Han La Poutré

Automating supply chain negotiations using autonomous agents: a case study in transportation logistics

This paper presents a case study for the application of agent-mediated negotiation techniques in transportation logistics. More specifically, we consider the interaction between several logistics service providers negotiating over the allocation of transportation orders. In this context, we show that automated negotiation techniques (especially multi-issue or multi-item negotiation) can bring significant advantages, by allowing parties to discover jointly profitable bundles (allocations) of orders. The model, evaluations and results reported in this paper concern the business processes of Vos Logistics, one of the largest European transportation logistic providers.

Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization for Dynamic Hospital Resource Management

Allocating resources to hospital units is a major managerial issue as the relationship between resources, utilization and patient flow of different patient groups is complex. Furthermore, the problem is dynamic as patient arrival and treatment processes are stochastic. In this paper we present a strategy optimization approach where the parameters of different strategies are optimized using a multiobjective EDA. The strategies were designed such that they enable dynamic resource allocation with an offline EDA. Also, the solutions are understandable to health care professionals. We show that these techniques can be applied to this real-world problem. The results are compared to allocation strategies used in hospital practice.

Decentralized reputation-based trust for assessing agent reliability under aggregate feedback

Reputation mechanisms allow agents to establish trust in other agents intentions and capabilities in the absence of direct interactions. In this paper, we are concerned with establishing trust on the basis of reputation information in open, decentralized systems of interdependent autonomous agents. We present a completely decentralized reputation mechanism to increase the accuracy of agents assessments of other agents capabilities and allow them to develop appropriate levels of trust in each other as providers of reliable information. Computer simulations show the reputation systems ability to track an agents actual capabilities.

Minimizing the total completion time on-line on a single machine, using restarts

textabstractWe give an algorithm to minimize the total completion time on-line on a single machine, using restarts, with a competitive ratio of 3/2. The optimal competitive ratio without using restarts is 2 for deterministic algorithms and

Competitive market-based allocation of consumer attention space

e/(e-1) approx 1.582

Decommitment in a competitive multi-agent transportation setting

for randomized algorithms. This is the first restarting algorithm to minimize the total completion time that is proved to be better than an algorithm that does not restart.

Maintenance of 2- and 3-Edge-Connected Components of Graphs II

The amount of attention space available for recommending suppliers to consumers on e-commerce sites is typically limited. We present a competitive distributed recommendation mechanism based on adaptive software agents for efficiently allocating the consumer attention space, or banners. In our approach, each agent bids in an auction for the momentary attention of each consumer. Successive auctions allow agents to rapidly adapt their bidding strategy to focus on consumers interested in their offerings. We demonstrate the feasibility of our system by an evolutionary simulation, and reflect on the advantages of this distributed market-based approach.

Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce - Designing Trading Agents and Mechanisms

Decommitment is the action of foregoing of a contract for another (superior) offer. It has been analytically shown that, using decommitment, agents can reach higher utility levels in case of negotiations with uncertainty about future opportunities. We study the decommitment concept for the novel setting of a large-scale logistics setting with multiple, competing companies. Orders for transportation of loads are acquired by agents of the (competing) companies by bidding in online auctions. We find significant increases in profit when the agents can decommit and postpone the transportation of a load to a more suitable time. Furthermore, we analyze the circumstances for which decommitment has a positive impact if agents are capable of handling multiple contracts simultaneously. Lastly, we present a demonstrator of the developed model in the form of a Java Applet.

Bilateral Bargaining in a One-to-Many Bargaining Setting

Data structures and algorithms are presented to efficiently maintain the 2- and 3-edge-connected components of a general graph, under insertions of edges and nodes in the graph. At any moment, the data structure can answer whether two nodes are 2- or 3-edge-connected. The algorithms run in O(n+ .alpha(m,n)) time, where m is the total number of queries and edge insertions. Furthermore, a linear-time algorithm is presented for maintaining the 2-edge-connected components in case the initial graph is connected. Finally, a new solution is presented for the 2-vertex-connected components of a graph.

Minimizing the Total Completion Time On-line on a Single Machine, Using Restarts

htmlabstractThis book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce, AMEC VII 2005, held in Utrecht, Netherlands in July 2005, as part of AAMAS 2005, and the third Workshop on Trading Agent Design and Analysis, TADA 2005, held in Edinburgh, UK in August 2005, in the course of the IJCAI 2005 conference meetings. n nThe 7 revised full AMEC 2005 papers presented were carefully selected and address a mix of both theoretical and practical issues, looking at behavioral and organizational dimensions of agent-mediated electronic commerce as well as at complex computational, information and system-level challenges. An extended version of an article originally presented at AMEC 2004 has also been included. The second part of the book comprises 8 revised full papers of TADA 2005 that focus on trading agent technologies and mechanism design, including discussions of agent architectures and decision-making algorithms along with theoretical analyses and empirical evaluations of agent strategies in different trading contexts.