Issues in automated negotiation:protocol and ontology

In the environment of e-commerce, agents in automated negotiation should share common concept of what they are bargaining and a rule of how to bargain. State of the art overviews of automated negotiation is given. The main barriers to automated negotiation such as protocol and ontology are discussed. Then, a model of automated negotiation is presented with the ontologies of roles and goods described by web ontology language （OWL）, the proposal strategies based on the information sets, and a set of rules for agent interaction. In this model, agents coming from different organizations can negotiate automatically based on common ontologies defined by OWL and formal protocol. This makes it possible for the automated negotiation to be performed in an open environment such as Internet, not merely in a closed system.

Automated Negotiation in E Commerce: Protocol Relevance and Improvement Techniques

We all negotiate,formally or informally,in jobs,in day today lives and outcomes of negotiations affect those processes of life.Although negotiation is an intrinsic nature of human psyche,it is very complex phenomenon to implement using computing and internet for the various purposes in E Commerce.Automation of negotiation process poses unique challenges for computer scientists and researchers,so here we study how negotiation can be modeled and analyzed mathematically,what can be different techniques and strategies or set of rules/protocols to be implemented and how they can be relevantly implemented.We are in a quest to find out how this complex process,which involves human psyche can be automated using computers and modern day technologies.Now,the quest is not only automation,looking at the research in the related field in last ten years;but it is all about finding solutions to make e-negotiation more efficient and more accurate,as well as useful in any kind of electronic trading situations.Here is an attempt to consolidate our work of last few years on automation of negotiation process;we call it as negotiation protocol on research,study as well as implementation level of negotiation automation.Overall,we are trying to give few solutions to make the automation more efficient.

Agent Modeling of User Preferences Based on Fuzzy Classified ANNs in Automated Negotiation

In agent-based automated negotiation research area,a key problem is how to make software agent more adaptable to represent user preferences or suggestions,so that agent can take further proposals that reflect user requirements to implement ecommerce activities like automated transactions.The difficulty lies in the uncertainty of user preferences that include uncertain description and contents,non-linear and dynamic variability.In this paper,fuzzy language was used to describe the uncertainty and combine with multiple classified artificial neural networks(ANNs) for self-adaptive learning of user preferences.The refinement learning results of various negotiation contracts' satisfaction degrees in the extent of fuzzy classification can be achieved.Compared to unclassified computation,the experimental results illustrate that the learning ability and effectiveness of agents have been improved.

An Automated Negotiation Protocol Based On Game Theory

With the goal of meeting one-to-many negotiation mechanism in the process of inter-basin water transfer, according to features of all interest subjects in analysis of inter-basin water transfer, a one-to-many synchronous bidding negotiation model based on bidding rules of game theory is structured, which analyzes and negotiates the functions, code of conduct and information expression of each subject. In order to optimize overall interests and individual interests, and a series of parameters in the negotiation, the paper propose various rules corresponding to the negotiation model so that the efficiency of each interest subject and fair distribution of negotiation proceeds can be safeguarded in the inter-basin water transfer system.

Agent based automated trust negotiation model

To enhance the practicability of the trust negotiation system, an agent based automated trust negotiation model （ABAM） is proposed. The ABAM introduces an agent to keep the negotiation process with no human intervention. Meanwhile, the ABAM specifies the format of a meta access control policy, and adopts credentials with flexible format to meet the requirements of access control policies instead of disclosing the whole contents of a certificate. Furthermore, the ABAM uses asymmetric functions with a high security intensity to encrypt the transmitting message, which can prevent information from being attacked. Finally, the ABAM presents a new negotiation protocol to guide the negotiation process. A use case is studied to illuminate that the ABAM is sound and reasonable. Compared with the existing work, the intelligence, privacy and negotiation efficiency are improved in the ABAM.

New E-Commerce Model Based on Multi-Agent Automated Negotiation

A new multi-agent automated negotiation model is developed and evaluated, in which two competitive agents, such as the buyer and seller, have firm deadlines and incomplete information about each other. The negotiation is multi-dimensional in different cases. The model is discussed in 6 kinds of cases with different price strategies, warrantee strategies and time strategies. The model improves the model of Wooldridge and that of Sycara to a certain extent. In all possible situations, the optimal negotiation strategy is analyzed and presented, and an e-commerce model based on multi-agent automated negotiation model is also illustrated for the e-commerce application in the future.

Automatic Negotiation with Profiles and Clustering of Agents

This paper presents a model of automatic negotiation agents in an open environment. Agents are motivated by the gain they may obtain while fulfilling their goals, but their behaviour can change during negotiation according to previous interactions with other agents in the system. Changing behaviour may refer to either the use of different negotiation strategies or to concessions made for other agents, with which they have successfully negotiated in the past. To this aim, an agent develops a set of partners’ profiles during negotiation: the preference profile, the cooperation profile, and the group negotiation profile. The first two profiles characterize individuals, while in a group negotiation profile, several agent profiles are clustered according to commonly discovered features. Different approaches to the development of these profiles are presented.

