Extended Abstracts - AAMAS 2011
AAMAS 2011 - May 2-6, 2011 - Taipei, Taiwan

Extended Abstracts

Session R – Red Session

Session B – Blue Session

B2

Fair division methods offer guarantees to agents of the proportional size or quality of their share in a division of a resource (cake). These guarantees come with a price. Standard fair division methods (or “cake cutting” algorithms) do not find efficient allocations (not Pareto optimal). The lack of efficiency of these methods makes them less attractive for solving multi-agent resource and task allocation. Previous attempts to increase the efficiency of cake cutting algorithms for two agents resulted in asymmetric methods that were limited in their ability to find allocations in which both agents receive more than their proportional share. Trust can be the foundation on which agents exchange information and enable the exploration of allocations that are beneficial for both sides. On the other hand, the willingness of agents to put themselves in a vulnerable position due to their trust in others, results in loss of the fairness guarantees that motivate the design of fair division methods. In this work we extend the study on fair and efficient cake cutting algorithms by proposing a new notion of trust-based efficiency, which formulates a relation between the level of trust between agents and the efficiency of the allocation. Furthermore, we propose a method for finding trust-based efficiency. The proposed method offers a balance between the guarantees that fair division methods offer to agents and the efficiency that can be achieved by exposing themselves to the actions of other agents. When the level of trust is the highest, the allocation produced by the method is globally optimal (social welfare). Can Trust Increase the Efficiency of Cake Cutting Algorithms? Roie Zivanhas 2 papers

B3

This research is motivated by problems in urban transportation and labor mobility, where the agent flow is dynamic, non-deterministic and on a large scale. In such domains, even though the individual agents do not have an identity of their own and do not explicitly impact other agents, they have implicit interactions with other agents. While there has been much research in handling such implicit effects, it has primarily assumed controlled movements of agents in static environments. We address the issue of decision support for individual agents having involuntary movements in dynamic environments. For instance, in a taxi fleet serving a city: (i) Movements of a taxi are uncontrolled when it is hired by a customer. (ii) Depending on movements of other taxis in the fleet, the environment and hence the movement model for the current taxi changes. Towards addressing this problem, we make three key contributions: (a) A framework to represent the decision problem for individuals in a dynamic population, where there is uncertainty in movements; (b) A novel heuristic technique called Iterative Sampled OPtimization (ISOP) and greedy heuristics to solve large scale problems in domains of interest; and (c) Analyze the solutions provided by our techniques on problems inspired from a real world data set of a taxi fleet operator in Singapore. As shown in the experimental results, our techniques are able to provide strategies that outperform “driver” strategies with respect to: (i) overall availability of taxis; and (ii) the revenue obtained by the taxi drivers. Decentralized Decision Support for an Agent Population in Dynamic and Uncertain Domains Pradeep Varakanthamhas 4 papers, Shih-Fen Cheng, Nguyen Thi Duong

B12

Consumers of resources in realistic applications (e.g., web, multimedia) typically derive diminishing-return utilities from the amount of resource they receive. A resource provider who is deriving an equal amount of revenue from each satisfied user (e.g., by online advertising), can maximize the number of users by identifying a satisfaction threshold for each user, i.e., the minimal amount of resource the user requires in order to use the service (rather than drop out). A straightforward approach is to ask users to submit their minimal demands (direct revelation). Unfortunately, self-interested users may try to manipulate the system by submitting untruthful requirements. We propose an incentive-compatible mechanism for maximizing revenue in a resource allocation system where users are ex-ante symmetric (same amount of revenue for any satisfied user) and have diminishing-return utility functions. Users are encouraged by the mechanism to submit their true requirements and the system aims to satisfy as many users as possible. Unlike previous solutions, our mechanism does not require monetary payments from users or downgrading of service. Our mechanism satisfies the number of users within a constant factor of the optimum. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates that in practice, our mechanism can be significantly closer to the optimum than implied by the worst-case analysis. Our mechanism can be generalized to settings when revenue from each user can differ. Also, under some assumptions and adjustments, our mechanism can be used to allocate resource periodically over time. Maximizing Revenue in Symmetric Resource Allocation Systems When User Utilities Exhibit Diminishing Returns Roie Zivanhas 2 papers, Miroslav Dudík, Praveen Paruchuri, Katia Sycarahas 7 papers

Session G – Green Session

 


Copyright © 2011 IFAAMAS