Skip to main content

Trust-oriented Utility-based Community Structure in Multiagent Systems

  • Chapter
Book cover Economic Models and Algorithms for Distributed Systems

Part of the book series: Autonomic Systems ((ASYS))

Abstract

The problem we address in this chapter is how to design the community structure of a multiagent system in such a way that agents join the communities that will maximize their utility and communities accept the agents that will maximize their utility, towards a stable and productive multiagent system. In order to accomplish this goal, we propose allowing communities to exchange information about the reputability of agents. In particular, it agent a 1 exists in community c 1 and would now like to join c 2, c 2 will ask c 1 for the reputation rating of a 1 and then decide whether to allow the agent to join. Allowing for the sharing of reputation ratings then requires i) a method for determining the truthfulness of the reputation reports ii) an incentive mechanism to encourage the sharing of information iii) some consideration of privacy of information within the system. In order for agents to make effective selection of communities in which to participate, it is also ideal community enjoy and about the tendency for the community to be truthful, when it reports reputation ratings of agents. We present a reputation sharing system that promotes effective community structure, along with examples to demonstrate the benefit of this particular approach.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. T. Tran and R. Cohen, Improving user satisfaction in agent-based electronic market-places by reputation modelling and adjustable product quality, AAMAS’04: Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (Washington, DC, USA) IEEE Computer Society, 2004, pp. 828–835.

    Google Scholar 

  2. A. Josang and R. Ismail, The beta reputation system, In Proceedings of the 15th Bled Electronic Commerce Conference, Bled, Slovenia, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  3. J. Zhang and R. Cohen. Towards more effective emarketplaces: A novel incentive mechanism In Proceedings of the 6th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS’07) Workshop on Trust in Agent Societies, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  4. U. Hengartner and P. Steenkiste, Access control to information in pervasive computing environments, HOTOS’03: Proceedings of the 9th conference on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (Berkeley, CA, USA), USENIX Association, 2003, pp. 27–27.

    Google Scholar 

  5. U. Hengartner and G. Zhong, Distributed, uncertainty-aware access control for pervasive computing, PERCOMW’ 07: Proceedings of the Fifth IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops (Washington, DC, USA), IEEE Computer Society, 2007, pp. 241–246.

    Google Scholar 

  6. K. Regan, P. Poupart, and R. Cohen, Bayesian Reputation Modeling in E-Marketplaces Sensitive to Subjectivity, Deception and Change, International Conference on Machine Learning, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  7. S. Russell and P. Norvig, Artificial intelligence: A modern approach, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  8. P. Golle, K. Leyton-Brown, and I. Mironov, Incentives for sharing in peer-to-peer networks, EC’ 01: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM conference on Electronic Commerce (New York, NY, USA), ACM Press, 2001, pp. 264–267.

    Google Scholar 

  9. A. Josang, R. Ismail, and C. Boyd, A survey of trust and reputation systems for online service provision, Decis. Support Syst. 43 (2007), no. 2, 618–644.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. T. Sandholm, K. Larson, M. Andersson, O. Shehory, and F. Tohme, Coalition structure generation with worst case guarantees Artificial Intelligence, 1999, 111(1–2), pp. 209–238.

    MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. L.M. Ausubel, and P. Cramton, Vickrey auctions with reserve pricing, Tech. report, Economic Theory, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  12. K. Lai, M. Feldman, I. Stoica, and J. Chuang, Incentives for cooperation in peer-to-peer networks, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  13. R.T.B. Ma, S.C.M. Lee, J.C.S. Lui, and D.K.Y. Yau, Incentive p2p networks: A protocol to encourage information sharing and contribution, SIGMETRICS perform. Eval. Rev. 31 (2003), no. 2, 23–25.

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  14. R.T.B. Ma, S.C.M. Lee, J.C.S. Lui, and D.K.Y. Yau, An incentive mechanism for p2p networks, ICDCS’ 04: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS’04) (Washington, DC, USA), IEEE Computer Society, 2004, pp. 516–523.

    Google Scholar 

  15. J. Vassileva, and R. Cheng, Adaptive reward mechanism for sustainable online learning community, In Proc. in Education, AIED 2005, pp. 152–159.

    Google Scholar 

  16. B. Yu, and M. P. Singh, Incentive mechanisms for peer-to-peer systems, In Proceedings of the second International Workshop on Agents and Peer-to-Peer Computing, 2003, pp. 77–88.

    Google Scholar 

  17. G. Weiss, Multiagent Systems: A Modern Approach to Distributed Artificial Intelligence. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Birkhäuser Verlag Basel/Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kastidou, G., Cohen, R. (2009). Trust-oriented Utility-based Community Structure in Multiagent Systems. In: Neumann, D., Baker, M., Altmann, J., Rana, O. (eds) Economic Models and Algorithms for Distributed Systems. Autonomic Systems. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8899-7_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8899-7_4

  • Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7643-8896-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7643-8899-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics