Using fuzzy set approach in multi-attribute automated auctions

This paper designs a novel fuzzy attributes and competition based bidding strategy (FAC-Bid), in which the final best bid is calculated on the basis of the assessment of multiple attributes of the goods and the competition for the goods in the market. The assessment of attributes adapts the fuzzy sets technique to handle uncertainty of the bidding process. The bidding strategy also uses and determines competition in the market (based on the two factors i.e. no. of the bidders participating and the total time elapsed for an auction) using Mamdani's Direct Method. Then the final price of the best bid will be determined based on the assessed attributes and the competition in the market using fuzzy reasoning technique

Automated Negotiations Under Uncertain Preferences

Automated Negotiation is an emerging field of electronic markets and multi-agent system research. Market engineers are faced in this connection with computational as well as economic issues, such as individual rationality and incentive compatibility. Most literature is focused on autonomous agents and negotiation protocols regarding these issues. However, common protocols show two deficiencies: (1) neglected consideration of agents’ incentives to strive for social welfare, (2) underemphasised acknowledgement that agents build their decision upon preference information delivered by human principals. Since human beings make use of heuristics for preference elicitation, their preferences are subject to informational uncertainty. The contribution of this paper is the proposition of a research agenda that aims at overcoming these research deficiencies. Our research agenda draws theoretically and methodologically on auctions, iterative bargaining, and fuzzy set theory. We complement our agenda with simulation-based preliminary results regarding differences in the application of auctions and iterative bargaining

KEMNAD: A Knowledge Engineering Methodology for Negotiating Agent Development

Automated negotiation is widely applied in various domains. However, the development of such systems is a complex knowledge and software engineering task. So, a methodology there will be helpful. Unfortunately, none of existing methodologies can offer sufficient, detailed support for such system development. To remove this limitation, this paper develops a new methodology made up of: (1) a generic framework (architectural pattern) for the main task, and (2) a library of modular and reusable design pattern (templates) of subtasks. Thus, it is much easier to build a negotiating agent by assembling these standardised components rather than reinventing the wheel each time. Moreover, since these patterns are identified from a wide variety of existing negotiating agents(especially high impact ones), they can also improve the quality of the final systems developed. In addition, our methodology reveals what types of domain knowledge need to be input into the negotiating agents. This in turn provides a basis for developing techniques to acquire the domain knowledge from human users. This is important because negotiation agents act faithfully on the behalf of their human users and thus the relevant domain knowledge must be acquired from the human users. Finally, our methodology is validated with one high impact system

The Roles of Corporate IT Infastructure and their Impact on IS Effectiveness

In the strategic alignment model of Henderson and Venkatraman (1993) [1] IT infrastructure has an important but only implicitly defined role. According to evolving literature, IT infrastructure serves many different purposes in large companies. We outline the main missions (roles) of the corporate-wide IT infrastructure and its contribution to IS effectiveness and study the relationship of IT infrastructure with alignment processes and strategic integration. Our empirical tests with data from almost one hundred large companies resulted in three IT infrastructure roles, which reflect the IS communality, strategic, and flexibility dimensions of the corporate-wide IT infrastructure. The roles were not symmetrically related to the IS effectiveness and alignment perspectives. IT infrastructure roles had a significant interplay with strategic integration in improving IS effectiveness. However, the interplay of IT infrastructure roles with alignment perspectives had only marginal effects. Implications of the results for research and practice are discussed

