Obligation-Based Agent Conversations for Semantic Web Service Composition

We deal with composition of semantic web services to which access is controlled by agents. We propose a conversation-based web service composition method. We conceive web services as actions with preconditions and effects, expressed in terms of social norms, particularly obligations. We argue that the inclusion of obligation-based agents' conversations aide to lead the composition of services. In order to achieve this, we introduce an agent communication language that defines how messages affect agents' state, and thus, the access to their services. We also propose a method to automatically create a generic composer agent that is able to manage and compose web services, by means of inducing obligations to their participants.