Advances in automation for electronic commerce require improved
understanding and formalization of the objects, processes, and policies
of commerce itself. These include business objects such as bills of
lading and contracts; processes such as workflows and trade procedures;
and policies covering such problems as contract or procedure validation
and strategic behaviour. This book is about theory, formalization, and
proof-of-concept implementation of these and related matters. In
addition to presenting state-of-the-art results, the book places this
work in the context of nearly twenty years of developments in formal
modelling for electronic commerce. A comprehensive bibliography and
index are provided.