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Constrained coalition formation

Constrained coalition formation
Constrained coalition formation
The conventional model of coalition formation considers every possible subset of agents as a potential coalition. However, in many real-world applications, there are inherent constraints on feasible coalitions: for instance, certain agents may be prohibited from being in the same coalition, or the coalition structure may be required to consist of coalitions of the same size. In this paper, we present the first systematic study of constrained coalition formation (CCF). We propose a general framework for this problem, and identify an important class of CCF settings, where the constraints specify which groups of agents should/should not work together. We describe a procedure that transforms such constraints into a structured input that allows coalition formation algorithms to identify, without any redundant computations, all the feasible coalitions. We then use this procedure to develop an algorithm for generating an optimal (welfare-maximizing) constrained coalition structure, and show that it outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches by several orders of magnitude.
978-1-57735-507-6
719-725
Rahwan, Talal
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Michalak, Tomasz
e24bfee3-bd75-4cca-8220-6f3c2f39dc38
Elkind, Edith
7a013473-5cd0-4e41-b907-66b30a04a400
Faliszewski, Piotr
5c0e0666-4be3-4627-ad47-adf7676ca324
Sroka, Jacek
05b3a005-107b-438c-8e4a-e2943401853e
Wooldridge, Michael
94674704-0392-4b93-83db-18198c2cfa3b
Jennings, Nicholas
ab3d94cc-247c-4545-9d1e-65873d6cdb30
Rahwan, Talal
476029f3-5484-4747-9f44-f63f3687083c
Michalak, Tomasz
e24bfee3-bd75-4cca-8220-6f3c2f39dc38
Elkind, Edith
7a013473-5cd0-4e41-b907-66b30a04a400
Faliszewski, Piotr
5c0e0666-4be3-4627-ad47-adf7676ca324
Sroka, Jacek
05b3a005-107b-438c-8e4a-e2943401853e
Wooldridge, Michael
94674704-0392-4b93-83db-18198c2cfa3b
Jennings, Nicholas
ab3d94cc-247c-4545-9d1e-65873d6cdb30

Rahwan, Talal, Michalak, Tomasz, Elkind, Edith, Faliszewski, Piotr, Sroka, Jacek, Wooldridge, Michael and Jennings, Nicholas (2011) Constrained coalition formation. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, San Francisco, United States. 07 - 11 Aug 2011. pp. 719-725 .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

The conventional model of coalition formation considers every possible subset of agents as a potential coalition. However, in many real-world applications, there are inherent constraints on feasible coalitions: for instance, certain agents may be prohibited from being in the same coalition, or the coalition structure may be required to consist of coalitions of the same size. In this paper, we present the first systematic study of constrained coalition formation (CCF). We propose a general framework for this problem, and identify an important class of CCF settings, where the constraints specify which groups of agents should/should not work together. We describe a procedure that transforms such constraints into a structured input that allows coalition formation algorithms to identify, without any redundant computations, all the feasible coalitions. We then use this procedure to develop an algorithm for generating an optimal (welfare-maximizing) constrained coalition structure, and show that it outperforms existing state-of-the-art approaches by several orders of magnitude.

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Published date: August 2011
Venue - Dates: Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, San Francisco, United States, 2011-08-07 - 2011-08-11
Organisations: Agents, Interactions & Complexity

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 272269
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/272269
ISBN: 978-1-57735-507-6
PURE UUID: 18fe4882-25cf-4bb9-9bbb-539741feee91

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Date deposited: 11 May 2011 07:55
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 09:51

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Contributors

Author: Talal Rahwan
Author: Tomasz Michalak
Author: Edith Elkind
Author: Piotr Faliszewski
Author: Jacek Sroka
Author: Michael Wooldridge
Author: Nicholas Jennings

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