Publication - Degree of Local Cooperation and its Implication on Global Utility

Authors: Shen, Jiaying; Zhang, Xiaoqin; and Lesser, Victor
Title: Degree of Local Cooperation and its Implication on Global Utility
Abstract: In a cooperative multi-agent system that is situated in an evolving environment, agents need to dynamically adjust their negotiation attitudes towards different agents in order to achieve optimal system performance. In this paper, we construct a statistical model for a small cooperative multi-linked negotiation system. It presents the relationship between the environment, the level of local cooperation and the global system performance in a formal and clear way that allows us to explain system behavior and predict system performance. The analysis results in a set of design equations that can be used to develop distributed mechanisms that optimize the performance of the system dynamically. It helps us more concretely understand the important issue of distraction and provides us with the local attitude parameter to handle distraction effectively. This research demonstrates that sophisticated probabilistic modelling can be used to understand the behaviors of a system with complex agent interactions, and provide guidelines for the development of effective distributed control mechanisms.
Keywords: Agent Control, Coordination, Learning, Multi-Agent Systems, Negotiation, Uncertainty
Publication: Proceedings of Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS 2004), Vol: 2, pp. 546 - 553
Location: New York, New York
Publisher: IEEE Computer Society
Date: July 2004
Sources: PDF: http://mas.cs.umass.edu/~jyshen/papers/aamas-04.pdf
Reference: Shen, Jiaying; Zhang, Xiaoqin; and Lesser, Victor. Degree of Local Cooperation and its Implication on Global Utility. Proceedings of Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS 2004), Volume 2, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 546-553. July 2004.
bibtex: 
@inproceedings{Shen-359,
  author    = "Jiaying Shen and Xiaoqin Zhang and Victor Lesser",
  title     = "{Degree of Local Cooperation and its Implication on
               Global Utility}",
  booktitle = "Proceedings of Third International Joint
               Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent
               Systems (AAMAS 2004)",
  volume    = "2",
  publisher = "IEEE Computer Society",
  pages     = "546-553",
  month     = "July",
  year      = "2004",
  address   = "New York, New York",
  url       = "http://mas.cs.umass.edu/paper/359",
}