represented in Temporal Modal Defeasible Logic. The paper presents a typology of deadlines, based on the following parameters: deontic operator, maintenance or achievement, presence or absence of sanctions, and persistence after the deadline. The deadline types are illustrated by a set of examples.

There are two main traditions in defining a semantics for agent communication languages, based either on mental attitudes or on social commitments. In this paper we show how the role metaphor can be used to bridge the gap between these two approaches. First, we show how dialogues can be modelled as games - a form of normative systems - and how mental attitudes can be attributed not only to agents, but also, in a public manner, to the roles of the game. The dialogue moves allow an agent playing a role to modify the rolesý mental states, as specified by the counts-as conditionals (also known as constitutive norms) defining the game. The player of a role is expected to act as if it has the mental attitudes attributed to its role during the dialogue and to prevent its roleýs mental attitudes from becoming incoherent, as it does for its own private mental attitudes. Secondly, we show how roles as descriptions of expected behavior maintain the normative character of social semantics. Due to the bridge between the two approaches, results and tools from one approach can be used in the other one.

This paper describes the use of coherence constraints as a means to regulate agent interaction. Coherence constraints describe relationships between the content of utterances, and the context. They can be used for example to express that an answer must refer back in a meaningful way to the question that it answers. We also discuss several possible ways in which the enforcement of coherence constraints can be implemented in a multiagent system. Finally we describe a possible implementation in the 3APL platform, which shows the feasibility of this form of interaction regulation.

We are interested in interactive access control to web services in virtual organizations. We discuss argument games in which the set of credentials requested by the service provider to access a service is established by means of an interaction between a client acting as a proponent and a server acting as an opponent.

In the paper we study the dynamics of roles played by agents in multiagent systems. We capture role dynamics in terms of four operations performed by agents: ‘enactment', ‘deactment', ‘activate', and ‘deactivate'. The use of these operations is motivated, in particular for open systems. A formal semantics for these operations is provided. This formalization is aimed at serving as a basis for implementation of role dynamics in an agent programming language such as 3APL.

In this paper we are interested in argument based reasoning for access control, for example in the context of agents negotiating access to resources or web services in virtual organizations. We use a logical framework which contains agents with objectives concerning access to a resource or provision of a service, including security objectives. The access control mechanism is described by a set of policy rules, that specify that access to a resource or service requires a specific set of credentials. Our contribution is a formalization of the reasoning about access control using a planning theory formalized in Dung's abstract argumentation framework. We build on Amgoud's argumentation framework for plan arguments, which is based on an adaptation of Dung's notion of defence. Our formal argumentation framework allows arguments about the backward derivation of plans from objectives and policy rules (abduction), as well as arguments about the forward derivation of goals from general objectives. We show that reasoning about the feasibility of goals requires mixed goal-plan arguments, and we show how to formalize the plan arguments in Dung's framework without adapting the notion of defence.

In this paper we investigate the specification and verification of infor- mation systems with an organizational structure. Such systems are modelled as a normative multiagent system. To this end we use KBDIOCTL, an extension of BDICTL in which obligations and permissions are represented by directed modal operators. We illustrate how the logic can be used by introducing and discussing various properties of normative systems and individual agents which can be rep- resented in the logic. In particular we discuss the enforcement of norms.

In this chapter we discuss our research on multimodal interaction in a virtual environment. The environment we have developed can be considered as a ‘laboratory’ for research on multimodal interactions and multimedia presentation, where we have multiple users and various agents that help the users to obtain and communicate information. The environment represents a theatre. The theatre has been built using VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) and it can be accessed through World Wide Web (WWW). This virtual theatre allows navigation input through keyboard function keys and mouse, but there is also a navigation agent which tries to understand keyboard natural language input and spoken commands. Feedback of the system is given using speech synthesis. We also have Karen, an information agent which allows a natural language dialogue with the user. In development are several talking faces for the different agents in the virtual world. We investigate how we can increase the user’s commitment to the environment and its agents by providing context and increasing the user’s feeling of ‘presence’ in the environment.