Agent-orientated auction mechanism and strategy design

Agent-based technology is playing an increasingly important role in today’s economy. Usually a multi-agent system is needed to model an economic system such as a market system, in which heterogeneous trading agents interact with each other autonomously. Two questions often need to be answered regarding such systems: 1) How to design an interacting mechanism that facilitates efficient resource allocation among usually self-interested trading agents? 2) How to design an effective strategy in some specific market mechanisms for an agent to maximise its economic returns? For automated market systems, auction is the most popular mechanism to solve resource allocation problems among their participants. However, auction comes in hundreds of different formats, in which some are better than others in terms of not only the allocative efficiency but also other properties e.g., whether it generates high revenue for the auctioneer, whether it induces stable behaviour of the bidders. In addition, different strategies result in very different performance under the same auction rules. With this background, we are inevitably intrigued to investigate auction mechanism and strategy designs for agent-based economics. The international Trading Agent Competition (TAC) Ad Auction (AA) competition provides a very useful platform to develop and test agent strategies in Generalised Second Price auction (GSP). AstonTAC, the runner-up of TAC AA 2009, is a successful advertiser agent designed for GSP-based keyword auction. In particular, AstonTAC generates adaptive bid prices according to the Market-based Value Per Click and selects a set of keyword queries with highest expected profit to bid on to maximise its expected profit under the limit of conversion capacity. Through evaluation experiments, we show that AstonTAC performs well and stably not only in the competition but also across a broad range of environments. The TAC CAT tournament provides an environment for investigating the optimal design of mechanisms for double auction markets. AstonCAT-Plus is the post-tournament version of the specialist developed for CAT 2010. In our experiments, AstonCAT-Plus not only outperforms most specialist agents designed by other institutions but also achieves high allocative efficiencies, transaction success rates and average trader profits. Moreover, we reveal some insights of the CAT: 1) successful markets should maintain a stable and high market share of intra-marginal traders; 2) a specialist’s performance is dependent on the distribution of trading strategies. However, typical double auction models assume trading agents have a fixed trading direction of either buy or sell. With this limitation they cannot directly reflect the fact that traders in financial markets (the most popular application of double auction) decide their trading directions dynamically. To address this issue, we introduce the Bi-directional Double Auction (BDA) market which is populated by two-way traders. Experiments are conducted under both dynamic and static settings of the continuous BDA market. We find that the allocative efficiency of a continuous BDA market mainly comes from rational selection of trading directions. Furthermore, we introduce a high-performance Kernel trading strategy in the BDA market which uses kernel probability density estimator built on historical transaction data to decide optimal order prices. Kernel trading strategy outperforms some popular intelligent double auction trading strategies including ZIP, GD and RE in the continuous BDA market by making the highest profit in static games and obtaining the best wealth in dynamic games

A hybrid model of electronic negotiation : integration of negotiation support and automated negotiation models

Electronic business negotiations are enabled by different electronic negotiation models: automated negotiation models for software agents, negotiation support models for human negotiators, and auction models for both. To date, there is no electronic negotiation model that enables bilateral multi-issue negotiations between a human negotiator and a negotiation agent?an important task in electronic negotiation research. In this thesis, a model is presented that integrates the automated negotiation model and the negotiation support model. The resulting hybrid negotiation model paves the way for human-agent business negotiations. The integration of two models is realised at the levels of negotiation process, communication support and decision making. To this end, the negotiation design, negotiation process, negotiation decision making, and negotiation communication in negotiation support systems (NSSs) and agent negotiation systems (ANSs) are studied and analysed. The analyses on these points help in strengthening the motivation behind hybrid negotiation model and setting aims for the integration of an NSS and an ANS in hybrid negotiation model. We mainly propose a human-agent negotiation design, negotiation process protocols to support the design, a hybrid communication model for human-agent interaction, an agent decision-making model for negotiation with human, and a component for interoperability between NSS and ANS. The agent decision-making model is composed of heuristic and argumentation-based negotiation techniques. It is proposed after analysing different automated negotiation models for different human negotiation strategies. The proposed communication model supports human negotiator and negotiation agent to understand and process negotiation messages from each other. This communication model consists of negotiation ontology, a wrapper agent, and a proper selection of an agent communication language (ACL) and a content language. The wrapper agent plays a role for interoperability between agent system and NSS by providing a communication interface along with the negotiation ontology. The negotiation ontology, ACL and agent content language make the communication model of negotiation agent in ANS. The proposed hybrid model is realised by integrating an ANS into NSS Negoisst. The research aim is to show that a hybrid negotiation system, composed of two heterogeneous negotiation models, can enable human-agent multi-issue integrative negotiations.Elektronische ökonomische Verhandlungen werden durch verschiedene Verhandlungsmodelle ermöglicht: Automatisierte Verhandlungsmodelle für Softwareagenten, Verhandlungsunterstützung für menschliche Verhandelnde und Auktionsmodelle für Beide. Bis heute existiert kein elektronisches Verhandlungsmodell, das bilaterale multi-attributive Verhandlungen zwischen einem menschlichen Verhandelnden und einem Verhandlungsagenten ? eine wichtige Aufgabe in der Forschung im Bereich elektronischer Verhandlungen. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Modell präsentiert, welches das automatisierte Verhandlungsmodell und das Verhandlungsunterstützungsmodell integriert. Das resultierende hybride Verhandlungsmodell ebnet den Weg für ökonomische Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungen. Die Integration der zwei Modelle ist realisiert auf der Ebene von Verhandlungsprozess, Kommunikationsunterstützung und Entscheidungsunterstützung. Dazu werden Verhandlungsdesign, Verhandlungsprozess, verhandlungsbezogene Entscheidungsfindung und Verhandlungskommunikation in Verhandlungsunterstützungssystemen (NSS) und Agentenverhandlungssystemen (ANS) studiert und analysiert. Die Analysen zu diesen Punkten verstärken die Motivation hinter dem hybriden Verhandlungsmodell und bestimmen die Ziele für die Integration von NSS und ANS. Es werden hauptsächlich ein Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungsdesign, Verhandlungsprozessprotokolle zur Unterstützung des Designs, ein hybrides Kommunikationsmodell für Mensch-Agent-Kommunikation, ein Agenten-Entscheidungsmodell für die Verhandlung mit menschlichem Gegenpart und eine Komponente für die Interoperabilität zwischen NSS und ANS. Das Entscheidungsmodell für Agenten besteht aus heuristischen und argumentativen Verhandlungstechniken. Es wird aufgestellt nachdem verschiedene automatisierte Verhandlungsmodelle für verschiedene menschliche Verhandlungsstrategien analysiert worden sind. Die vorgeschlagenen Kommunikationsmodelle unterstützen menschliche Verhandler und Verhandlungsagenten dabei Verhandlungsnachrichten voneinander zu verstehen und zu verarbeiten. Dieses Kommunikationsmodell besteht aus einer Verhandlungsontologie, einem Wrapper-Agenten und einer angemessenen Auswahl der Agentenkommunikationssprache (ACL) und der Inhaltssprache. Der Wrapper-Agent spielt eine Rolle bei der Interoperabilität zwischen dem Agentensystem und dem NSS durch eine Kommunikationsschnittstelle zusammen mit der Verhandlungsontologie. Die Verhandlungsontologie, die ACL und die Inhaltssprache der Agenten ergeben das Kommunikationsmodell der Verhandlungsagenten im ANS. Das vorgestellte hybride Modell ist realisiert als Integration eines ANS in das NSS Negoisst. Das Forschungsziel ist zu zeigen, dass ein hybrides Verhandlungssystem, basierend auf zwei heterogenen Verhandlungsmodellen, integrative multi-attributive Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungen ermöglicht

A hybrid model of electronic negotiation : integration of negotiation support and automated negotiation models

