Tasks for Agent-Based Negotiation Teams:Analysis, Review, and Challenges

An agent-based negotiation team is a group of interdependent agents that join together as a single negotiation party due to their shared interests in the negotiation at hand. The reasons to employ an agent-based negotiation team may vary: (i) more computation and parallelization capabilities, (ii) unite agents with different expertise and skills whose joint work makes it possible to tackle complex negotiation domains, (iii) the necessity to represent different stakeholders or different preferences in the same party (e.g., organizations, countries, and married couple). The topic of agent-based negotiation teams has been recently introduced in multi-agent research. Therefore, it is necessary to identify good practices, challenges, and related research that may help in advancing the state-of-the-art in agent-based negotiation teams. For that reason, in this article we review the tasks to be carried out by agent-based negotiation teams. Each task is analyzed and related with current advances in different research areas. The analysis aims to identify special challenges that may arise due to the particularities of agent-based negotiation teams.Comment: Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 201

Complex negotiations in multi-agent systems

Los sistemas multi-agente (SMA) son sistemas distribuidos donde entidades autónomas llamadas agentes, ya sean humanos o software, persiguen sus propios objetivos. El paradigma de SMA ha sido propuesto como la aproximación de modelo apropiada para aplicaciones como el comercio electrónico, los sistemas multi-robot, aplicaciones de seguridad, etc. En la comunidad de SMA, la visión de sistemas multi-agente abiertos, donde agentes heterogéneos pueden entrar y salir del sistema dinámicamente, ha cobrado fuerza como paradigma de modelado debido a su relación conceptual con tecnologías como la Web, la computación grid, y las organizaciones virtuales. Debido a la heterogeneidad de los agentes, y al hecho de dirigirse por sus propios objetivos, el conflicto es un fenómeno candidato a aparecer en los sistemas multi-agente. En los últimos años, el término tecnologías del acuerdo ha sido usado para referirse a todos aquellos mecanismos que, directa o indirectamente, promueven la resolución de conflictos en sistemas computacionales como los sistemas multi-agente. Entre las tecnologías del acuerdo, la negociación automática ha sido propuesta como uno de los mecanismos clave en la resolución de conflictos debido a su uso análogo en la resolución de conflictos entre humanos. La negociación automática consiste en el intercambio automático de propuestas llevado a cabo por agentes software en nombre de sus usuarios. El objetivo final es conseguir un acuerdo con todas las partes involucradas. Pese a haber sido estudiada por la Inteligencia Artificial durante años, distintos problemas todavía no han sido resueltos por la comunidad científica todavía. El principal objetivo de esta tesis es proponer modelos de negociación para escenarios complejos donde la complejidad deriva de (1) las limitaciones computacionales o (ii) la necesidad de representar las preferencias de múltiples individuos. En la primera parte de esta tesis proponemos un modelo de negociación bilateral para el problema deSánchez Anguix, V. (2013). Complex negotiations in multi-agent systems [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/21570Palanci

Unanimously acceptable agreements for negotiation teams in unpredictable domains

A negotiation team is a set of agents with common and possibly also conflicting preferences that forms one of the parties of a negotiation. A negotiation team is involved in two decision making processes simultaneously, a negotiation with the opponents, and an intra-team process to decide on the moves to make in the negotiation. This article focuses on negotiation team decision making for circumstances that require unanimity of team decisions. Existing agent-based approaches only guarantee unanimity in teams negotiating in domains exclusively composed of predictable and compatible issues. This article presents a model for negotiation teams that guarantees unanimous team decisions in domains consisting of predictable and compatible, and alsounpredictable issues. Moreover, the article explores the influence of using opponent, and team member models in the proposing strategies that team members use. Experimental results show that the team benefits if team members employ Bayesian learning to model their teammates’ preferences. 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This research is partially supported by TIN2012-36586-C03-01 of the Spanish government and PROMETEOII/2013/019 of Generalitat Valenciana. Other part of this research is supported by the Dutch Technology Foundation STW, applied science division of NWO and the Technology Program of the Ministry of Economic Affairs; the Pocket Negotiator Project with Grant No. VICI-Project 08075.Sánchez Anguix, V.; Aydogan, R.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; Jonker, C. (2014). Unanimously acceptable agreements for negotiation teams in unpredictable domains. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications. 13(4):243-265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2014.05.002S24326513

Beyond Dyads: Decision support for online multiparty negotiation, coalition formation and negotiation outcomes

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

On the Use of Optimization Techniques for Strategy Definition in Multi Issue Negotiations

Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία αναλύεται το πρόβλημα της λήψης απόφασης σε συστήματα αυτόματων διαπραγματεύσεων. Σκοπός είναι να σχεδιαστεί ένας αποδοτικός αλγόριθμος βάσει του οποίου οι πράκτορες λογισμικού θα δρουν σε ένα σενάριο ταυτόχρονων διαπραγματεύσεων.Οι πράκτορες δεν έχουν καμία πληροφόρηση για τα χαρακτηριστικά των αντιπάλων.Οι διαπραγματεύσεις πραγματοποιούνται με απώτερο στόχο την ανταλλαγή προϊόντων μεταξύ αγοραστών και πωλητών με συγκεκριμένα ανταλλάγματα. Κάθε προϊόν χαρακτηρίζεται από μια ομάδα χαρακτηριστικών. Για παράδειγμα, ένα προϊόν μπορεί να χαρακτηριζεται από την τιμή, από το χρόνο παράδοσης, κλπ. Κάθε αγοραστής αντιστοιχίζεται στις αυτόματες διαπραγματεύσεις με έναν αριθμό πωλητών. Προτείνουμε αλγόριθμους που προσπαθούν να επιλύσουν το πρόβλημα προσέγγισης αβεβαιότητας με τελικό σκοπό τη μεγιστοποίηση της ανταμοιβής των χρηστών. Η ανταμοιβή υπολογίζεται ως το άθροισμα με τα αντίστοιχα βάρη των χαρακτηριστικών. Εστιάζουμε στην πλευρά του αγοραστή και ορίζουμε μεθοδους για τον υπολογισμό των βαρών που επηρεάζουν τη χρησιμότητα του χρήστη. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, προτείνουμε μεθόδους για την αλλαγή της στρατηγικής του αγοραστή με στόχο να προσεγγίσουμε την καλύτερη συμφωνία. Ακόμα, χρησιμοποείται ο αλγόριθμος της θεωρία του σμήνους (Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm) ώστε μέσω της κίνησης στο Ν-διαστατο χώρο να συγκλίνουν οι πράκτορες λογισμικού στη βέλτιστη συμφωνία. Παρουσιάζεται, τέλος, ένας αριθμός από πειράματα για τις προτεινόμενες μεθόδους για να αξιολογηθεί η απόδοσή τους και να συγκριθούν τα αποτελέσματα με τη σχετική βιβλιογραφία. In this thesis, we deal with the problem of decision making in automated negotiations. We consider the case where software agents undertake the responsibility of representing their owners in such negotiations. The final aim is to provide an efficient algorithm in which software agents will act in a scenario of concurrent negotiations. Agents have no knowledge on the opponents’ characteristics. Negotiations are held for the exchange of products between buyers and sellers with specific returns. Each product is characterized by a set of issues. For example, a product could be characterized by its price, delivery time, and so on. The buyer is involved in concurrent negotiations with a number of sellers. We propose algorithms that try to solve the problem of handling the uncertainty with the final aim of maximizing the entities rewards. The reward is calculated as a weighted sum of the discussed issue values. We focus on the buyer side and define specific methodologies for defining the weights that affect the utility of the buyer. Moreover, we propose a methodology for changing the strategy of the buyer in order to reach the optimal agreement. We are based on the widely known Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm that is implemented by software agents’ movements in N-dimensional space to reach the optimal solution. We present a number of experiments for the proposed methodologies that show their performance and we compare our results with results found in the literature

Social Welfare

"Social Welfare" offers, for the first time, a wide-ranging, internationally-focused selection of cutting-edge work from leading academics. Its interdisciplinary approach and comparative perspective promote examination of the most pressing social welfare issues of the day. The book aims to clarify some of the ambiguity around the term, discuss the pros and cons of privatization, present a range of social welfare paradoxes and innovations, and establish a clear set of economic frameworks with which to understand the conditions under which the change in social welfare can be obtained

Computational Modeling of Uncertainty Avoidance in Consumer Behavior

Abstract: Human purchasing behavior is affected by many influential factors. Culture at macro-level and personality at microlevel influence consumer purchasing behavior. People of different cultures tend to accept the values of their own group and consequently have different purchasing behavior. Also, people in the same culture have some differences in their purchases which can be described by their personal characteristics. Therefore, this paper studies Uncertainty Avoidance dimension of Hofstede culture model in consumer behavior as well as four personality traits. The consumer model includes three important module including perception, evaluation of the alternatives and post-purchase. Our experimental results show that people of high uncertainty avoidance tend to purchase the high quality products as well as famous brands to reduce the risk of their purchases. On the other hand, people in high uncertainty tolerant culture tend to purchase the new products. The paper discusses about the validity of the proposed model based on empirical data

Effect of gender composition and negotiation support systems in dyadic setting: An empirical study

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC

Application of Cournot\u27s model on a couple\u27s budget allocation

Budget allocation of the couples belongs to the field of family finance management, but also represents a source of dispute among them, which directed the research of this topic towards family therapy and psychology. This paper will offer quantitative approach, implementing Cournot’s duopoly model to a situation of a couple’s budget allocation. That will emphasis the underlying economic principles, as well as show that there exists an equilibrium solution or an equilibrium set of possible solutions