Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Multi-attribute Utility Theoretic Negotiation for Electronic Commerce

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce III (AMEC 2000)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2003))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

We present a generic negotiation architecture that uses Multi-attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) principles to reach agreements that satisfy multiple interdependent objectives. The architecture is built by giving a constraint optimization formulation to the MAUT principles and by using a constraint optimization solver to find the best ‘deals’ from an agent’s local perspective. These are then proposed to other agents via a second component that supports conversational interactions among agents. When received proposals are disjoint from what an agent can currently accept, we provide a systematic constraint relaxation protocol that allows agents to generate the next acceptable ‘deal’. This protocol ensures that in the end the Pareto optimal deal will be found, if one exists. The approach is built on top of our Negotiation Engine, a generic architecture for coordination and negotiation that integrates local reasoning, in the form of propositional constraint optimization, with interaction, in the form of conversational exchanges. The system is fully operational, being currently used to automate negotiations in the electronic components domain.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Barbuceanu, M. 1998. Agents that work in harmony by knowing and fulfilling their obligations. Proc. of AAAI-98, Madison, WI, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Barbuceanu, M. and Fox, M. S. 1997. Integrating Communicative Action, Conversations and Decision Theory to Coordinate Agents. Proceedings of First International Conference on Automomous Agents (Agents’97), 47–58, Marina Del Rey, February 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Barbuceanu, M. and Fox, M.S. The Architecture of an Agent Building Shell, In M. Woolridge, J.P. Mueller and M. Tambe (eds), Intelligent Agents II: Agent Theories, Architectures and Languages, Springer Verlag Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence Vol. 1037, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Doorembos, R., Etzioni, O., Weld, D. A Scalable Comparison-Shopping Agent for the World Wide Web. Proceedings of First International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents’97), Marinal del Rey, CA, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Faratin, P., Sierra, C. and Jennings, N. 2000. Using Similarity Criteria to Make Negotiation Trade-Offs. Proceedings of the Fourth Intl. Conference on MultiAgent Systems, Boston, MA, July 2000, 119–126.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Finin, T. et al. 1992. Specification of the KQML Agent Communication Language. The DARPA Knowledge Sharing Initiative, External Interfaces Working Group.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Gutman, R., Moukas, A., and Maes, P. Agent Mediated Electronic Commerce: A Survey. Knowledge Engineering Review, June 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Jiang, Y., Kautz, H. and Selman, B. Solving Problems with Hard and Soft Constraints Using a Stochastic Algorithm for MAXSAT. First International Joint Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research, Timberline, Oregon, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Keeny, R. and Raiffa, H. Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Tradeoffs. John Willey & Sons, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Pearl, J. Probabilistic Reasoning in Intelligent Systems, Morgan Kaufmann, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Selman, B., H.J. Levesque and D. Mitchell. 1992. A new method for solving hard satisfiability problems. Proceedings of AAAI-92 San Jose, CA, pp. 440–446.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Sycara, K. The PERSUADER. In The Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence, D. Shapiro (ed), John Willey & Sons, January 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Yokoo, M. Ishida, T., Durfee, E. and Kuwabara, K. Distributed Constraint Satisfaction for Formalizing Distributed Problem Solving. Proceedings of 12 th IEEE Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, 1992, pp 614–621.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Enterprise Integration Laboratory, University of Toronto, 4 Taddle Creek Road, Rosebrugh Building, M5S 3G9, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Mihai Barbuceanu & Wai-Kau Lo

Authors
  1. Mihai Barbuceanu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Wai-Kau Lo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80.089, 3508, TB Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Frank Dignum

  2. Software Department, Artificial Intelligence Section, Technical University of Catalonia, Mòdul C5-216, Jordi Girona 1 & 3, 08034, Barcelona, Spain

    Ulises Cortés

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Barbuceanu, M., Lo, WK. (2001). Multi-attribute Utility Theoretic Negotiation for Electronic Commerce. In: Dignum, F., Cortés, U. (eds) Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce III. AMEC 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2003. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44723-7_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44723-7_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41749-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44723-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation