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Manipulating Conventions in a Particle-Based Topology

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Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems XI (COIN 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9628))

Abstract

Coordination is essential to the effective operation of multi-agent systems. Convention emergence offers a low-cost and decentralised method of ensuring compatible actions and behaviour, without requiring the imposition of global rules. This is of particular importance in environments with no centralised control or where agents belong to different, possibly conflicting, parties. The timely emergence of robust conventions can be facilitated and manipulated via the use of fixed strategy agents, who attempt to influence others into adopting a particular strategy. Although fixed strategy agents have previously been investigated, they have not been considered in dynamic networks. In this paper, we explore the emergence of conventions within a dynamic network, and examine the effectiveness of fixed strategy agents in this context. Using established placement heuristics we show how such agents can encourage convention emergence, and we examine the impact of the dynamic nature of the network. We introduce a new heuristic, Life-Degree, to enable this investigation. Finally, we consider the ability of fixed strategy agents to manipulate already established conventions, and investigate the effectiveness of placement heuristics in this domain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    James Marchant & Nathan Griffiths

Authors
  1. James Marchant
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  2. Nathan Griffiths
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to James Marchant .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Delft University of Technology , Delft, The Netherlands

    Virginia Dignum

  2. IIIA-CSIC , Barcelona, Spain

    Pablo Noriega

  3. Ozyegin University , Istanbul, Turkey

    Murat Sensoy

  4. University of Sao Paulo , Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Jaime Simão Sichman

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Marchant, J., Griffiths, N. (2016). Manipulating Conventions in a Particle-Based Topology. In: Dignum, V., Noriega, P., Sensoy, M., Sichman, J. (eds) Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems XI. COIN 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9628. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42691-4_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42691-4_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-42690-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-42691-4

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