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Finding the Largest Successful Coalition under the Strict Goal Preferences of Agents

Published: 13 September 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Coalition formation has been a fundamental form of resource cooperation for achieving joint goals in multiagent systems. Most existing studies still focus on the traditional assumption that an agent has to contribute its resources to all the goals, even if the agent is not interested in the goal at all. In this article, a natural extension of the traditional coalitional resource games (CRGs) is studied from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, in which each agent has uncompromising, personalized preferences over goals. Specifically, a new CRGs model with agents’ strict preferences for goals is presented, in which an agent is willing to contribute its resources only to the goals that are in its own interest set. The computational complexity of the basic decision problems surrounding the successful coalition is reinvestigated. The results suggest that these problems in such a strict preference way are complex and intractable. To find the largest successful coalition for possible computation reduction or potential parallel processing, a flow-network–based exhaust algorithm, called FNetEA, is proposed to achieve the optimal solution. Then, to solve the problem more efficiently, a hybrid algorithm, named 2D-HA, is developed to find the approximately optimal solution on the basis of genetic algorithm, two-dimensional (2D) solution representation, and a heuristic for solution repairs. Through extensive experiments, the 2D-HA algorithm exhibits the prominent ability to provide reassurances that the optimal solution could be found within a reasonable period of time, even in a super-large-scale space.

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  • (2023)Existence and verification of Nash equilibria in non-cooperative contribution games with resource contentionAnnals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence10.1007/s10472-023-09905-792:2(317-353)Online publication date: 14-Dec-2023

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  1. Finding the Largest Successful Coalition under the Strict Goal Preferences of Agents

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    cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
    ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems  Volume 14, Issue 4
    December 2019
    88 pages
    ISSN:1556-4665
    EISSN:1556-4703
    DOI:10.1145/3415348
    Issue’s Table of Contents
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    Publication History

    Published: 13 September 2020
    Accepted: 01 July 2020
    Revised: 01 April 2020
    Received: 01 November 2019
    Published in TAAS Volume 14, Issue 4

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    Author Tags

    1. Coalitional resource games
    2. genetic algorithm
    3. goal preferences of agents
    4. heuristic
    5. network flows
    6. successful coalition

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    Funding Sources

    • National Natural Science Foundation of China
    • Shenzhen Peacock Plan
    • Fundamental Research Funds
    • Anhui Provincial Key Research and Development Program
    • Humanities and Social Sciences

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    • (2023)Existence and verification of Nash equilibria in non-cooperative contribution games with resource contentionAnnals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence10.1007/s10472-023-09905-792:2(317-353)Online publication date: 14-Dec-2023

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