source: doc/userguide.tex@ 155

Last change on this file since 155 was 155, checked in by Tim Baarslag, 6 years ago

Fixed refactor TODO of createExperimentalOutcomeComparisonUserModel

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User guide fixes

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2% Created by Colin Williams on 2012-01-06.
3% Copyright (c) 2012 __MyCompanyName__. All rights reserved.
4%
5\documentclass[]{article}
6
7% Use utf-8 encoding for foreign characters
8\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
9
10% the page geometry.
11\usepackage[a4paper,top=2cm, bottom=2cm, left=1cm, right=1cm]{geometry}
12\usepackage{minibox}
13% Uncomment some of the following if you use the features
14%
15% Running Headers and footers
16%\usepackage{fancyhdr}
17
18% Multipart figures
19%\usepackage{subfigure}
20
21% More symbols
22%\usepackage{amsmath}
23%\usepackage{amssymb}
24%\usepackage{latexsym}
25
26% Surround parts of graphics with box
27\usepackage{boxedminipage}
28
29% Package for including code in the document
30\usepackage{listings}
31
32% If you want to generate a toc for each chapter (use with book)
33\usepackage{minitoc}
34
35% This is now the recommended way for checking for PDFLaTeX:
36\usepackage{ifpdf}
37\usepackage{comment}
38
39%\newif\ifpdf
40%\ifx\pdfoutput\undefined
41%\pdffalse % we are not running PDFLaTeX
42%\else
43%\pdfoutput=1 % we are running PDFLaTeX
44%\pdftrue
45%\fi
46
47
48\usepackage{array}
49\usepackage{url}
50\usepackage{listings}
51\usepackage{color}
52\usepackage{amsmath}
53\usepackage{mathtools}
54
55% clickable links in the contents section
56\usepackage{hyperref}
57\hypersetup{
58 colorlinks,
59 citecolor=black,
60 filecolor=black,
61 linkcolor=black,
62 urlcolor=black
63}
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66\definecolor{dkgreen}{rgb}{0,0.6,0}
67\definecolor{gray}{rgb}{0.5,0.5,0.5}
68\definecolor{mauve}{rgb}{0.58,0,0.82}
69
70
71\newcommand*\vtick{\textsc{\char13}}
72
73\lstset{
74 language=Java,
75 tabsize=4,
76 showstringspaces=false,
77 basicstyle=\tt,
78 numberstyle=\tiny\color{gray}, % line number style
79 keywordstyle=\color{blue}, % keyword style
80 commentstyle=\color{dkgreen}, % comment style
81 stringstyle=\color{mauve}, % string literal style
82}
83
84\ifpdf
85\usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}
86\else
87\usepackage{graphicx}
88\fi
89
90% this gives us \FloatBarrier to prevent images to float all to the end
91\usepackage{placeins}
92\newcommand\Genius{{\sc Genius\ }}
93
94% Alter some LaTeX defaults for better treatment of figures:
95 % See p.105 of "TeX Unbound" for suggested values.
96 % See pp. 199-200 of Lamport's "LaTeX" book for details.
97 % General parameters, for ALL pages:
98 \renewcommand{\topfraction}{0.9} % max fraction of floats at top
99 \renewcommand{\bottomfraction}{0.8} % max fraction of floats at bottom
100 % Parameters for TEXT pages (not float pages):
101 \setcounter{topnumber}{2}
102 \setcounter{bottomnumber}{2}
103 \setcounter{totalnumber}{4} % 2 may work better
104 \setcounter{dbltopnumber}{2} % for 2-column pages
105 \renewcommand{\dbltopfraction}{0.9} % fit big float above 2-col. text
106 \renewcommand{\textfraction}{0.07} % allow minimal text w. figs
107 % Parameters for FLOAT pages (not text pages):
108 \renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}{0.7} % require fuller float pages
109 % N.B.: floatpagefraction MUST be less than topfraction !!
110 \renewcommand{\dblfloatpagefraction}{0.7} % require fuller float pages
111
112 % remember to use [htp] or [htpb] for placement
113
114
115
116%===========================================================================
117\title{Using the \Genius Framework for Running Autonomous Negotiating Parties}
118\author{T. Baarslag, W. Pasman, K. Hindriks, D. Tykhonov}
119
120\date{\today}
121
122
123\begin{document}
124
125\ifpdf
126\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.pdf, .jpg, .tif}
127\else
128\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.eps, .jpg}
129\fi
130
131\maketitle
132
133
134\abstract{\noindent \Genius \cite{Genius}~is a negotiation environment that implements an open architecture for heterogeneous negotiating parties. \Genius~can be used to implement, or simulate, real life negotiations. This document describes how you can install the environment, work with the provided scenarios and negotiation parties, and write, compile, and run an party yourself.}
135
136\pagebreak
137\tableofcontents
138
139\pagebreak
140
141
142%=========================================================================================
143\section{Theory Crash Course}
144This section provides a crash course on some essential theory needed to understand the negotiation system. Furthermore, it provides an overview of the features of a negotiation implemented in \Genius.
145
146\subsection{Bids, Issues and Values}
147Parties participating in a negotiation interact in a domain. The domain specifies the possible bids. The parties all have their own preferences, which is reflected in their profile. Figure~\ref{Fig:domain} shows a picture of a domain that describes the issues in the negotiation.
148
149\begin{figure}[htb]
150 \centering
151 \includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{media/domain.png}
152 \caption{An example domain for laptop negotiation. Issues are orange, values are green}\label{Fig:domain}
153\end{figure}
154
155The \textit{Domain} describes which issues are the subject of the negotiation and which values an issue can attain. A domain contains $n$ issues: $D=(I_1,\ldots,I_n)$. Each issue $i$ consists of $k$ values: $I_i=(v^i_1,\ldots,v^i_k)$. Combining these concepts, a party can formulate a \textit{Bid}: a mapping from each issue to a chosen value (denoted by $c$), $b=(v^i_{c},\ldots,v^n_{c})$.
156
157To give an example, in the laptop domain the issues are ``laptop'', ``harddisk'' and ``monitor''. In this domain the issues can only attain discrete values, e.g. the ``harddisk'' issue can only have the values ``60Gb'', ``80Gb'' and ``120Gb''. These issues are all instance of \textit{IssueDiscrete}. A valid bid in the laptop domain is e.g. \verb|Laptop:Dell, Harddisk: 80Gb, monitor:17"|. A bid \verb|Laptop Asus, Harddisk: 80Gb, monitor:17"| is not a valid bid because Asus is not a valid issue value in the example domain, and \verb|Laptop Asus, Harddisk: 80Gb, CPU:i7"| is not valid because CPU is not an issue in this domain.
158
159\subsection{Preference Profile, Utility Space}
160The \textit{Preference Profile} describes how bids are preferred over other bids. Typically, each participant in a negotiation has his own preference profile. Genius supports utility spaces and partially ordered profiles.
161
162\subsubsection{Utility spaces}
163One form of profile is the \textit{UtilitySpace}. The UtilitySpace specifies the preferences using an \textit{evaluator}: a function that maps bids into a real number in the range [0,1] where 0 is the minimum utility and 1 is the maximum utility of a bid. So a bid is preferred if and only if it has a higher utility than another bid.
164
165A common form of the Utility space is the \textit{Linear Additive Utility Space}. This space is additive because each of the issue values in the domain have their own utility of their own, and all the sub-utilities just add up for the total utility of the bid. For instance, we like Apple with utility evaluation 0.7 and Dell with 0.4, completely independent of how much memory the computer has. Figure~\ref{Fig:utilspace} shows a picture of a utility space for the example domain that we gave above.
166
167\begin{figure}[htb]
168 \centering
169 \includegraphics[width=0.6\textwidth]{media/utilspace.png}
170 \caption{An example additive utility space for the laptop domain.}\label{Fig:utilspace}
171\end{figure}
172
173In an additive space the evaluator also specifies the importance of the issue relative to the other issues in the form of a weight. The weights of all issues sum up to 1.0 to simplify calculating the utility of a bid. The utility is the weighted sum of the scaled evaluation values.
