Literature Review: Smart Contract Semantics <s> Finite State Machines <s> Abstract: Contracting is an essential aspectof doing business. Electronic contracting uses telecommunications and artificial intelligence to improve contracting processes by streamlining red tape enforcing legal correctness. To do this, the underlying conceptual structures of contracts and contracting must be carefully understood. A logic model is presented that emphasizes temporal, deontic and performative aspects of contracting. <s> BIB001 </s> Literature Review: Smart Contract Semantics <s> Finite State Machines <s> Abstract Converting a conventional contract into an electronic equivalent that can be executed and enforced by computers is a challenging task. The difficulties are caused by the ambiguities that the original human-oriented text is likely to contain. The conversion process involves the conversion of the original text into mathematical notation. This paper discusses how standard conventional contracts can be described by means of finite state machines (FSMs). This mathematical description helps eliminate ambiguities from the original text before the contract is coded into a computer program. The paper describes how to map the rights and obligations extracted from the clauses of the contract into the states, transition and output functions, and input and output symbols of a FSM. The FSM representation can be used to guarantee that the clauses stipulated in the contract are observed when the contract is executed. The paper describes the middleware required for the enactment of the contract represented as an FSM. <s> BIB002
Molina-Jimenez et al. BIB002 propose a formalism that is similar to Lee's BIB001 trans assertions which will be explored later. In this formalism, the life cycle of a contract is defined as a series of states. Progressions between states occur as a result of actions. Constrained obligations are represented by having transitions to a default state if some action is not performed within that constraint (i.e. some absolute temporal constraint). The system is unique in that the global state of a contract is not tracked by the machine. Instead, each party has a respective machine that tracks their progression through the contract from their perspective.