[agents] Call for Participation - ANAC 2014

[Katsuhide Fujita]

Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email.


*** Call for Participation - ANAC 2014 ***
We would like to invite you to participate in the Fifth Automated Negotiating Agents Competition, ANAC 2014. Please do so before April 1st, 2014. Before that time we would appreciate it if you already let the organisers know that you will compete. 

Web site: http://www.itolab.nitech.ac.jp/ANAC2014


*** ANAC 2014 ****
The Fifth International Automated Negotiating Agents Competition (ANAC 2014)
To be held in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2014), Paris, France, 5th-9th May 2014.

*** Overview of ANAC 2014 ***
The ANAC competition brings together researchers from the negotiation community and provides a unique benchmark for evaluating practical negotiation strategies in multi-issue domains. The four previous competitions have spawned novel research in AI in the field of autonomous agent design which are available to the wider research community. The focus of this year's competition is on nonlinear utility functions. The goals of the competition are
* to encourage the design of practical negotiation agents that can proficiently negotiate against unknown opponents and in a variety of circumstances,
* to provide a benchmark for objectively evaluating different negotiation strategies,
* to explore different learning and adaptation strategies and opponent models, and
* to collect state-of-the-art negotiating agents and negotiation scenarios, and making them available to the wider research community.

 The negotiation tournament is run using the java-based GENIUS negotiation platform, which has been developed to facilitate research in the area of bilateral multi-issue negotiation. GENIUS allows easy development and integration of existing negotiating agents. More information about the platform can be found at the GENIUS website: http://ii.tudelft.nl/genius/

 The following information is an abstract of the rules of the competition. Full information can be found on the ANAC 2014 website: http://www.itolab.nitech.ac.jp/ANAC2014 


*** Entrants ***
The aim for the entrants to the competition is to develop an autonomous negotiation agent. Performance of the agents will be evaluated in a tournament setting, where each agent is matched with all other submitted agents, and each pair of agents will negotiate in a number of nonlinear negotiation scenarios. Negotiations are repeated several times to obtain statistically significant results.


*** Rules of Encounter ***
Negotiations are bilateral and based on the alternating-offers protocol. Offers are exchanged in real time with a deadline after 3 minutes. In addition, there will be a discount factor in about half of the domains, where the value of an agreement decreases over time. The challenge for an agent is to negotiate without any knowledge of the opponent's preferences and strategy.

Agents can be disqualified for violating the spirit of fair play. The competition rules allow multiple entries from a single institution, but require each agent to be developed independently.  


*** Main updates with respect to ANAC 2013 ***
This year we extend the utility model to "nonlinear utility functions". Another challenge is to deal with large-size domains, with outcome spaces as big as 5010 outcomes.


*** Qualifying Round and Finals ***
There will be initial qualifying rounds, and the top 8 performing agents will continue to the finals, which will be held at the AAMAS conference.

It is expected that teams that make it through to the finals will have a representative attending the AAMAS 2014 conference. Each team in the final will have the opportunity to give a brief presentation describing their agent.


*** Important Dates ***
Deadline for submission: 1 April, 2014


*** Venue ***
The conference will be held at the Paris Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel & Conference Center
17 Boulevard Saint Jacques Paris, 75014, France


*** Organising Committee ***
Dr. Reyhan Aydogan, Delft University of Technology
Tim Baarslag, Delft University of Technology
Prof. Katsuhide Fujita, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Dr. Koen Hindriks, Delft University of Technology
Prof. Dr. Takayuki Ito, Nagoya Institute of Technology
Prof. Dr. Catholijn Jonker, Delft University of Technology


*** Prizes ***
The prize money will be at least $1000. This will be shared among the top agents in two categories: (1) winners in terms of individual utility, and (2) winners in terms of social welfare (measured by obtaining the highest average product of utilities of both parties).


*** Sponsors ***  
€750 Xelvin, enterprising engineers, http://www.xelvin.nl 
€250 Makoto Lab., Inc. 


*** Contact ***
For any questions, the main contact is ito at nitech.ac.jp