Service Parameter Exposure and Dynamic Service Negotiation in SDN Environments

Software-defined networking （SDN） is a generic term and one of the major interests of the telecoms industry （and beyond） over the past two years. However, defining SDN is a somewhat controversial exercise. The claimed flexibility, as well as other presumed assets of SDN, should be carefully investigated. In particular, the use of SDN to dynamically provision network services suggests the introduction of a certain level of automation in the overall network service delivery process, from service parameter negotiation to delivery and operation. This paper aims to clarify the SDN landscape and focuses on two main aspects of the SDN framework： net- work abstraction, and dynamic parameter exposure and negotiation.

An E-Negotiation Agent Using Rule Based and Case Based Approaches: A Comparative Study with Bilateral E-Negotiation with Prediction

The research in the area of automated negotiation systems is going on in many universities. This research is mainly focused on making a practically feasible, faster and reliable E-negotiation system. The ongoing work in this area is happening in the laboratories of the universities mainly for training and research purpose. There are number of negotiation systems such as Henry, Kasbaah, Bazaar, Auction Bot, Inspire, and Magnet. Our research is based on making an agent software for E-negotiation which will give faster results and also is secure and flexible. The negotiation partners and contents between the service providers change frequently. The negotiation process can be transformed into rules and cases. Using these features, a new automated negotiation model for agent integrating rule based and case based reasoning can be derived. We propose an E-negotiation system, in which all product information and multiple agent details are stored on the cloud. An E-negotiation agent acts as a negotiator. Agent has user’s details and their requirements for a particular product. It will check rules based data whether any rule is matching with the user requirement. An agent will see case based data to check any similar negotiation case matching to the user requirement. If a case matches with user requirement, then agent will start the negotiation process using case based data. If any rule related requirement is found in the rule base data, then agent will start the negotiation process using rule based data. If both rules based data and cases based data are not matching with the user requirement, then agent will start the negotiation process using Bilateral Negotiation model. After completing negotiation process, agent gives feedback to the user about whether negotiation is successful or not. The product details, rule based data, and case based data will be stored on the cloud. So that system automatically becomes flexible. We also compare E-negotiation agent automated negotiation and behavior prediction system to prove that using rule based and case based approaches system should become fast.

Negotiation Model for Shopping Agents in E-marketplace

Automated negotiation is the key techniques for reaching agreements in agent-mediated electronic commerce. Current automated negotiation models assume that users know the value of the product or service they want to buy and provide their agents with a reservation price, and the agents make offers and reach agreements with other agents according to this reservation price. However, in real world electronic marketplaces users probably do not know the exact value of the item, which is in terms of price, and the reservation price they set to their agents only means the maximum price they are willing to pay for the item. In this paper, we propose a negotiation model to deal with the valuation problem. The shopping agent in our model can deliberate the market price and the seller agent’s reservation price from public available information and the seller agent’s proposals. Also in order to conform with the real world negotiation conditions, we introduce negotiation features of real world human shopping such as multiple sellers, valuation, ultimatum, and learning from available information, etc. into our model.

Integrating Interaction Framework for Agent Negotiation

Agent negotiation has become increasingly important since the advent of electronic commerce.There are two kinds of interactions in the process of agent negotiation.One is the interaction between different agents,and the other is the interaction between the agent and the human user.In this paper,firstly,we introduce Q language,a scenario description language for designing interactions between agents and human users.Then we propose an integrating interaction framework for agent negotiation,in which both kinds of interactions are described by Q scenario.Our framework can make the interaction process open and easy to be understood by the users.Users can understand how the negotiation process goes and what is happening in the system including some erroneous or inappropriate actions caused by the negotiation agent.This gives the users a chance to terminate or change the behavior of negotiation agent in time to avoid unfavorable negotiation outcome.In addition,users can customize the agent's behaviors through visible interactions with it.

Resolving conflicts between negotiation success and sensitive information protection in automated trust negotiation

Automated trust negotiation （ATN） is an approach to establishing mutual trust between strangers wishing to share resources or conduct business by gradually requesting and disclosing digitally signed credentials. In ATN, there are conflicts between negotiation success and sensitive information protection, that is, these two needs cannot be given priority at the same time, which is a challenging problem to resolve. In this paper, a language independent ATN framework, which is dynamic, flexible and adaptive, is presented to address this problem, ensuring negotiation success without sensitive information leakage. This framework is independent of the policy language which is used. However, the language used should have the capability to specify all kinds of sensitive information appearing in credentials and policies, and support the separation of attribute disclosure from credential disclosure. Thus definitions of new language features, which can be incorporated into existing policy languages, are given, enabling the used language to support the capabilities mentioned above.

基于Bayesian学习的适应性优化协商模型

在复杂的自动协商环境中,设计能够处理不完全信息和动态情形的协商agent有效学习机制正成为具有挑战性的议题.提出了一种基于Bayesian学习的时间依赖的双边多议题协商优化模型(BLMSEAN).通过只观察对手的历史报价,将Bayesian学习和基于混合策略的演化算法相结合,所提模型使得协商agent能够对于对手协商参数的概率分布有更精确的估计(如期限、保留报价和议题权重等),能够适应性地调整让步策略使协商双方都受益,提高了协商的成功率和效用.通过实验可以显示所提的模型学习对手私有信息和适应性调整让步策略的有效性.