Electronic business negotiations are enabled by different electronic negotiation models: automated negotiation models for software agents, negotiation support models for human negotiators, and auction models for both. To date, there is no electronic negotiation model that enables bilateral multi-issue negotiations between a human negotiator and a negotiation agent?an important task in electronic negotiation research. In this thesis, a model is presented that integrates the automated negotiation model and the negotiation support model. The resulting hybrid negotiation model paves the way for human-agent business negotiations. The integration of two models is realised at the levels of negotiation process, communication support and decision making. To this end, the negotiation design, negotiation process, negotiation decision making, and negotiation communication in negotiation support systems (NSSs) and agent negotiation systems (ANSs) are studied and analysed. The analyses on these points help in strengthening the motivation behind hybrid negotiation model and setting aims for the integration of an NSS and an ANS in hybrid negotiation model. We mainly propose a human-agent negotiation design, negotiation process protocols to support the design, a hybrid communication model for human-agent interaction, an agent decision-making model for negotiation with human, and a component for interoperability between NSS and ANS. The agent decision-making model is composed of heuristic and argumentation-based negotiation techniques. It is proposed after analysing different automated negotiation models for different human negotiation strategies. The proposed communication model supports human negotiator and negotiation agent to understand and process negotiation messages from each other. This communication model consists of negotiation ontology, a wrapper agent, and a proper selection of an agent communication language (ACL) and a content language. The wrapper agent plays a role for interoperability between agent system and NSS by providing a communication interface along with the negotiation ontology. The negotiation ontology, ACL and agent content language make the communication model of negotiation agent in ANS. The proposed hybrid model is realised by integrating an ANS into NSS Negoisst. The research aim is to show that a hybrid negotiation system, composed of two heterogeneous negotiation models, can enable human-agent multi-issue integrative negotiations.Elektronische ökonomische Verhandlungen werden durch verschiedene Verhandlungsmodelle ermöglicht: Automatisierte Verhandlungsmodelle für Softwareagenten, Verhandlungsunterstützung für menschliche Verhandelnde und Auktionsmodelle für Beide. Bis heute existiert kein elektronisches Verhandlungsmodell, das bilaterale multi-attributive Verhandlungen zwischen einem menschlichen Verhandelnden und einem Verhandlungsagenten ? eine wichtige Aufgabe in der Forschung im Bereich elektronischer Verhandlungen. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Modell präsentiert, welches das automatisierte Verhandlungsmodell und das Verhandlungsunterstützungsmodell integriert. Das resultierende hybride Verhandlungsmodell ebnet den Weg für ökonomische Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungen. Die Integration der zwei Modelle ist realisiert auf der Ebene von Verhandlungsprozess, Kommunikationsunterstützung und Entscheidungsunterstützung. Dazu werden Verhandlungsdesign, Verhandlungsprozess, verhandlungsbezogene Entscheidungsfindung und Verhandlungskommunikation in Verhandlungsunterstützungssystemen (NSS) und Agentenverhandlungssystemen (ANS) studiert und analysiert. Die Analysen zu diesen Punkten verstärken die Motivation hinter dem hybriden Verhandlungsmodell und bestimmen die Ziele für die Integration von NSS und ANS. Es werden hauptsächlich ein Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungsdesign, Verhandlungsprozessprotokolle zur Unterstützung des Designs, ein hybrides Kommunikationsmodell für Mensch-Agent-Kommunikation, ein Agenten-Entscheidungsmodell für die Verhandlung mit menschlichem Gegenpart und eine Komponente für die Interoperabilität zwischen NSS und ANS. Das Entscheidungsmodell für Agenten besteht aus heuristischen und argumentativen Verhandlungstechniken. Es wird aufgestellt nachdem verschiedene automatisierte Verhandlungsmodelle für verschiedene menschliche Verhandlungsstrategien analysiert worden sind. Die vorgeschlagenen Kommunikationsmodelle unterstützen menschliche Verhandler und Verhandlungsagenten dabei Verhandlungsnachrichten voneinander zu verstehen und zu verarbeiten. Dieses Kommunikationsmodell besteht aus einer Verhandlungsontologie, einem Wrapper-Agenten und einer angemessenen Auswahl der Agentenkommunikationssprache (ACL) und der Inhaltssprache. Der Wrapper-Agent spielt eine Rolle bei der Interoperabilität zwischen dem Agentensystem und dem NSS durch eine Kommunikationsschnittstelle zusammen mit der Verhandlungsontologie. Die Verhandlungsontologie, die ACL und die Inhaltssprache der Agenten ergeben das Kommunikationsmodell der Verhandlungsagenten im ANS. Das vorgestellte hybride Modell ist realisiert als Integration eines ANS in das NSS Negoisst. Das Forschungsziel ist zu zeigen, dass ein hybrides Verhandlungssystem, basierend auf zwei heterogenen Verhandlungsmodellen, integrative multi-attributive Mensch-Agent-Verhandlungen ermöglicht

