Automated Negotiation Decision Making Approaches: Experimental Study

Laila M. El-Fangary Sherif Kholeif Ghada M. Afify

Associate Professor of Lecturer of Information Instructor of Information
Information Systems Systems Systems
Faculty of Computers and Faculty of Computers and Modern Academy, Maadi
Information Information ghada_cis@yahoo.com
Helwan University Helwan University
lailaelfangary@gmail.com sherifkholeif@yahoo.com

can range from supporting human negotiators (e.g.

Abstract
In a multi-agent system context, the challenge of
automated negotiation is to design decision making
approaches for allocating resources among intelligent
software agents to improve their performance. Recent
research work investigated the advantages of the interest-
based negotiation approach over the classical negotiation
approaches and proved that the reframing strategy
significantly improves the quantity of successful
negotiations. In this paper, we built over this research work
by studying the performance of three reframing strategies
by conducting simulation applications and comparing
between them using qualitative and quantitative
dimensions. Statistical results show that the sequential
reframing strategies outperform the parallel reframing
strategy.
1. Introduction
Business negotiation is a decision-making process that
seeks to find an agreement which will satisfy the
requirements of two or more parties in the presence of
limited common knowledge and conflicting preferences [1].
The computerization of the negotiation processes will
increasingly affect the way businesses interact with their
business partners. The rationale for e-negotiation is,
therefore, the promise of higher levels of process efficiency
and effectiveness [2].
In multi-agent systems, agents often need to interact in
order to fulfill their objectives or improve their
performance [3]. These agents could be intelligent software
entities that take part in the negotiation process. The degree
of involvement of these “intelligent agents” in negotiations
INFOS2008, March 27-29, 2008 Cairo-Egypt
© 2008 Faculty of Computers & Information-Cairo University
information search, offer evaluation) to fully automating
the conduct of negotiations.
The automation of negotiation requires a decision model
to capture the negotiation knowledge of policymakers and
negotiation experts so that the decision-making process can
be carried out automatically [4]. There are several models
of decision making used by negotiation software agents.
Classical models include decision making by explicitly
reasoning about the opponent’s behavior and decision
making by finding the current best solution [5].
An alternative approach to classical models is the use of
dialogues or argumentation to resolve conflicts. The idea is
that the agents are able to provide meta-information on why
they have a particular objection to a proposal.
Argumentation can also be used to influence the
preferences, beliefs and/or goals of other players [6].
Interest-based negotiation (IBN) is a sub-class of
argumentation-based negotiation (ABN). It refers to
negotiation frameworks where the arguments involved
pertain particularly to agents' interests.
Recent research work explored the advantages of the
interest-based negotiation approach over the classical
negotiation approaches and proved that the reframing –a
particular IBN strategy– significantly improves the quantity
of successful negotiations. In this paper, we extend this
research work by conducting an experimental study of three
reframing strategies and comparing between them using
qualitative and quantitative dimensions.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents an
overview of automated negotiation approaches. Section 3
illustrates the negotiation framework. In section 4 we
demonstrate the three reframing strategies. The
experimental evaluation is discussed in section 5. Finally,
section 6 concludes the paper.

