Agent negotiation in a virtual marketplace

Abstract

This thesis examines the different type of agents, and how they help evolve the world around, most particularly the way business are undertaken and handled. The following work is based upon the DALIA environment, which stands for Distributed Autonomous and Linguistically Competent Agents. In this work I have extended and improved the DALIA agent negotiation aspect, where two agents are involved in an offer and counter-offer negotiations. The model presented by DALIA for the offers and counter offers ia investigated and the weak points in the negotiation paradigm are identified. A strategy is devised to overcome these weak points and provide more reliable functions and strategies to make sure the different mental attitudes would dramatically affect the agents' strategies and the negotiation outcome. Further enhancements are added to the agents and to their negotiation strategies to make them more aware of the negotiation environment and of the changing circumstances affecting the negotiation. The agents would then try to adapt to these changes and would try to make them work to their advantage, while making sure they respect their mental attributes' priorities.