A multi-agent optimisation model for solving supply network configuration problems

Supply chain literature highlights the increasing importance of effective supply network configuration decisions that take into account such realities as market turbulence and demand volatility, as well as ever-expanding global production networks. These realities have been extensively discussed in the supply network literature under the structural (i.e., physical characteristics), spatial (i.e., geographical positions), and temporal (i.e., changing supply network conditions) dimensions. Supply network configuration decisions that account for these contingencies are expected to meet the evolving needs of consumers while delivering better outcomes for all parties involved and enhancing supply network performance against the key metrics of efficiency, speed and responsiveness. However, making supply network configuration decisions in the situations described above is an ongoing challenge. Taking a systems perspective, supply networks are typically viewed as socio-technical systems where SN entities (e.g., suppliers, manufacturers) are autonomous individuals with distinct goals, practices and policies, physically inter-connected transferring goods (e.g., raw materials, finished products), as well as socially connected with formal and informal interactions and information sharing. Since the structure and behaviour of such social and technical sub-systems of a supply network, as well as the interactions between those subsystems, determine the overall behaviour of the supply network, both systems should be considered in analysing the overall system

Modified bargaining protocols for automated negotiation in open multi-agent systems

Current research in multi-agent systems (MAS) has advanced to the development of open MAS, which are characterized by the heterogeneity of agents, free exit/entry and decentralized control. Conflicts of interest among agents are inevitable, and hence automated negotiation to resolve them is one of the promising solutions. This thesis studies three modifications on alternating-offer bargaining protocols for automated negotiation in open MAS. The long-term goal of this research is to design negotiation protocols which can be easily used by intelligent agents in accommodating their need in resolving their conflicts. In particular, we propose three modifications: allowing non-monotonic offers during the bargaining (non-monotonic-offers bargaining protocol), allowing strategic delay (delay-based bargaining protocol), and allowing strategic ignorance to augment argumentation when the bargaining comprises argumentation (ignorance-based argumentation-based negotiation protocol). Utility theory and decision-theoretic approaches are used in the theoretical analysis part, with an aim to prove the benefit of these three modifications in negotiation among myopic agents under uncertainty. Empirical studies by means of computer simulation are conducted in analyzing the cost and benefit of these modifications. Social agents, who use common human bargaining strategies, are the subjects of the simulation. In general, we assume that agents are bounded rational with various degrees of belief and trust toward their opponents. In particular in the study of the non-monotonic-offers bargaining protocol, we assume that our agents have diminishing surplus. We further assume that our agents have increasing surplus in the study of delay-based bargaining protocol. And in the study of ignorance-based argumentation-based negotiation protocol, we assume that agents may have different knowledge and use different ontologies and reasoning engines. Through theoretical analysis under various settings, we show the benefit of allowing these modifications in terms of agents’ expected surplus. And through simulation, we show the benefit of allowing these modifications in terms of social welfare (total surplus). Several implementation issues are then discussed, and their potential solutions in terms of some additional policies are proposed. Finally, we also suggest some future work which can potentially improve the reliability of these modifications

A multi-demand negotiation model based on fuzzy rules elicited via psychological experiments

This paper proposes a multi-demand negotiation model that takes the effect of human users’ psychological characteristics into consideration. Specifically, in our model each negotiating agent's preference over its demands can be changed, according to human users’ attitudes to risk, patience and regret, during the course of a negotiation. And the change of preference structures is determined by fuzzy logic rules, which are elicited through our psychological experiments. The applicability of our model is illustrated by using our model to solve a problem of political negotiation between two countries. Moreover, we do lots of theoretical and empirical analyses to reveal some insights into our model. In addition, to compare our model with existing ones, we make a survey on fuzzy logic based negotiation, and discuss the similarities and differences between our negotiation model and various consensus models