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...