174
175\begin{equation}
176 U(v^i_{c},\ldots,v^n_{c}) = \sum_{i=1}^{n} w_i \dfrac{\text{eval}(v^i_{c})}{\text{max}(\text{eval}(I_i))}
177 \label{eqn:Utility}
178\end{equation}
179
180Other types of UtilitySpaces are the \textit{ConstraintUtilitySpace} and the \textit{NonlinearUtilitySpace}. These are more experimental and not described here in more detail.
181
182\subsubsection{Partially ordered profile}\label{sec:partialordering}
183The \textit{UncertainAdditiveUtilitySpace} is a profile type uses partially ordering (instead of assigning a utility value to bids). In a partial ordering, the available information is that bid X is preferred over bid Y for a subset of the possible bids. For research purposes, this profile is generated from a AdditiveUtilitySpace as will be described in the section \ref{sec:scenariocreation}, but the underlying AdditiveUtilitySpace is normally not visible for the party that uses the profile. The generation of the partial ordering works as follows. The values $comparisons$, $errors$ and $experimental$ are additional parameters of the UncertainAdditiveUtilitySpace that control the generation.
184\begin{enumerate}
185\item a subset of $comparisons$ bids are selected randomly from all possible bids.
186\item the selected bids are sorted in ascending utility
187\end{enumerate}
188
189Notice: AbstractNegotiatonParty on initialization will do a simplistic attempt to convert an UncertainAdditiveUtilitySpace into an AdditiveLinearUtilitySpace.
190
191Warning: if the number of possible bids is large, iterating over all bids in the space and sorting them can run out of memory and crash \Genius.
192
193
194
195\subsection{Optimality of a Bid}
196In general, given the set of all bids, there are a small subset of bids which are more preferred as outcomes by all parties in the negotiation. Identifying these special bids may lead to a better agreement for both parties.
197
198For a single party, the optimal bid is the bid that is most preferred / has maximum utility. Often this bid is not preferred so much / has a low utility for other parties, and therefore the chance of agreement is low. A more general notion of optimality of a negotiation involves the utility of all parties.
199
200\begin{figure}[htb]
201 \centering
202 \includegraphics[width=0.37\textwidth]{media/image5.png}
203\caption{A point indicates the utility for both parties of a bid. The red line is the Pareto optimal frontier.}\label{Fig:utility plot}
204\end{figure}
205
206There are multiple ways to define a more global ``optimum''. One approach to optimality is that a bid is not optimal for both parties if there is another bid that has the higher utility for one party, and at least equal utility for the other party. Thus, only bids in Figure~\ref{Fig:utility plot} for which there is no other bid at the top right is optimal. This type of optimality is called Pareto optimality and forms an important concept in automated negotiation. The collection of Pareto optimal bids is called the Pareto optimal frontier.
207
208A major challenge in a negotiation is that parties can hide their preferences. This entails that an party does not know which bid the opponent prefers given a set of bids. This problem can be partly resolved by building an \textit{opponent model} of the opponent's preferences by analyzing the negotiation trace. Each turn the party can now offer the best bid for the opponent given a set of similar preferred bids. \Genius provides a number of components that can estimate an opponent model.
209
210\subsection{Negotiation Protocol}
211The negotiation protocol determines the overall order of actions during a negotiation. Parties are obliged to stick to this protocol, as deviations from the protocol are caught and penalized. \Genius supports multiple protocols. These are discussed in detail in section \ref{sec:protocols}.
212
213
214\subsection{Reservation Value}
215A reservation value is a real-valued constant that sets a threshold below which a rational party should not accept any offers. Intuitively, a reservation value is the utility associated with the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA).
216
217A reservation value is the minimum acceptable utility, offers with a utility would normally not be accepted by a party. Reservation values typically differ for each negotiation party. In case no reservation value is set in a profile, it is assumed to be 0. Notice that if a negotiation ends with no agreement, parties normally get a utility of 0, regardless of the reservation value.
218
219\subsection{Time Pressure}
220A negotiation lasts a predefined time in seconds, or alternatively rounds. In \Genius~the time line is \emph{normalized}, i.e.: time $t \in [0, 1]$, where $t = 0$ represents the start of the negotiation and $t = 1$ represents the deadline. Notice that manipulation of the remaining time can be a factor influencing the outcome.
221
222There is an important difference between a time-based and rounds-based protocol. In a time-based protocol the computational cost of an party should be taken into account as it directly influences the amount of bids which can be made. In contrast, for a rounds-based negotiation the time can be thought of as paused within a round; therefore computational cost does not play a role.
223
224Apart from a deadline, a scenario may also feature \emph{discount factors}. Discount factors decrease the utility of the bids under negotiation as time passes. While time is shared between both parties, the discount generally differs per party.
225The default implementation of discount factors is as follows: let $d$ in $[0, 1]$ be the discount factor that is specified in the preference profile of a party; let $t$ in $[0, 1]$ be the current normalized time, as defined by the timeline; we compute the discounted utility $U_D^t$ of an outcome $\omega$ from the undiscounted utility function $U$ as follows:
226\begin{eqnarray}
227U_D^t(\omega) = U(\omega) \cdot d^t
228\end{eqnarray}
229If $d = 1$, the utility is not affected by time, and such a scenario is considered to be undiscounted, while if $d$ is very small there is high pressure on the parties to reach an agreement. Note that discount factors are part of the preference profiles and therefore different parties may have a different discount factor.
230
231If a discount factor is present, reservation values will be discounted in exactly the same way as the utility of any other outcome. It is worth noting that, by having a discounted reservation value, it may be rational for parties to end the negotiation early and thereby default to the reservation value.
232
233Note: time pressure has little meaning if the profile is not defined in terms of utilities, eg a partially ordered profile.
234
235%=========================================================================================
236\section{Protocols}\label{sec:protocols}
237This section describes the various negotiation protocols. The protocol determines the overall order of actions during a negotiation.
238This section focuses on the MultiParty protocols as these have been properly developed. There is also a protocol class for the bilateral negotiation, but this is basically a hard coded Stacked Alternating Offers Protocol and not further developed.
239
240 The (Multilateral) protocol describes if the negotiation is finished, what the agreement is, which actions can be done in the next round. Briefly, to run a session the system checks with the protocol if the negotiation is already finished, and if not which calls need to be made to the parties (both chooseAction and receiveMessage). We recommend checking the javadoc of MultilateralProtocol for up-to-date detail information and how the protocol is used by the system to run sessions.
241
242 The Multilateral protocol uses the notion of rounds and turns to describe the negotiation layout. A round is a part of the negotiation where all participants get a turn to respond to the current state of the negotiation. A turn refers to the opportunity of one party to make a response to the current state of the negotiation.
243
244If a party violates the protocol -- for instance by sending an action that is not one of the allowed ones, or by crashing, the negotiation ends and the outcome usually is 'no agreement' for all parties. In bilateral negotiation we have a special case then: the party's utility is set to its reservation value, whereas the opponent is awarded the utility of the last offer.
245
246All protocols are found in the package \verb|genius.core.protocol| and have the names matching the subsections below.
247
248
249\subsection{Stacked Alternating Offers Protocol}
250According to this protocol \cite{MultilateralOffersProtocols} , all of the participants around the table get a turn per round. Turns are taken clock-wise around the table. One of the negotiating parties starts the negotiation with an offer that is observed by all others immediately. Whenever an offer is made, the next party in line gets a call to receiveMessage containing the bid, followed by a call to chooseAction from which it can return the following actions:
251\begin{itemize}
252\item Accept the offer (not available the very first turn).
253\item send an Offer to make a counter offer (thus rejecting and overriding the previous offer, if there was any)
254\item send an EndNegotiation and ending the negotiation without any agreement.
