Evolutionary Auction Design for Agent-based Marketplaces

Market mechanism or auction design research is playing an important role in computational economics for resolving multi-agent allocation problems. In this chapter, we review relevant background of trading agents, and market designs by evolutionary computing methods. In particular, a GA can be used to design auction mechanisms in order to automatically generate a desired market mechanism for electronic markets populated with trading agents. In previous research, an auction space model was studied, in which the probability that buyers and sellers are able to quote on a given time step is optimized by a simple GA in order to maximize the market efficiency in terms of Smith’s coefficient of convergence. In this chapter, we also show some new results based on experiments with homogeneous and heterogeneous agents in a more realistic auction space model. This research provides a way of designing efficient auctions by evolutionary computing approaches.

Application of Agent-base Technology as Coordination and Cooperation in the Supply Chain based e-business

This chapter explores the utilisation of a multi-agent system in the field of supply chain management for electronic business. It investigates the coordination and cooperation processes, and proposes and discusses a newly developed model for an enhanced and effective cooperation process for e-business. The contribution made by this research provides a theoretical solution and model for agents that adopt the enhanced strategy for e-business. Both large organizations and SMEs will benefit by increasing and expanding their businesses globally, and by participating and sharing with business partners to achieve common goals. As a consequence, the organizations involved will each earn more profit.

Service Composition Approaches for Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing

This chapter describes and classifies service composition approaches according to ubiquitous and pervasive computing requirements. More precisely, because of the tremendous amount of research in this area, we present the state of the art in service composition and identify key issues related to the efficient implementation of service composition platforms in ubiquitous and pervasive computing environments.

Semantic Location Modeling for Mobile Enterprises

A location model represents the inclusive objects and their relationships in a space, and helps engender the values of location based services (LBS). Nevertheless, LBS for enterprise decision support are rare due to the common use of static location models. This chapter presents for enterprises a framework of dynamic semantic location modeling that is novel at three-fold: (1) Profoundly bring into the enterprise business models the location models. (2) With a novel method of dynamic semantic location modeling, enterprises effectively recognize the needs of the clients and the partners scattering in different locations, advancing existing business relationships by exerting appropriate service strategies through their mobile workforces. (3) Through the Location Model Platform of information sharing, enterprises are empowered to discover the potential business partners and predict the values of their cooperation, gaining competitive advantages when appropriate partnership deals are made by enterprise mobile workforces. This proposed framework has been implemented with the J2EE technology and attained the positive evidences of its claimed values.

An Inter-Organizational Business Process Study from Agents Interaction Perspective

It is observed that agent (or software agent) based systems largely imitate organizations of human actors. Thus, the nature of agent based systems can be better understood by first studying the ordinary human actors or organizations that own the agent based systems. In this chapter we first study agent systems and discuss characteristics of software agents, then we introduce a generic pattern of agents interaction derived from the communication patterns of human actors. Agent based systems are studied in the context of inter-organizational business process using diagrams and notations adapted by the authors. The methods and concepts used in this chapter are based on the Semiotics approach and the Language Action Perspective. For the illustration of our concept of agent based systems, we discuss a case study conducted based on a real life business.

A study of intelligent shopping support

The Internet and World Wide Web are becoming more and more dynamic in terms of their contents and usage. Agent-based shopping support (ASS) aims at keeping up with this dynamic environment by mimicking shoppers’ purchasing behavior in the electronic commerce transaction process in the sense of matching the profiles of web sites and shoppers. Evolutionary agent-based shopping supports are emerging as intelligent shopping support. This chapter contains the earliest attempt to gather and investigate the nature of current research. The idea of applying concepts of product characteristics from the matrix of Internet marketing strategies is introduced for solving problems of natural language information search. The process of focus-group research methodology is applied in acquiring the essential knowledge for examining shopper’s knowledge of search. An architecture of ASS in the case of outbound group package tour in Taiwan is presented. This work demonstrates the process of knowledge acquirement to tackle the problem of ineffective online information search by a customer-centric method.

The Evolution of Comparison-Shopping Agents

Comparison-shopping agents became the important link in the B2C ecommerce domain since late 90s. Since its emergence in 1995, the evolution of comparison-shopping agents experienced a few ups and downs. This chapter covers key events and issues of comparison-shopping agent evolution in three intertwined threads: the emergence of representative agents, the evolution of comparison-shopping agent technology, and the evolution of their business models.

An Agent-mediated Middleware Service Framework for e-Logistics

Service-oriented computing promises an effective approach to seamless integration and orchestration of distributed resources for dynamic business processes along the supply chains. In this chapter, the integration and adaptation needs of next generation e-logistics which motivates the concept of a middleware integration framework are first explained. Then, an overview of a service oriented intelligent middleware service framework for fulfilling the needs is presented with details regarding how one can embed the autonomy oriented computing (AOC) paradigm in the framework to enable autonomous service brokering and composition for highly dynamic integration among heterogeneous middleware systems. The authors hope that this chapter can provide not only a comprehensive overview on technical research issues in the e-logistics field but also a guideline of technology innovations which are vital for next generation on-demand e-logistics applications.

An Automated Negotiation Mechanism for Agents Based on International Joint Ventures

One consequence of market globalization has been the growing incidence of collaborative ventures among companies from different countries. Small and large, experienced and novice, companies increasingly are choosing partnerships as a way to compete in global marketplace. International joint ventures have emerged as the dominant form of partnership in light of intense global competition and the need for strategic organizational viability. The success of international joint ventures depend on many factors, but the most critical is vendors selecteion from among many suppliers based on their ability to meet the quantity requirements, delivery schedule, and the price limitation. The supplier selection negotiation mechanism is often the most complex, since it requires evaluation and decision-making under uncertainty, based on multiple attributes (criteria) of quantitative and qualitative nature, involving temporal and resource constraints, risk and commitment problems, varying tactics and strategies, domain specific knowledge and information asymmetries, etc.

Patterns for Designing Agent-Based e-Business Systems

Agents are rapidly emerging as a new paradigm for developing software applications. They are being used in an increasing variety of applications, ranging from relatively small systems such as assistants to large, open, mission-critical systems like electronic marketplaces. One of the most promising areas of applications for agent technology is e-business. In this chapter, we describe a group of architectural patterns for agent-based e-business systems. These patterns relate to front-end e-business activities that involve interaction with the user, and delegation of user tasks to agents. Patterns capture well-proven, common solutions, and guide developers through the process of designing systems. This chapter should be of interest to designers of e-business systems using agent technology. The description of the patterns is followed by the case study of an online auction system to which the patterns have been applied.