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Automated Negotiation Decision Making Approaches: Experimental Study
Automated Negotiation Decision Making Approaches: Experimental Study
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terms of interests. Interests are the underlying reasons why
2. Literature review people hold the positions that they do.
Reframing is a sub-type of interest-based negotiation
2.1. Automated negotiation approaches strategy that enhances bargaining by allowing the
negotiators to ask for the underlying goal of the negotiation
Automated negotiation is a key form of interaction in and propose alternative plan(s) which may entail a deal on
systems that are composed of multiple autonomous agents. alternative issues [11]. Reframing overcomes the
The aim of such interactions is to reach agreements through limitations of positional approaches.
an iterative process of making offers and counter proposals
between a proponent and an opponent until either a 3. Negotiation framework
mutually acceptable agreement is reached or one of the
parties withdraws. The interest-based negotiation framework was defined in
In the multi-agent systems literature, various interaction details in [12].
and decision mechanisms for automated negotiation have
been proposed and studied. These approaches have been 3.1. Bargaining protocol
classified into two categories: Positional Approaches and
Integrative Approaches. Figure 1 part (a) describes a bargaining protocol (BO
Positional bargaining is the traditional form of case) initiated by agent i with agent j and it is divided in
negotiation. It is characterized by the assertion of opposing two parts as follows:
positions by the parties over a single mutually exclusive Part one: negotiating the resources to be exchanged,
goal. It’s a “win-lose” type of negotiation. It tends to view each agent discloses the set of resources that he wants.
the object of the negotiation as fixed, such that a better deal Part two: bargaining over the payment:
for one means a lesser beneficial deal for the other. 1. Agent i makes a first offer
Examples of positional approaches are Game-theoretic 2. Agent j chooses between the three following
approach and Heuristic approach [7]. options:
Integrative bargaining is a negotiation strategy in which o Accept agent i's proposal
parties collaborate to find a “win-win” solution to their o Reject agent i's proposal.
dispute. This strategy focuses on developing mutually o Make a counter proposal.
beneficial agreements based on the interests of the parties.
Interests include the needs, desires, concerns, and fears
3.2. Reframing protocol
important to each side [8]. It usually produces more
satisfactory outcomes than does positional bargaining.
Figure 1 part (b) describes the (recursive) reframing
Examples of Integrative Approaches: Argumentation-based protocol (BR case).
Negotiation [9] and Interest-based Negotiation. In this
Initiated by agent i, this protocol allows agent i to ask
paper we focus on the interest-based negotiation (IBN).
agent j what is (are) his underlying goal(s).
Agent j can then:
2.2. Interest-based negotiation 1. Disclose his set of underlying goals gj.
2. Reject the question, thus ending the reframing
Interest-based Negotiation (IBN) is a sub-class of protocol.
argumentation-based negotiation (ABN). While ABN Agent i then generates all the possible plans for
encompasses any negotiation framework where agents can achieving the goals of gj and can either:
exchange arguments to influence each others' mental states, 1. Inform agent j of one alternative plan to achieve
IBN refers to those frameworks where the arguments one of his underlying goals that agent i believes to
involved pertain particularly to agents' interests. Here be preferable (cheaper) than the one previously
"interests" refers to the agent's underlying desires and the selected by agent j.
goals adopted to fulfill those desires. IBN, therefore, 2. Reject the reframing.
excludes non-interest-based arguments, such as those 3. Start a new reframing protocol to inquire about the
pertaining purely to authority or resorting to threats [10]. super-goals of gj.
Rather than describing a conflict in terms of positions, it After reframing terminates, on the reception of the
is often helpful to redefine or "reframe" the conflict in information that there is an alternative plan for achieving a
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Figure 1. UML 2.0 specification of the bargaining and reframing protocols.
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Figure 2. Reframing strategies (a) parallel execution
(b) symmetric execution (c) asymmetric execution
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Figure 3. Benefit in term of number of goals achieved in
reframing strategies: a) symmetric b) asymmetric c) parallel
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(successful reframing) followed by an update (information "Interest-based negotiation as an extension of monotonic
taken into account by the agent) more often than with bargaining in 3APL," In Proceedings of the Ninth Pacific
parallel reframing. Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents (PRIMA
2006), volume 4088 of Lecture Notes in Artificial
Intelligence (LNAI), pp. 569-580, Guilin, China, 2006.
5.3.3. Quantitative dimension: plan benefit. The [12] P. Pasquier, L. Sonenberg, I. Rahwan, F. Dignum, R.
outcomes of Figure 5 demonstrate that, on average, the Hollands, "An empirical study of interest-based
benefit on the cost of the plan used in the symmetric and negotiation," In Proceedings of the 9th International
asymmetric executions of sequential reframing strategies Conference on Electronic Commerce (ICEC2007), ACM
are greater than that of parallel reframing which means that Press, USA, 2007.
not only more deals are reached in the sequential
executions, but also the deals reached are of better quality
(cheaper plans) for the agent.
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