255\end{itemize}
256
257This protocol is the default protocol for Parties (as returned by getProtocol()).
258
259
260\subsection{Alternating Multiple Offers Protocol}
261According to this protocol \cite{MultilateralOffersProtocols} , all parties have a bid from all parties available to them, before they vote on these bids. This implemented in the following way: The protocol has a bidding phase followed by voting phases. In the bidding phase all participants put their offer on the table. These offers appear to all parties through receiveMessage() in a specific order. In the voting phases all participants vote on all of the bids on the negotiation table, in the same order as received. For each offer, the party's chooseAction() is called. If one of the bids on the negotiation table is accepted by all of the parties, then the negotiation ends with this bid.
262
263In each even round (we start in round 0), each party gets only one turn for an OfferForVoting.
264
265In each odd round there are N voting turns for each party (N being the number of offers), one for each offer in order of reception. these are the available options:
266\begin{itemize}
267\item Accept the offer
268\item Reject the offer
269\end{itemize}
270
271
272\subsection{Alternating Majority Consensus Protocol}
273
274This protocol is essentially equal to the Alternating Multiple Offers Protocol, but now an offer the protocol keeps track of the acceptable offer that got most accepts.
275Initially, this may be the first offer that got one accept. After a number of rounds, some offers receive multiple accepts and these then become the new acceptable offer.
276
277If an offer is accepted by all parties, the negotiation ends. Otherwise, the negotiation continues (unless the deadline is reached). If the deadline is reached, the acceptable offer becomes the agreement.
278
279
280\subsection{Simple Mediator Based Protocol}
281In this protocol, the parties do not hear the other parties directly. Instead, they only hear the mediator and the mediator hears the bids of all the parties. The mediator determines which bid will be voted on, collects the votes and determines the outcome. The mediator is just another NegotiationParty, but it extends Mediator.
282
283The protocol requires that exactly one party is a Mediator. The \Genius GUI enforces this presence of a Mediator. When you run a negotiation from the command line you have to ensure the presence of a single Mediator.
284
285This protocol uses the following turns in every round:
286\begin{enumerate}
287\item Mediator proposes an OfferForVoting
288\item The other parties (not the mediator) place a VoteForOfferAcceptance on the OfferForVoting
289\item The mediator makes a InformVotingResult that informs all parties about the outcome of this round.
290\end{enumerate}
291
292With this protocol, the last InformVotingResult with an accept determines the current outcome.
293
294As mentioned, you have to provide one mediator. There is the following options
295\begin{itemize}
296\item RandomFlippingMediator. This mediator generates random bids until all parties accept. Then, it
297 randomly flips one issue of the current offer to generate a new offer. It
298 keeps going until the deadline is reached.
299 \item FixedOrderFlippingMediator. This mediator behaves exactly like the RandomFlippingMediator, except that it uses a fixed-seed Random generator for every run. This makes it easier for testing.
300
301\end{itemize}
302
303\subsection{Mediator Feedback Based Protocol}
304Like the Simple Mediator Based Protocol, the parties do not hear the other parties directly. Instead, they only hear the mediator and the mediator hears the bids of all the parties. The mediator determines which bid will be voted on, collects the votes and determines the outcome. The mediator is just another NegotiationParty, but it extends Mediator.
305
306 The mediator generates its first bid randomly and sends it to the negotiating parties. After each bid, each party compares the mediator\vtick s new bid with his previous bid and gives feedback (`better', `worse' or `same') to the mediator. For its further bids, the mediator updates the previous bid, hopefully working towards some optimum. The negotiation runs on until the deadline (unless some party crashes). This protocol is explained in detail in \cite{MultiMediatedNegoProtocolsWithFeedback}.
307
308This protocol uses the following turns in every round:
309\begin{enumerate}
310\item Mediator proposes an OfferForFeedback.
311\item The other parties (not the mediator) place a GiveFeedback, indicateing whether the last bid placed by the mediator is better or worse than the previous bid.
