The need for negotiation in multi-agent systems stems from the requirement for agents to solve the problems posed by their interdependence upon one another. Negotiation provides a solution to these problems by giving the agents the means to resolve their conflicting objectives, correct inconsistencies in their knowledge of other agents' world views, and coordinate a joint approach to domain tasks which benefits all the agents concerned. We propose a framework, based upon a system of argumentation, which permits agents to negotiate in order to establish acceptable ways of solving problems. The framework provides a formal model of argumentation-based reasoning and negotiation, details a design philosophy which ensures a clear link between the formal model and its practical instantiation, and describes a case study of this relationship for a particular class of architectures (namely those for belief-desire-intention agents). 1 Introduction An increasing number of software app...

We present a formal model of negotiation between autonomous agents. The purpose of the negotiation is to reach an agreement about the provision of a service by one agent for another. The model de nes a range of strategies and tactics that agents can employ to generate initial o ers, evaluate proposals and o er counter proposals. The model is based on computationally tractable assumptions, demonstrated in the domain of business process management and empirically evaluated. Keywords: Multi-agent systems, Negotiation, Business Process Management 1

Abstract. Many autonomous agents operate in domains in which the cooperation of their fellow agents cannot be guaranteed. In such domains negotiation is essential to persuade others of the value of co-operation. This paper describes a general framework for negotiation in which agents exchange proposals backed by arguments which summarise the reasons why the proposals should be accepted. The argumentation is persuasive because the exchanges are able to alter the mental state of the agents involved. The framework is inspired by our work in the domain of business process management and is explained using examples from that domain. Keywords: Automated negotiation, Argumentation, Persuasion. 1

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The field of economic mechanism design has been an active area of research in economics for at least 20 years. This field uses the tools of economics and game theory to design "rules of interaction " for economic transactions that will, in principle, yield some desired outcome. In this paper I provide an overview of this subject for an audience interested in applications to electronic commerce and discuss some special problems that arise in this context.

This paper analyzes coalitions among self-interested agents that need to solve combinatorial optimization problems to operate e ciently in the world. By colluding (coordinating their actions by solving a joint optimization prob-lem) the agents can sometimes save costs compared to operating individually. A model of bounded rationality is adopted where computation resources are costly. It is not worthwhile solving the problems optimally: solution quality is decision-theoretically traded o against computation cost. A normative, application- and protocol-independent theory of coalitions among bounded-rational agents is devised. The optimal coalition structure and its stability are signi cantly a ected by the agents ' algorithms ' performance pro les and the cost of computation. This relationship is rst analyzed theoretically. Then a domain classi cation including rational and bounded-rational agents is in-troduced. Experimental results are presented in vehicle routing with real data from ve dispatch centers. This problem is NP-complete and the instances are so large that|with current technology|any agent's rationality is bounded by computational complexity. 1

This paper describes an abstract framework for itinerant agents that can be used to implement secure, remote applications in large, public networks such as the Internet or the IBM Global Network. Itinerant agents are programs, dispatched from a source computer, that roam among a set of networked servers until they accomplish their task. This is an extension to the client / server model in which the client sends a portion of itself to the server for execution. An additional feature of itinerant agents is their ability to migrate from server to server, perhaps seeking one that can help with the user's task or perhaps collecting information from all of them. A major focus of the paper is the Agent Meeting Point, an abstraction that supports the interaction of agents with each other and server based resources.

Auctions provide an efficient distributed mechanism for solving problems such as task and resource allocation in multiagent systems.

In automated negotiation systems consisting of self-interested agents, contracts have traditionally been binding. Such contracts do not allow agents to efficiently accommodate future events. Game theory has proposed contingency contracts to solve this problem. Among computational agents, contingency contracts are often impractical due to large numbers of interdependent and unanticipated future events to be conditioned on, and because some events are not mutually observable. This paper proposes a leveled commitment contracting protocol that allows self-interested agents to efficiently accommodate future events by having the possibility of unilaterally decommitting from a contract based on local reasoning. A decommitment penalty is assigned to both agents in a contract: to be freed from the obligations of the contract, an agent only pays this penalty to the other party. It is shown through formal analysis of multiple contracting settings that this leveled commitment feature...

Abstract—This paper surveys and analyzes the state of the art of agent-mediated electronic commerce (e-commerce), concentrating particularly on the business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) aspects. From the consumer buying behavior perspective, agents are being used in the following activities: need identification, product brokering, buyer coalition formation, merchant brokering, and negotiation. The roles of agents in B2B e-commerce are discussed through the business-to-business transaction model that identifies agents as being employed in partnership formation, brokering, and negotiation. Having identified the roles for agents in B2C and B2B e-commerce, some of the key underpinning technologies of this vision are highlighted. Finally, we conclude by discussing the future directions and potential impediments to the wide-scale adoption of agent-mediated e-commerce. Index Terms—Agent-mediated electronic commerce, intelligent agents. 1