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2. Literature review
2.1. Automated negotiation approaches
Automated negotiation is a key form of interaction in
systems that are composed of multiple autonomous agents.
The aim of such interactions is to reach agreements through
an iterative process of making offers and counter proposals
between a proponent and an opponent until either a
mutually acceptable agreement is reached or one of the
parties withdraws.
In the multi-agent systems literature, various interaction
and decision mechanisms for automated negotiation have
been proposed and studied. These approaches have been
classified into two categories: Positional Approaches and
Integrative Approaches.
Positional bargaining is the traditional form of
negotiation. It is characterized by the assertion of opposing
positions by the parties over a single mutually exclusive
goal. It’s a “win-lose” type of negotiation. It tends to view
the object of the negotiation as fixed, such that a better deal
for one means a lesser beneficial deal for the other.
Examples of positional approaches are Game-theoretic
approach and Heuristic approach [7].
Integrative bargaining is a negotiation strategy in which
parties collaborate to find a “win-win” solution to their
dispute. This strategy focuses on developing mutually
beneficial agreements based on the interests of the parties.
Interests include the needs, desires, concerns, and fears
important to each side [8]. It usually produces more
satisfactory outcomes than does positional bargaining.
Examples of Integrative Approaches: Argumentation-based
Negotiation [9] and Interest-based Negotiation. In this
paper we focus on the interest-based negotiation (IBN).
2.2. Interest-based negotiation
Interest-based Negotiation (IBN) is a sub-class of
argumentation-based negotiation (ABN). While ABN
encompasses any negotiation framework where agents can
exchange arguments to influence each others' mental states,
IBN refers to those frameworks where the arguments
involved pertain particularly to agents' interests. Here
"interests" refers to the agent's underlying desires and the
goals adopted to fulfill those desires. IBN, therefore,
excludes non-interest-based arguments, such as those
pertaining purely to authority or resorting to threats [10].
2.3. Reframing strategy
Rather than describing a conflict in terms of positions, it
is often helpful to redefine or "reframe" the conflict in
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terms of interests. Interests are the underlying reasons why
people hold the positions that they do.
Reframing is a sub-type of interest-based negotiation
strategy that enhances bargaining by allowing the
negotiators to ask for the underlying goal of the negotiation
and propose alternative plan(s) which may entail a deal on
alternative issues [11]. Reframing overcomes the
limitations of positional approaches.
3. Negotiation framework
The interest-based negotiation framework was defined in
details in [12].
3.1. Bargaining protocol
Figure 1 part (a) describes a bargaining protocol (BO
case) initiated by agent i with agent j and it is divided in
two parts as follows:
 Part one: negotiating the resources to be exchanged,
each agent discloses the set of resources that he wants.
 Part two: bargaining over the payment:
1. Agent i makes a first offer
2. Agent j chooses between the three following
options:
o Accept agent i's proposal
o Reject agent i's proposal.
o Make a counter proposal.
3.2. Reframing protocol
Figure 1 part (b) describes the (recursive) reframing
protocol (BR case).
 Initiated by agent i, this protocol allows agent i to ask
agent j what is (are) his underlying goal(s).
 Agent j can then:
1. Disclose his set of underlying goals gj.
2. Reject the question, thus ending the reframing
protocol.
 Agent i then generates all the possible plans for
achieving the goals of gj and can either:
1. Inform agent j of one alternative plan to achieve
one of his underlying goals that agent i believes to
be preferable (cheaper) than the one previously
selected by agent j.
2. Reject the reframing.
3. Start a new reframing protocol to inquire about the
super-goals of gj.
3.3. Update strategy
After reframing terminates, on the reception of the
information that there is an alternative plan for achieving a
 Figure 1. UML 2.0 specification of the bargaining and reframing protocols.
goal from g j that is evaluated by agent i to be cheaper than
the one selected by agent j, agent j will update his valuation
function over the resources not owned according to this
new information and the valuation of the resources owned
is fixed.
4. Reframing strategies
There are many reframing meta-strategies; in this study,
we divided them into two main categories which we called:
Parallel Reframing and Sequential Reframing.
4.1. Parallel reframing
Parallel strategy means that the agents execute their
negotiation processes simultaneously and this strategy was
studied in [12].
As shown in Figure 2 part (a), the agents will start with
complete bargaining. If bargaining fails, both agents will
attempt reframing before initiating a new bargaining. All
reframing have to terminate before the agents (eventually)
update their valuation functions and a new bargaining is to
be initiated.
4.2. Sequential reframing
By sequential strategy we mean that the agents execute
their negotiation processes one after the other. The agents
in this strategy may execute symmetrically (i.e. execute
identical processes) as in Figure 2 part (b) or
asymmetrically as in Figure 2 part (c).
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5. Expiremental evaluation
This section elaborates on the experimental evaluation
of the simulations of the three reframing strategies.
5.1. Simulation parameters
 Domain Parameters
Three simulation applications include a synthetic domain
generation module which allows defining the depth of the
trees (i.e. plans) generated as well as their branching
factors. The number of alternative ways to achieve each
goal can be manipulated as well. The simulation was
conducted using randomly generated IBN domain with
trees of depth 3, branching factor 2 and number of
alternatives 4 that is 4 different plans generated per agent
for a total of 32 resources in the system.
 Agent Parameters
For each agent introduced in the system, the resources
owned are distinguished from the resources not owned. For
each resource, a valuation for the agent who owns it is
chosen randomly between 50 and 500. Then, the valuation
for the other agent is calculated according to the "error" the
agent is doing in evaluating the resources he does not own.
We use a Gaussian distribution to encode this error,
where the mean (noted error) of the distribution and
standard deviation (noted variance) are expressed as
percentages.
 Figure 2. Reframing strategies (a) parallel execution
(b) symmetric execution (c) asymmetric execution
We assume that the agents' variance of the error was set
to null and the potential benefit was set to 10 %. The mean
of the error varies from -70% to 70% using step of 5%. For
each combination of errors, 10 different IBN domains were
generated and both BO and BR negotiations were
conducted. In other words, each curve in the results has
been generated using 29 x 29 x 20 = 16820 negotiations.
5.2. Evaluation dimensions
The main aim is to evaluate the differences among the
three reframing strategies by studying the simulation
outcomes. In this section, we illustrate the factors used to
compare the performance of these strategies.
5.2.1. Qualitative dimensions. The first qualitative
dimension of a negotiation is whether a deal is reached or
not. In our case, it is interesting to see which reframing
strategy allows agents to achieve their goals more often (by
reaching deals when bargaining only strategy is
unsuccessful).
Definition (Goal achievement) We note achievei(⌐)BO;
(⌐)BR
to indicate that Agent i failed ( ⌐ ) or succeeded to
reach his goal in respectively the BO and the BR cases.
Definition (benefit in goals)
goal-benefit i = ∑ achievei ⌐BO;BR - ∑ achievei BO;⌐BR
Another qualitative dimension is the number of updates
of the agents valuation functions conducted in the
negotiation process.
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5.2.2. Quantitative dimensions. In cases where both the
BO and BR cases lead to the same results in terms of goal
achievement (i.e. achieveiBO;BR and achievei⌐BO;⌐BR),
quantitative dimensions of the quality of the deals are used
such as the benefit in terms of the cost of the plans.
Definition (benefit on plan's cost)
plan-benefiti = costi(PBO) - cost i(P BR)
5.3. Experimental results
In this section, we discuss the statistical results of the
simulation applications of the three reframing strategies.
5.3.1. Qualitative dimension: goal benefit. The outcomes
of Figure 3 demonstrate that, on average, the goal benefits
in the symmetric and asymmetric executions of sequential
reframing strategies are greater than that of parallel
reframing which means that that the sequential reframing
allows the agents to reach a deal more often than with
parallel reframing.
5.3.2. Qualitative dimension: number of updates. The
outcomes of Figure 4 demonstrate that, on average, the
number of updates of the agent's valuation functions in the
symmetric and asymmetric executions of sequential
reframing strategies is greater than that of parallel
reframing which means that the sequential reframing allows
the agents to propose an alternative plan
 Figure 3. Benefit in term of number of goals achieved in
reframing strategies: a) symmetric b) asymmetric c) parallel

Figure 4. Mean of the number of valuation updates per negotiation in

reframing strategies: a) symmetric b) asymmetric c) parallel

Figure 5. Benefit on the cost of the plan used in the negotiation in

reframing strategies: a) symmetric b) asymmetric c) parallel

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(successful reframing) followed by an update (information
taken into account by the agent) more often than with
parallel reframing.
5.3.3. Quantitative dimension: plan benefit. The
outcomes of Figure 5 demonstrate that, on average, the
benefit on the cost of the plan used in the symmetric and
asymmetric executions of sequential reframing strategies
are greater than that of parallel reframing which means that
not only more deals are reached in the sequential
executions, but also the deals reached are of better quality
(cheaper plans) for the agent.
"Interest-based negotiation as an extension of monotonic
bargaining in 3APL," In Proceedings of the Ninth Pacific
Rim International Workshop on Multi-Agents (PRIMA
2006), volume 4088 of Lecture Notes in Artificial
Intelligence (LNAI), pp. 569-580, Guilin, China, 2006.
[12] P. Pasquier, L. Sonenberg, I. Rahwan, F. Dignum, R.
Hollands, "An empirical study of interest-based
negotiation," In Proceedings of the 9th International
Conference on Electronic Commerce (ICEC2007), ACM
Press, USA, 2007.

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