Interaction protocols play a fundamental role in multiagent systems. In this work, after analyzing the trends that are emerging not only from research on multiagent interaction protocols but also from neighboring fields, like research on workflows and business processes, we propose a novel definition of commitment-based interaction protocols, that is characterized by the decoupling of the constitutive and the regulative specifications and that explicitly foresees a representation of the latter based on constraints among commitments. A clear distinction between the two representations has many advantages, mainly residing in a greater openness of multiagent systems, and an easier reuse of protocols and of action definitions. A language, named 2CL, for writing regulative specifications is also given together with a designer-oriented graphical notation.

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Enterprises must respect a number of regulations, with multilevel nature and which change along time. They must not only adapt their business interactions to the regulations and their changes but also evaluate the risks of violation of the new rules and to account for responsibilities. This work proposes a methodological framework for modeling and engineering business protocols, which gives primary position to the notions of commitment and responsibility, and supports the analysis of risks of violation when a new regulation is issued. We build on 2CL commitment-based protocols and introduce 2CL Methodology, a software engineering methodology for such protocols, which includes guidelines for specifying 2CL business protocols, for specialising them, and for composing a new 2CL protocol based on a set of given 2CL protocols. We developed a set of integrated software tools for the design and the analysis of 2CL protocols, with the aim of concretely supporting, on the one hand, designers in the task of identifying exposure to risks of violation, and, on the other hand, the management in the task of reasoning about accountability and of decision making. The proposal is evaluated by using a real-world case study from the banking sector.Keywords Commitment-based business protocols, regulations, methodologies, risks of violations, accountability IntroductionBusiness protocols are a means for specifying the interaction of a set of autonomous parties with heterogeneous software designs and implementations. They have a normative value in that parties are expected to behave according to the protocol. In many practical settings, the reality in which such parties operate is characterized by a high degree of regulation, and the business relationships are increasingly constrained by the regulative and legislative framework. This is, for instance, the case of banking and of trading services.As new regulations are issued, there is the need of adapting business protocols to the new dictates, which usually restrict -e.g. by adding new commitments and new constraints -the possible interactions or require the combination of different protocols. Think, for instance,

Abstract. This work proposes an operational semantics for the commitment protocol language 2CL. This semantics relies on an extension of Singh's Generalized Commitment Machine, that we named 2CL-Generalized Commitment Machines. The 2CL-Generalized Commitment Machine was implemented in Prolog by extending Winikoff, Liu and Harland's implementation. The implementation is equipped with a graphical tool that allows the analyst to explore all the possible executions, showing both commitment and constraint violations, and thus helping the analyst as well as the protocol designer to identify the risks the interaction could encounter. The implementation is part of an Eclipse plug-in which supports 2CL-protocol design and analysis.

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