scholarly journals Multi-agent Contracting and Reconfiguration in Competitive Environments using Acquaintance Models

10.14311/838 ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Bíba ◽  
J. Vokřínek
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Profit Maximization ◽  
Price Setting ◽  
Collaborative Environments ◽  
Contract Price ◽  
Competitive Environments ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Competitive Contracting

Cooperation of agents in competitive environments is more complicated than in collaborative environments. Both replanning and reconfiguration play a crucial role in cooperation, and introduce a means for implementating a system flexibility. The concepts of commitments, decommitments with penalties and subcontracting may facilitate effective reconfiguration and replanning. Agents in competitive environments are fully autonomous and selfinterested. Therefore the setting of penalties and profit computation cannot be provided centrally. Both the costs and the gain differ from agent to agent with respect to contracts already agreed and resources load. This paper proposes an acquaintance model for contracting in competitive environments and introduces possibilities of reconfigurating in competitive environments as a means of decommitment optimization with respect to resources load and profit maximization. The presented algorithm for contract price setting does not use any centralized knowledge and provides results corresponding to a realistic environment. A simple customerprovider scenario proves this algorithm in competitive contracting. 

The potentially negative effects of cooperation in service systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 319-347
Author(s):  
Hakjin Chung ◽  
Hyun-Soo Ahn ◽  
Rhonda Righter
Keyword(s):  
Stackelberg Game ◽  
Price Of Anarchy ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Service Systems ◽  
Price Setting ◽  
Service Model ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Profit Maximizing

AbstractThe ‘Price of Anarchy’ states that the performance of multi-agent service systems degrades with the agents’ selfishness (anarchy). We investigate a service model in which both customers and the firm are strategic. We find that, for a Stackelberg game in which the server invests in capacity before customers decide whether or not to join, there can be a ‘Benefit of Anarchy’, that is, customers acting selfishly can have a greater overall utility than customers who are coordinated to maximize their overall utility. We also show that customer anarchy can be socially beneficial, resulting in a ‘Social Benefit of Anarchy’. We show that such phenomena are rather general and can arise in multiple settings (e.g. in both profit-maximizing and welfare-maximizing firms, in both capacity-setting and price-setting firms, and in both observable and unobservable queues). However, the underlying mechanism leading to the Benefit of Anarchy can differ significantly from one setting to another.

A Multi-Agent-Based Approach for Critical Components Identification and Testing

2017 ◽  
pp. 657-678
Author(s):  
D. Jeya Mala ◽  
R. Iswarya
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Adequacy Criterion ◽  
Critical Components ◽  
Test Adequacy

In real time software systems, testing plays a crucial role as any of the critical components in these systems are left undetected, then inadvertent effects will happen which will lead to erroneous operations, system failure, high cost and resource wastage etc. To address this most important and the emergent problem, this research work proposes an effective method by means of multi-agents based approach to identify such critical components and execute test cases along the critical test paths which will aid in effectively covering them during testing. Finally, this paper also compared the performance with existing approaches in terms of time taken for the search process and the component coverage based test adequacy criterion to ensure quality of the software.

General Principles of Price Setting in Competitive and Monopolized Markets

2005 ◽  
pp. 56-71
Author(s):  
A. Verenikin
Keyword(s):  
Production Technology ◽  
Profit Maximization ◽  
Price Setting ◽  
Optimal Price ◽  
Competitive Industry ◽  
Competitive Firm ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Cost Determination ◽  
Output Quantity ◽  
Maximization Principle

The author uses microeconomic approach to compare optimal price, input and output quantity setting for a firm in a competitive industry and with market power. Revealed profit maximization principle is applied to draw a conclusion that production technology plays a fundamental role in cost determination for a monopoly and a competitive firm. Production technology is a key factor that promotes both centrifugal, contending and centripetal, integrative trends in a modern economy.

scholarly journals Towards a Dynamic Multi-Agent Based Scaffolding Framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Curve ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Agent Technology ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Student Autonomy ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Modelling Approach

Students have different abilities, skills and background and thus the corresponding learning process is different. Moreover, the teacher strategy, the available equipment, etc, play a crucial role in the learning curve. Scaffolding is a learning approach for dynamically supporting student during the learning process. The final goal is to restrict this support and to increase the student autonomy. This paper presents a basic idea for developing a dynamic multi-agent computer based scaffolding framework. Multi-agent technology constitutes an adaptive approach regarding the needed scaffolding. This paper also shows the modelling approach regarding the multi agent concepts. Finally, some theoretical indicative learning paths for different students are presented.

scholarly journals On Reasoning about Access to Knowledge

10.29007/z15j ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yakoub Salhi
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Propositional Logic ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Classical Propositional Logic ◽  
Inference Process ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Classical Inference ◽  
Access To Knowledge

Controlling access to knowledge plays a crucial role in many multi-agent systems. In- deed, it is related to different central aspects in interactions among agents such as privacy, security, and cooperation. In this paper, we propose a framework for dealing with access to knowledge that is based on the inference process in classical propositional logic: an agent has access to every piece of knowledge that can be derived from the available knowledge using the classical inference process. We first introduce a basic problem in which an agent has to hide pieces of knowledge, and we show that this problem can be solved through the computation of maximal consistent subsets. In the same way, we also propose a coun- terpart of the previous problem in which an agent has to share pieces of knowledge, and we show that this problem can be solved through the computation of minimal inconsis- tent subsets. Then, we propose a generalization of the previous problem where an agent has to share pieces of knowledge and hide at the same time others. In this context, we introduce several concepts that allow capturing interesting aspects. Finally, we propose a weight-based approach by associating integers with the pieces of knowledge that have to be shared or hidden.

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