Normative conflicts:Patterns,detection and resolution

Abstract

The analysis, representation and management of normative conflicts have been the focus of much research in recent years in commercial and business applications. In this paper we are concerned with normative conflicts that arise for agents engaging in electronic contracting. First, we identify a set of primitive conflict patterns and present some patterns that have not been identified in other proposals. Secondly, we use a representation of e-contracts as Default Theories, which afford us both detection and resolution of such conflict patterns.