Designing Negotiating Agent for Automated Negotiations

Traditional research in automated negotiation is focused on negotiation protocol and strategy.This paper studies automated negotiation from a new point of view, proposes a novel concept, namely negotiating agent, and discusses its significance in construction of automated negotiation system, with an abstract model formally described and the architecture designed, which supports both goal-directed reasoning and reactive response. A communication model was proposed to construct interaction mechanism used by negotiating agents, in which the negotiation language used by agents is defined.The communication model and the language are defined in a way general enough to support a wide variety of market mechanisms, thus being particularly suitable for flexible applications such as electronic business. The design and expression of the negotiation ontology is also discussed. On the base of the theoretical model of negotiating agent, negotiating agent architecture and negotiating agent communication model (NACM) are explicit and formal specifications for the agents negotiating in an E-business environment; especially, NACM defines the negotiation language template shared among all agents formally and explicitly. The novelty of the communication model is twofold.

A MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH FOR MECHANISM SELECTION IN COMPLEX NEGOTIATIONS

Automated negotiation mechanisms can be helpful in contexts where users want to reach mutually satisfactory agreements about issues of shared interest, especially for complex problems with many interdependent issues. A variety of automated negotiation mechanisms have been proposed in the literature. The effectiveness of those mechanisms, however, may depend on the charaeteristics of the underlying negotiation problem （e.g. on the complexity of participant＇s utility functions, as well as the degree of conflict between participants）. While one mechanism may be a good choice for a negotiation problem, it may be a poor choice for another. In this paper, we pursue the problem of selecting the most effective negotiation mechanism given a particular problem by （1） defining a set of scenario metrics to capture the relevant features of negotiation problems, （2） evaluating the performance of a range of negotiation mechanisms on a diverse test suite of negotiation scenarios, （3） applying machine learning techniques to identify which mechanisms work best with which scenarios, and （4） demonstrating that using these classification rules for mechanism selection enables significantly better negotiation performance than any single mechanism alone.

An efficient trust negotiation strategy towards the resource-limited mobile commerce environment

Automated trust negotiation （ATN） offers an at- tractive means for trust establishments, which establishes mu- tual trust among strangers wishing to share resources or con- duct business, but it comes at the cost of non-trivial computa- tion and communication overheads. The deployment of ATN strategies on a resource-constrained mobile device may lead to user-obstructive latency for operations. In this paper, we propose a trust negotiation strategy called trust target Petri nets negotiation strategy （TPNNS）. It highly reduces the ne- gotiation latency in the mobile device compared with other negotiation strategies, since it considers all the alternative re- sponses at each step and chooses the best one. TPNNS sup- ports cycle avoidance and employs skipped TPN which is a new approach presented in this paper. What is more, it is complete and ensures no irrelevant credentials are disclosed during the trust negotiation.

A PRIORITY-BASED NEGOTIATIONS APPROACH FOR HANDLING INCONSISTENCIES IN MULTI-PERSPECTIVE SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

Inconsistency of multi-perspective requirements specifications is a pervasive issue during the requirements process. However, managing inconsistency is not just a pure technical problem. It is always associated with a process of interactions and competitions among corresponding stakeholders. The main contribution of this paper is to present a negotiations approach to handling inconsistencies in multi-perspective software requirements. In particular, the priority of requirements relative to each perspective plays an important role in proceeding negotiation over resolving inconsistencies among different stakeholders. An algorithm of generating negotiation proposals and an approach to evaluating proposals are also presented in this paper, respectively.

基于Agent的谈判模型研究

提出了一种基于Agent技术的谈判模型,应用模糊数学理论建立了谈判论据及谈判解接受度数学模型。采用约束放松的方法对谈判模型进行求解,得到了谈判Agent满意的谈判解。阐述了双边多属性谈判过程,设计并开发了Agent谈判系统原型,实例计算分析表明,该谈判模型是一种双赢的谈判模型。

基于机器学习的自动协商决策模型

所提出的模型利用协商历史中隐含的信息自动对数据进行标注以形成训练样本,用最小二乘支持向量回归机学习此样本得到对手效用函数的估计,然后结合自己和对手的效用函数构成一个约束优化问题,用遗传算法求解此优化问题,得到的最优解就是己方的反建议.实验结果表明,在信息保密和没有先验知识的条件下,此模型仍然表现出较高的效率和效用.

自动信任协商及其发展趋势

属性证书交换是一种在不同安全域里共享资源或进行商业事务交易的陌生人之间建立双方信任关系的重要手段.自动信任协商则通过使用访问控制策略提供了一种方法来规范敏感证书的交换,从而保护了用户的敏感证书信息、敏感访问控制策略与个人隐私,以及提高协商效率和协商成功率.对自动信任协商的研究动态进行了调研,对该领域的相关技术进行了归类及介绍.在认真分析现有技术的基础上,总结了当前自动信任协商的不足,并指出了自动信任协商继续发展应遵守的原则以及自动信任协商的未来发展趋势.