312\end{enumerate}
313
314The accepted bid is the last bid that was not receiving a `worse' vote.
315
316\subsection{Beyond the Protocol}
317This section outlines the procedures for the parts of the session outside the scope of the protocol specification.
318
319Before the protocol can be started, the parties have to be loaded and initialized. During initialization, the party's persistent data may have to be loaded from a file. If the persistent data can not be read, a default empty dataset is created for the party. Then the party's init code is called to set up the party. All the time spent in this initialization phase is already being subtracted from the total available negotiation time.
320
321After the protocol has been completed, the protocol is called a last time to determine the final outcome.
322The parties are called to inform them that the negotiation ended, and what the outcome was. This happens even when parties crashed or did illegal actions. The negotiation has already finished, so these calls are not weighing in on the total negotiation time. Instead, these calls are typically limited to 1 second.
323
324Finally, if the party has modified the persistent data, this data needs to be saved. Again, this action is limited to a 1 second duration.
325
326Errors surrounding these out-of-protocol procedures are not part of the negotiation itself and therefore logged and handled separately. These errors are printed only to the console/terminal \footnote{To see the console output, run from Eclipse or start up Genius from a separate terminal. }
327, and only from the single session runner.
328
329
330%=========================================================================================
331\section{Install and Run \Genius }
332\Genius can run on any machine running Java 8. Java 9 is not yet supported. Please report any bugs found to \url{negotiation@ii.tudelft.nl}.
333
334To install the environment, the file \texttt{genius-XXX.zip} can be downloaded from \url{http://ii.tudelft.nl/genius/?q=article/releases}. Unzip the file at a convenient location on your machine. This will result in a folder ``genius-XXX" containing the following files:
335
336\begin{itemize}
337 \item a \texttt{userguide.pdf} which is this document.
338 \item \texttt{genius-XXX.jar}, the \Genius negotiation simulator;
339 \item a few example folders, containing ready-to-compile parties and components.
340 \item a \texttt{multilateraltournament.xml} example file
341\end{itemize}
342
343You start \Genius by double-clicking the genius-XXX.jar file, or using "open with" and then selecting Java.
344
345 After starting the simulator a screen similar to Figure~\ref{Fig:negosimulator start} is shown. This screen is divided in three portions:
346
347\begin{itemize}
348 \item The \textbf{Menubar} allows us to start a new negotiation.
349 \item The \textbf{Components Window} shows all available scenarios, parties, and BOA components.
350 \item The \textbf{Status Window} shows the negotiation status or selected domain/preference profile.
351\end{itemize}
352
353\begin{figure}[htb]
354 \centering
355 \includegraphics[width=0.6\textwidth]{media/start.png}
356\caption{\Genius right after start-up. The left half is the components panel, the right half the status panel.}\label{Fig:negosimulator start}
357\end{figure}
358
359
360Progress messages and error messages are printed mainly to the standard output. On Mac OSX you can view these messages by opening the console window (double-click on Systemdisk/Applications/Utilities/Console.app). On Windows this is not directly possible. Console output can be read only if you start the application from the console window by hand, as follows. Go to the directory with the genius-XXX.jar and enter
361\texttt{java -jar genius-XXX.jar}.
362This will start the simulator, and all messages will appear in the console window. You may see some errors and warnings that are non-critical.
363
364In some rare cases, parties and scenarios require more memory than allocated by default to Java. This problem can be resolved by using the Xmx and Xms parameters when launching the executable jar, for example \texttt{java -Xmx1536M -Xms1536M -jar genius-XXX.jar}. But usually, if your party runs out of memory then there is some design flaw or bug. Competitions usually are run with the default amount of java memory so it is recommended to ensure that your party performs properly without requiring additional memory.
365
366Please refer to chapter \ref{sec:debugging} for instructions on running \Genius in debug mode to debug your party.
