Abstract
Looking for alternative ways of coordinating agents, this paper explores the adaptation of the Delphi protocol to agent systems. The Delphi protocol can be applied when a community of experts is required to deliver a consensual answer. In these cases, consensus stands for reaching an agreement among the experts about what the answer should be. This consensus reaching problem has been already considered in the literature, though its automatisation remains as a challenge. Intuitively, the experts should dialogue, interchange ideas, and change their mind as the discussion progresses. This paper presents a computerisation of discussion among expert agents and shows how they can be drawn towards a conclusion discussion by means of the Delphi process. The proof of concept is made with a document relevance evaluation problem where a community of experts decide whether a document is relevant or not. In conclusion, this paper makes an important contribution to people using Delphi processes, because the presented system is the first complete- computerised Delphi process. With respect to multi-agent systems, it has the potential to solve coordination in an original way, different from everything that has been done before.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Amati, G., Rijsbergen, C.J.V.: Probabilistic models of information retrieval based on measuring the divergence from randomness. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 20(4), 357–389 (2002)
Baeza-Yates, R.A., Ribeiro-Neto, B.A.: Modern Information Retrieval. ACM Press / Addison-Wesley (1999)
Bellifemine, F., Poggi, A., Rimassa, G.: Developing multi-agent systems with a FIPA-compliant agent framework. Software-Practice and Experience 31(2), 103–128 (2001)
Bryant, D.L., Abkowitz, M.D.: Estimation of terrestrial chemical spill risk factors using a modified delphi approach. Journal of Environmental Management 85, 112–120 (2007)
Cuhls, K.: Delphi method. Technical report, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (2003)
Dalkey, N., Helmer, O.: An Experimental Application of the Delphi Method to the Use of Experts. Management Science 9(3), 458–467 (1963)
Gascuena, J., Fernandez-Caballero, A.: The INGENIAS Methodology for Advanced Surveillance Systems Modelling. In: Mira, J., Álvarez, J.R. (eds.) IWINAC 2007. LNCS, vol. 4528, pp. 541–550. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Gómez-Sanz, J., Fuentes, R., Pavón, J.: Enabling Rapid Prototyping using Decoupling of Code Skeletons and Code generation Process. Infocomp. Journal of Computer Science, 26–34 (2006)
Gómez-Sanz, J., Pavón, J.: Defining coordination in multi-agent systems within an agent oriented software engineering methodology. In: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM symposium on Applied computing, pp. 424–428 (2006)
Gomez-Sanz, J.J., Fuentes, R., Pavon, J.: The INGENIAS Methodology and Tools. In: Agent-oriented Methodologies, pp. 236–276. Idea Group Publishing (2005)
Green, J.W.: Delphi method in web site selection: Using the experts. The Reference Librarian 33(69-70), 299–310 (2001)
Hannebauer, M.: Multi-phase consensus communication in collaborative problem solving. In: Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Communication-based Systems, pp. 131–146. Kluwer, Dordrecht (2000)
Hayes, T.: Delphi study of the future of marketing of higher education. Journal of Business Research 60, 927–931 (2007)
Holsapple, C., Joshi, K.: Knowledge manipulation activities: results of a delphi study. Information and Management 39, 477–490 (2002)
Konstan, J.: Introduction to recommender systems: Algorithms and Evaluation. ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS) 22(1), 1–4 (2004)
Lamport, L., Shostak, R., Pease, M.: The byzantine generals problem. ACM Trans. Program. Lang. Syst. 4(3), 382–401 (1982)
Larocca Neto, J., Santos, A.D., Kaestner, C.A.A., Freitas, A.A.: Document clustering and text summarization. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Practical Applications of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, London, pp. 41–55 (2000)
Linstone, H., Turoff, M.: The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications. Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., Advanced Book Program (1975)
Luehrs, R., Pavón, J., Schneider, M.: DEMOS Tools for Online Discussion and Decision Making. In: Cueva Lovelle, J.M., Rodríguez, B.M.G., Gayo, J.E.L., del Pueto Paule Ruiz, M., Aguilar, L.J. (eds.) ICWE 2003. LNCS, vol. 2722, pp. 525–528. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Macdonald, C., He, B., Plachouras, V., Ounis, I.: University of Glasgow at TREC 2005: Experiments in Terabyte and Enterprise Tracks with Terrier. In: Proceeddings of the 14th Text REtrieval Conference (TREC 2005) (2005)
Mir, J., Huguet, A., Nieto, R.: Predictive factors of chronic pediatric pain and disability: A delphi poll. The Journal of Pain 8(10), 774–792 (2007)
Pavón, J., Corchado, J., Gómez-Sanz, J., Ossa, L.: Mobile Tourist Guide Services with Software Agents. In: Karmouch, A., Korba, L., Madeira, E.R.M. (eds.) MATA 2004. LNCS, vol. 3284, pp. 322–330. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Pavón, J., Gómez-Sanz, J.: Agent Oriented Software Engineering with INGENIAS. Multi-Agent Systems and Applications III 2691, 394–403 (2003)
Pavón, J., Gómez-Sanz, J., Fuentes, R.: Model Driven Development of Multi-Agent Systems. In: Rensink, A., Warmer, J. (eds.) ECMDA-FA 2006. LNCS, vol. 4066, pp. 284–298. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Pease, M., Shostak, R., Lamport, L.: Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults. Journal of the ACM (JACM) 27(2), 228–234 (1980)
Peters, C., Braschler, M.: European research letter: Cross-language system evaluation: The clef campaigns. JASIST 52(12), 1067–1072 (2001)
Plachouras, V., He, B., Ounis, I.: University of Glasgow at TREC2004: Experiments in Web, Robust and Terabyte tracks with Terrier. In: Proceeddings of the 13th Text REtrieval Conference (TREC 2004) (2004)
Rennie, J.: Derivation of the F-Measure. In other words 1, 4
Rocchio, J.J.: Relevance feedback in information retrieval. In: Salton, G. (ed.) The SMART retrieval system, pp. 313–323. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1971)
Rosenschein, J., Zlotkin, G.: Rules of Encounter: Designing Conventions for Automated Negotiation Among Computers. MIT Press, Cambridge (1994)
Roth, R.: A Delphi approach to acquiring knowledge from single and multiple experts. In: Proceedings of the 1990 ACM SIGBDP conference on Trends and directions in expert systems, pp. 301–324 (1990)
Sabater, J., Sierra, C.: Reputation and social network analysis in multi-agent systems. In: Proceedings of the first international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems: part 1, pp. 475–482 (2002)
Soto, J.P., Vizcano, A., Portillo, J., Piattini, M.: Modelling a Knowledge Management System Architecture with INGENIAS Methodology. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computing (2006)
Turoff, M., Hiltz, S.: Computer Based Delphi Processes. In: Gazing into the Oracle. The Delphi Method and its Application to Social Policy and Public Health, pp. 56–85. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London (1996)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
García-Magariño, I., Gómez-Sanz, J.J., Pérez-Agüera, J.R. (2009). A Complete-Computerised Delphi Process with a Multi-Agent System. In: Hindriks, K.V., Pokahr, A., Sardina, S. (eds) Programming Multi-Agent Systems. ProMAS 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5442. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03278-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03278-3_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03277-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03278-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)