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Fostering Cooperation through Dynamic Coalition Formation and Partner Switching

Published:01 March 2014Publication History
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Abstract

In this article we tackle the problem of maximizing cooperation among self-interested agents in a resource exchange environment. Our main concern is the design of mechanisms for maximizing cooperation among self-interested agents in a way that their profits increase by exchanging or trading with resources. Although dynamic coalition formation and partner switching (rewiring) have been shown to promote the emergence and maintenance of cooperation for self-interested agents, no prior work in the literature has investigated whether merging both mechanisms exhibits positive synergies that lead to increase cooperation even further. Therefore, we introduce and analyze a novel dynamic coalition formation mechanism, that uses partner switching, to help self-interested agents to increase their profits in a resource exchange environment. Our experiments show the effectiveness of our mechanism at increasing the agents’ profits, as well as the emergence of trading as the preferred behavior over different types of complex networks.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
      ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems  Volume 9, Issue 1
      March 2014
      121 pages
      ISSN:1556-4665
      EISSN:1556-4703
      DOI:10.1145/2597760
      Issue’s Table of Contents

      Copyright © 2014 ACM

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 1 March 2014
      • Accepted: 1 January 2014
      • Revised: 1 September 2013
      • Received: 1 October 2012
      Published in taas Volume 9, Issue 1

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