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(a) aimed at ascertaining whether another action has been successfully executed or if a given
state of the world has been realized or maintained (
monitoring, feedback
);
(b) aimed at dealing with the possible deviations and unforeseen events in order to positively
cope with them and adjusting the process (
intervention
).
When the trustor is delegating (see Section 2.6) a given object-action, what about its control
activity? Considering, for the sake of simplicity, that the control action is executed by a single
agent, if
Delegates(Ag
1
Ag
2
τ
)
there are at least four possibilities:
i)
Ag
1
delegates the control to
Ag
2
: the trustor delegates both the task and the control on the
task realization to the trustee;
ii)
Ag
1
delegates the control to a third agent;
iii)
Ag
1
gives up the control: nobody is delegated to control the success of
α
;
iv)
Ag
1
maintains the control for itself.
Each one of these possibilities could be either about (a) (monitoring, feedback) or (b) (inter-
vention), and could be either explicit, or implicit (in the delegation of the action, in the roles
of the agents - if they are part of a social structure - in the previous interactions between the
trustor and trustee, etc.).
To understand the origin and the functionality of control it is necessary to consider that
Ag
1
can adjust the run-time of its delegation to
Ag
2
if it is in the position of:
a) receiving in time the necessary information about
Ag
2
's performance (
feedback
);
b) intervening on
Ag
2
's performance to change it before its completion (
intervention
).
In other words,
Ag
1
must have some form of control on and during
Ag
2
's task realization.
Control
requires feedback plus intervention (see Figure 7.1).
Otherwise no adjustment is possible. Obviously, the feedback useful for a run-time adjust-
ment must be provided in time for the intervention. In general, the feedback activity is the
End of Delegation task
by Ag
2
Start of Delegation task
by Ag
2
t
Delegation Event
Feedback
Intervention
Ag
1
Figure 7.1
Control channels for the client's adjustment. (Reproduced by Permission of
C
2001 IEEE)
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