Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Effective Acceptance Conditions

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Exploring the Strategy Space of Negotiating Agents

Part of the book series: Springer Theses ((Springer Theses))

  • 557 Accesses

Abstract

An essential part of our framework outlined in Chap. 3 is the acceptance strategy of an agent. In every negotiation with a deadline, one of the negotiating parties must accept an offer to avoid a break off. As a break off is usually an undesirable outcome for both parties, it is important that a negotiator employs a proficient mechanism to decide under which conditions to accept. When designing such conditions, one is faced with the acceptance dilemma: accepting the current offer may be suboptimal, as better offers may still be presented before time runs out. On the other hand, accepting too late may prevent an agreement from being reached, resulting in a break off with no gain for either party. Motivated by the challenges of bilateral negotiations between automated agents and by the results and insights of the automated negotiating agents competition of 2010, we classify and compare state-of-the-art generic acceptance conditions in this chapter. We perform extensive experiments to compare the performance of various acceptance conditions in combination with a broad range of bidding strategies and negotiation scenarios. Furthermore, we propose new acceptance conditions and we demonstrate that they outperform the other conditions. We also provide insight into why some conditions work better than others and investigate correlations between the properties of the negotiation scenario and the efficacy of acceptance conditions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. van Galen Last N (2012) Agent Smith: opponent model estimation in bilateral multi-issue negotiation. In: Ito T, Zhang M, Robu V, Fatima S, Matsuo T (eds) New trends in agent-based complex automated negotiations. Studies in computational intelligence. Springer, Berlin, pp 167–174

    Google Scholar 

  2. Fatima SS, Wooldridge MJ, Jennings NR (2002) Optimal negotiation strategies for agents with incomplete information. In: Revised papers from the 8th international workshop on intelligent agents VIII, ATAL ’01. Springer, London, pp 377–392

    Google Scholar 

  3. Faratin P, Sierra C, Jennings NR (1998) Negotiation decision functions for autonomous agents. Robot Auton Syst 24(3–4):159–182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Sierra C, Faratin P, Jennings NR (1997) A service-oriented negotiation model between autonomous agents. In: Boman M, van de Velde W (eds) Proceedings of the 8th European workshop on modelling autonomous agents in multi-agent world, MAAMAW-97, vol 1237 of Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer, pp 17–35

    Google Scholar 

  5. Fatima SS, Wooldridge MJ, Jennings NR (2002) Multi-issue negotiation under time constraints. In: AAMAS ’02: proceedings of the first international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems. ACM, New York, pp 143–150

    Google Scholar 

  6. Jonker CM, Robu V, Treur J (2007) An agent architecture for multi-attribute negotiation using incomplete preference information. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 15:221–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Hindriks KV, Tykhonov D (2008) Opponent modelling in automated multi-issue negotiation using bayesian learning. In: Proceedings of the 7th international joint conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems, volume 1 of AAMAS ’08, Richland, SC. International foundation for autonomous agents and multiagent systems, pp 331–338

    Google Scholar 

  8. Şerban LD, Silaghi GC, Litan CM (2012) AgentFSEGA—time constrained reasoning model for bilateral multi-issue negotiations. In: Ito T, Zhang M, Robu V, Fatima S, Matsuo T (eds) New trends in agent-based complex automated negotiations. Series of studies in computational intelligence. Springer, Berlin, pp 159–165

    Google Scholar 

  9. Williams CR, Robu V, Gerding EH, Jennings NR (2012) Iamhaggler: a negotiation agent for complex environments. In: Ito T, Zhang M, Robu V, Fatima S, Matsuo T (eds) New trends in agent-based complex automated negotiations. Studies in computational intelligence. Springer, Berlin, pp 151–158

    Google Scholar 

  10. Kawaguchi S, Fujita K, Ito T (2012) Compromising strategy based on estimated maximum utility for automated negotiating agents. In: Ito T, Zhang M, Robu V, Fatima S, Matsuo T (eds) New trends in agent-based complex automated negotiations. Series of studies in computational intelligence. Springer, Berlin, pp 137–144

    Google Scholar 

  11. An B, Lesser VR (2012) Yushu: a heuristic-based agent for automated negotiating competition. In: Ito T, Zhang M, Robu V, Fatima S, Matsuo Tokuro (eds) New trends in agent-based complex automated negotiations, vol 383., Studies in computational intelligenceSpringer, Berlin, pp 145–149

    Google Scholar 

  12. Faratin P, Sierra C, Jennings NR (2002) Using similarity criteria to make issue trade-offs in automated negotiations. Artif Intell 142(2):205–237

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Hindriks KV, Tykhonov D (2010) Towards a quality assessment method for learning preference profiles in negotiation. In: Ketter W, La Poutré JA, Sadeh N, Shehory O, Walsh W (eds) Agent-mediated electronic commerce and trading agent design and analysis. Lecture notes in business information processing, vol 44. Springer, Berlin, pp 46–59

    Google Scholar 

  14. Kersten GE, Zhang G (2003) Mining inspire data for the determinants of successful internet negotiations. Central Eur J Oper Res 11(3):297–316

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  15. Lin R, Kraus S, Tykhonov D, Hindriks KV, Jonker CM (2011) Supporting the design of general automated negotiators. In: Proceedings of the second international workshop on agent-based complex automated negotiations (ACAN’09), vol 319. Springer, Berlin, pp 69–87

    Google Scholar 

  16. Lin R, Kraus S, Wilkenfeld J, Barry J (2008) Negotiating with bounded rational agents in environments with incomplete information using an automated agent. Artif Intell 172(6–7):823–851

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Raiffa H (1982) The art and science of negotiation: How to resolve conflicts and get the best out of bargaining. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  18. Baarslag T, Hindriks KV, Jonker CM (2014) Effective acceptance conditions in real-time automated negotiation. Decis Support Syst 60:68–77

    Google Scholar 

  19. Baarslag T, Hindriks KV, Jonker CM (2013) Acceptance conditions in automated negotiation. In: Ito T, Zhang M, Robu V, Matsuo T (eds) Complex automated negotiations: theories, models, and software competitions. Studies in computational intelligence, vol. 435. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 95–111

    Google Scholar 

Download references

This chapter is based on the following publications: [18, 19]

Tim Baarslag, Koen V. Hindriks, and Catholijn M. Jonker. Effective acceptance conditions in real-time automated negotiation. Decision Support Systems, 60:68–77, Apr 2014

Tim Baarslag, Koen V. Hindriks, and Catholijn M. Jonker. Acceptance conditions in automated negotiation. In Takayuki Ito, Minjie Zhang, Valentin Robu, and Tokuro Matsuo, editors, Complex Automated Negotiations: Theories, Models, and Software Competitions, volume 435 of Studies in Computational Intelligence, pages 95–111. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interactive Intelligence Group, Department of Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Tim Baarslag

Authors
  1. Tim Baarslag
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tim Baarslag .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Baarslag, T. (2016). Effective Acceptance Conditions. In: Exploring the Strategy Space of Negotiating Agents. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28243-5_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28243-5_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28242-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28243-5

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation