[agents] AAMAS'09 tutorial on coopeartive games

[Edith Elkind]

Dear all,

Georgios Chalkiadakis, Michael Wooldridge and me will be doing a
full-day AAMAS tutorial
on cooperative games. The details a given below, and can also be found
on the tutorial homepage:
http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~mjw/aamas09tutorial.html

Best,
Edith Elkind

AAMAS'09 TUTORIAL: COOPERATIVE GAMES IN MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS

Cooperative (or coalitional) games provide an expressive and flexible
framework for modeling collaboration in multi-agent systems.  However,
from a computational perspective, cooperative games present a number
of challenges, chief among them being how they can be succinctly
represented and how to reason efficiently with such
representations. In this tutorial, we survey work on several aspects
of cooperative games and their applications to multi-agent systems. We
assume a basic knowledge of AI principles (e.g., rule-based knowledge
representation, very basic logic), but no knowledge of game theory or
cooperative games. We introduce the basic models used in cooperative
game theory, and the relevant solution concepts. We then describe the
key computational issues surrounding such models, and survey the main
approaches developed over the past decade for representing and
reasoning about cooperative games in AI and computer science
generally. We then discuss the aspects of cooperative games that are
particularly important in multi-agent settings, such as uncertainty
and decentralized coalition formation algorithms. We conclude by
presenting recent applications of these ideas in multi-agent
scenarios.

 ** Detailed outline of the tutorial:

 -- cooperative versus non-cooperative games
 -- modelling cooperative games: characteristic function form
 -- representations for cooperative games
        -- the induced sub-graph representation
        -- combinatorial optimization games
        -- marginal contribution nets
        -- weighted voting games and k-weighted voting games
 -- solution concepts in cooperative games
        -- the Shapley value
        -- the core and other stability-related solution concepts
        -- computational aspects
 -- coalitional games with goals
 -- coalition structures and related solution concepts
 -- coalition formation processes
 -- dealing with uncertainty
        -- models of incomplete information
        -- stability under uncertainly
        -- learning and belief-updating
 -- applications
        -- disaster management/surveillance
        -- cooperative search
        -- logistics


 The tutorial is intended for all AAMAS delegates who want to gain an
understanding of
 the role that the theory of cooperative games plays in multi-agent
 systems, the research challenges raised by the study of cooperative
 games, and the main approaches to addressing these challenges. We
 assume a basic knowledge of AI principles (eg rule-based knowledge
 representation, very basic logic), and basic discrete mathematics, but
 no knowledge of game theory or cooperative games.