In this paper we discuss our research on interactions in a virtual theatre that has been built using VRML and therefore can be accessed through Web pages. In the virtual environment we employ several agents. The virtual theatre allows navigation input through keyboard and mouse, but there is also a navigation agent which listens to typed input and spoken commands. Feedback of the system is given using speech synthesis. We also have an information agent which allows a natural language dialogue with the system where the input is keyboard-driven and the output is both with tables as with template driven natural language generation. In development are several talking faces for the different agents in the virtual world. At this moment an avatar with a cartoon-like talking face driven by a text-to-speech synthesizer can provide users with information about performances in the theatre.

In this paper we propose a conceptual model of virtual organizations as normative multiagent systems. The dynamic aspects of virtual organizations are modeled using aspects of speech act theory and Searle's theory of the construction of social reality. We illustrate the use of our model by discussing an example of distributed access control policies. We show how the model captures the distinction between local and global authorities, and between local and global norm enforcement policies.

Products and services are increasingly offered by value webs, rather than by a single enterprise. Typically, value webs need inter-organizational controls to prevent fraudulent behaviour of actors. To design and analyze controls, we developed the economic value-based methodology e 3-control, which so far has been applied mainly in commercial environments, which are regulated by contractual arrangements. In this paper, we use e 3 control in a highly regulated environment, which contains public-private partnerships, namely the healthcare sector in The Netherlands. Lessons learned include that the notion of economic reciprocity — as present in a commercial setting — is not always apparent in highly regulated environments; and that a highly regulated environment requires artefacts like evidence objects, which can be dealt with as if they were value objects.

In their daily activities, people and businesses are subject to all kinds of governmental regulations. There is a great variety in the setup of regulative systems that aim to enforce a subjects’ compliance with these regulations (Burgemeestre, Hulstijn, & Tan, 2009b). A trend in regulatory compliance is to formulate legislation as the so-called open norms: norms which leave room for contextual interpretation about their implementation (Gribnau, 2008). Open norms are considered to be flexible and adaptable to changing and varying circumstances, whereas rules require constant amendment to meet changing circumstances (Ford, 2008). Instances of open norms are principles or regulatory objectives. Unlike rules, open norms do not describe in detail what is permissible or prohibited; they indicate what behavior is expected by abstract principles or general objectives. For example, a recipe may prescribe to add salt “according to taste.” How much salt must be added depends on the cook and his guests. Through experience a cook learns what reasonable quantities of salt are appropriate for different kinds of dishes. So in general, open norms need to be interpreted and operationalized for a specific context. Interestingly, this interpretation and operationalization process itself is a normative process.

Currently international supply chains are facing risks concerning faults in compliance, such as altering shipping documentations, fictitious inventory, and inter-company manipulations. In this paper a method to detect and diagnose fault scenarios regarding customs compliance in supply chains is proposed. This method forms part of a general approach called model-based auditing, which is based on a normative meta-model of the movement of money and goods or services. The modeling framework is proposed on compliance monitoring of supply chains with focus on information systems and compliance reporting tools. The innovation lies in the application and mapping of modeling techniques from dynamical systems engineering to business process analysis for audit and supervision purposes. Specifically, the application domain is where money, goods as well as information are transferred between international supply chain partners. A case study of a leading company in electronics manufacturing applying the model is analyzed.

We propose a framework for the design and implementation of service systems, especially to design controls for long-term sustainable value co-creation. The framework is based on the software support tool e3-control. To illustrate the framework we use a large-scale case study, the Beer Living Lab, for simplification of customs procedures in international trade. The BeerLL shows how value co-creation can be achieved by reduction of administrative burden in international beer export due to electronic customs. Participants in the BeerLL are Heineken, IBM and Dutch Tax & Customs.

There has been a lot of research on the use of open data in the fight against corruption. Although there are some promising examples, it appears that a systematic approach is lacking. What are the design principles for an architecture to open up data and thereby reduce corruption? In this paper we use theory about fraud, and about public accountability to derive design principles for an open data architecture. Crucial is the sustained presence of a specific forum: A group of people who are critical, have expertise, are free to challenge the authorities. Unlike the general public, a specific forum has an interest in reviewing the data. The architecture is motivated and illustrated by an extensive example of an E-procurement system in the context of an anticorruption program in Palembang, Indonesia.