The Sixth International Workshop on Agent-based Complex Automated Negotiations (ACAN2013)
To be held in conjunction with the twelfth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2013).


Scope and Background

Complex Automated Negotiations have been widely studied and are one of the emerging areas of research in the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. The complexity in an automated negotiation depends on several factors: the number of negotiated issues, dependencies between these issues, representation of the utility, negotiation protocol, negotiation form (bilateral or multi-party), time constraints, and so on. Complex automated negotiation scenarios are concerned with negotiation encounters where we may have for instance, a large number of agents, a large number of issues with strong interdependencies, real time constraints, etc. Many real world negotiation scenarios present one or more of the mentioned elements. Software agents can support the automation of complex negotiations, by negotiating on the behalf of their owners and providing adequate strategies to their owners to achieve realistic, win-win agreements. In order to provide solutions in such complex automated negotiation scenarios, research has focused on incorporating different technologies including search, CSP, graphical utility models, Bayesian nets, auctions, utility graphs, optimization and predicting and learning methods. The applications of complex automated negotiations could include e-commerce tools, decision-making support tools, negotiation support tools, collaboration tools, as well as knowledge discovery and agent learning tools.

ACAN2013 will discuss, among others, the following aspects and topics of such complex automated negotiations within the field of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, including but not limited to:

  • Complex Automated Negotiation Frameworks and Mechanisms
  • Bilateral and Multilateral Negotiation,
    • High dimension Multi-Issue Negotiation, Large Scale Negotiation, Concurrent Negotiation, Multiple Negotiation, Sequential Negotiation, Negotiation under Asymmetric Information, and so on.
  • Prediction of Opponent's Behaviours and Strategies in Negotiation
  • Simulation Models and Platforms for Complex Negotiations
  • Coordination Mechanisms for Complex Negotiations
  • Matchmaking and Brokering Mechanisms
  • 2-Sided Matching
  • Utility and preference representations in negotiation
  • Computational Complexity of Multi-Issue Negotiations
  • Efficient Negotiation with Human Opponents. Cognitive Aspects of Human Negotiations.
  • One-Many and Many-Many Negotiation Protocols. Leveled Commitment Mechanisms.
  • Emerging Applications for Electronic Negotiations (Crowdsourcing, Social Networks etc.)
  • Relation between electronic negotiation and other resource allocation protocols (auctions, contract net protocols etc.)
  • Applications for Automated Negotiations (e.g. cloud computing, smart grid, electronic commerce etc.)

A considerable number of researchers in various sub-communities of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems are actively working on these and related issues. They are, for instance, being studied in agent negotiation, multi-issue negotiations, auctions, mechanism design, electronic commerce, voting, secure protocols, matchmaking & brokering, argumentation, co-operation mechanisms and distributed optimization. The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers from these communities to learn about each other's approaches to the complex negotiation problem, encourage the exchange of ideas between the different areas, and potentially foster long-term research collaborations to accelerate progress towards scaling up to larger and more realistic applications.

Automated Negotiating Agents Competitoin (ANAC) Special Session

From 2010, ACAN is tightly cooperating with ANAC (Automated Negotiating Agents Competition). Based on the great success of previous ANAC, the ANAC2013 will be held at AAMAS2013. This year, we, ACAN, have the ANAC special session, in which the finalists of ANAC will describe their negotiating agents.

See the ANAC2013 site for more details: http://www.itolab.nitech.ac.jp/ANAC2013/

News

April 21, 2012
Program of ACAN is uploaded. here

March 12, 2012
Accepted Paper List is uploaded. here

Dec. 12, 2012
Workshop website launched

Important Date

February 14, 2013 (Extended)
Submission deadline

February 28, 2013
Acceptance notification

March 6, 2013
Camera-ready deadline

MAY 6-7, 2013
ACAN2013