Re: delegation definition

Hi Simon,

I like your point about 'represents'. Your suggestion of using 'acts on 
behalf' is nice because it
introduces the name of the relation we use in serializations.

The reason for 'by itself or by another agent' comes from a comment from 
Tim on IRC last week,
saying that we wanted to be able to support  volunteering of an agent to 
act as a representative
for another agent.

Here is a revised definition.

/Delegation is the assignment of authority and responsibility to an 
agent (by itself or by another agent) to carry out a specific activity 
as a delegate or representative, while the agent it acts on behalf 
retains some responsibility for the outcome of the delegated work.
/
Luc


On 05/26/2012 12:48 PM, Miles, Simon wrote:
> -0.5
> I prefer Tim's proposal, but it still seems too domain-specific to me, 
> talking about "authority" relationships. I also don't understand what 
> "(by itself or by another agent)" is trying to convey. Finally, using 
> "represents" to refer to relations between agents is confusing when 
> used in a data model definition.
> While Responsibilty was a confusing term for acting on behalf of, I 
> thought the concepts did still concern responsibility not necessarily 
> a social relationship like authority. That is, I understood "X 
> wasAssociatedWith A. X actedOnBehalfOf Y." to mean that both X and Y 
> have some responsibility for A being enacted (in the way it was), and 
> that X's actions carry out Y's responsibility as well as it's own.
> Here's my counter-proposal:
> Delegation is the transfer of responsibility to an agent to carry out 
> a specific activity as a delegate or representative, while the agent 
> it acts on behalf of retains some responsibility for the outcome of 
> the delegated work.
> thanks,
> Simon
> Dr Simon Miles
> Senior Lecturer, Department of Informatics
> Kings College London, WC2R 2LS, UK
> +44 (0)20 7848 1166
> Determining the trustworthiness of new electronic contracts:
> http://eprints.dcs.kcl.ac.uk/1341/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Timothy Lebo [lebot@rpi.edu]
> *Sent:* 25 May 2012 12:12
> *To:* Daniel Garijo
> *Cc:* Tom De Nies; Provenance Working Group
> *Subject:* Re: delegation definition
>
> Perhaps we should weaken the responsibility of the "delegating agent"?
>
>
>>> /Delegation is the assignment of authority to an agent (by itself or by
>>> another agent) to carry out a specific activity as a delegate or
>>> representative, while the agent that it represents remains responsible
>>> for the outcome of the delegated work.
>
> I'd like to propose replacing  "remains responsible" to "retains some 
> responsibility", in line with the "weak" or "arbitrary" responsibility 
> that Agents have in Association and Attribution.
>
>
>>> /Delegation is the assignment of authority to an agent (by itself or by
>>> another agent) to carry out a specific activity as a delegate or
>>> representative, while the agent that it represents retains some 
>>> responsibility
>>> for the outcome of the delegated work.
>
> Thanks!
> Tim
>
>
> On May 25, 2012, at 4:28 AM, Daniel Garijo wrote:
>
>> +1
>>
>> 2012/5/25 Tom De Nies <tom.denies@ugent.be <mailto:tom.denies@ugent.be>>
>>
>>     This definition is phrased very clear and complete I think, so +1
>>     as well :)
>>
>>     Tom
>>     (sorry for the double mail Paul, accidentally sent the response
>>     to you instead of the mailing list)
>>
>>
>>
>>     2012/5/25 Tom De Nies <tom.denies@ugent.be
>>     <mailto:tom.denies@ugent.be>>
>>
>>         This definition is phrased very clear and complete I think,
>>         so +1 as well :)
>>
>>
>>         2012/5/25 Paul Groth <p.t.groth@vu.nl <mailto:p.t.groth@vu.nl>>
>>
>>             another +1
>>
>>             On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 2:26 AM, Eric <ericphb@gmail.com
>>             <mailto:ericphb@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>             > +1
>>             >
>>             > Sent from my Samsung smartphone on AT&T
>>             >
>>             > Luc Moreau <L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk
>>             <mailto:L.Moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk>> wrote:
>>             >
>>             >>
>>             >>All,
>>             >>Today, we decided to replace the term Responsibility by
>>             Delegation.
>>             >>Inspired by suggestions from Tim and Stephan, I drafted
>>             a definition:
>>             >>
>>             >>/Delegation is the assignment of authority to an agent
>>             (by itself or by
>>             >>another agent) to carry out a specific activity as a
>>             delegate or
>>             >>representative, while the agent that it represents
>>             remains responsible
>>             >>for the outcome of the delegated work.
>>             >>/
>>             >>Thoughts?
>>             >>
>>             >>Cheers,
>>             >>Luc
>>             >>
>>
>>
>>
>>             --
>>             --
>>             Dr. Paul Groth (p.t.groth@vu.nl <mailto:p.t.groth@vu.nl>)
>>             http://www.few.vu.nl/~pgroth/
>>             <http://www.few.vu.nl/%7Epgroth/>
>>             Assistant Professor
>>             Knowledge Representation & Reasoning Group
>>             Artificial Intelligence Section
>>             Department of Computer Science
>>             VU University Amsterdam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
Professor Luc Moreau
Electronics and Computer Science   tel:   +44 23 8059 4487
University of Southampton          fax:   +44 23 8059 2865
Southampton SO17 1BJ               email: l.moreau@ecs.soton.ac.uk
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