367
368\subsection{Running on Hi-DPI screens}
369There is a bug in Java 8 that prevents windows from scaling up the \Genius application windows on hi-dpi screens. The bug is that Java 8 tells Windows that it will do the up-scaling itself, while java actually does not scale up anything. To fix this, do the following:
370
371Find \verb|java.exe| and \verb|javaw.exe| that are used for running \Genius (Double check if you have installed multiple versions of Java). Usually they are somewhere below \verb|C:\Program Files\Java\jre\bin| or similar. For both applications, do this:
372
373\begin{enumerate}
374
375\item Right click on the icon and select Properties
376\item Go to Compatibility tab
377\item Check "Override high DPI scaling behavior".
378\item Scaling performed by: set to "System"
379\end{enumerate}
380
381%=========================================================================================
382\section{Scenario Creation}\label{sec:scenariocreation}
383\Genius offers tools to create Domains and Profiles. Currently \Genius supports editing the Additive and the UncertainAdditive utility space
384 This section discusses how to create domains and preference profiles.
385
386
387\subsection{Creating a Domain}
388By right clicking on the list of available scenarios in the Domains panel a popup menu with the option to create a new domain is shown. After clicking this option a pop-up appears requesting the name for the new domain. After you enter a name and click ok, the new domain is created and a window similar to Figure~\ref{Fig:newdomain} is shown. Initially, a domain contains zero issues. We can simply add an issue by pressing the ``Add issue'' button. This results in the opening of a dialog similar to Figure~\ref{fig:createIssueD}.
389
390\begin{figure}[htb]
391 \centering
392 \includegraphics[width=0.9\textwidth]{media/exampledomain.png}
393\caption{\Genius after creating a new Example domain.}\label{Fig:newdomain}
394\end{figure}
395
396The current version of \Genius~supports the creation of discrete and integer issues. Starting with a discrete issue, the values of the issue should be specified. In Figure~\ref{fig:createIssueD} we show the values of the issue ``Harddisk''. Note the empty evaluation values window, later on when creating a preference profile we will use this tab to specify the preference of each value.
397
398Instead of a discrete issue, we can also add an integer issue as shown in Figure~\ref{fig:createIssueI}. For an integer issue we first need to specify the lowest possible value and the highest value, for example the price range for a second hand car may be $[500, 700]$. Next, when creating a preference profile we need to specify the utility of the lowest possible value (500) and the highest value (700). During the negotiation we can offer any value for the issue within the specified range.
399
400The next step is to press ``Ok'' to add the issue. Generally, a domain consists of multiple issues. We can simply add the other issues by repeating the process above. If you are satisfied with the domain, you can save it by pressing ``Save changes''.
401
402Finally, note that the issues of a domain can only be edited if the scenario does not (yet) specify preference profiles. This is to avoid inconsistencies between the preference profiles and the domains.
403
404\begin{figure}[ht]
405\center
406\begin{minipage}[b]{0.35\linewidth}
407 \includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{media/image7a.png}
408\caption{Creating a discrete issue.}
409\label{fig:createIssueD}
410\end{minipage}
411\begin{minipage}[b]{0.55\linewidth}
412 \includegraphics[width=1.0\textwidth]{media/image7b.png}
413\caption{Creating an integer issue.}\label{fig:createIssueI}
414\end{minipage}
415\end{figure}
416
417\FloatBarrier
418
419\subsection{Creating an AdditiveUtilitySpace}\label{sec:createAdditive}
420Now that we created a domain, the next step is to add a set of preference profiles. Make sure that your domain is correct before proceeding, as \textit{the domain can not be changed when it contains profiles}. By right clicking on the domain a popup menu is opened which has an option to create a new preference profile. Selecting this option results in the opening of a new window which looks similar to Figure~\ref{fig:utilcreated}.
421
422\begin{figure}[htb]
423 \centering
424 \includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{media/laptop.png}
425\caption{\Genius after creating a new utility space.}\label{fig:utilcreated}
426\end{figure}
427
428Now you are ready to start customizing the preference profile. There are three steps: setting the importance of the issues, determining the preference of the values of the issues, and configuring the reservation value and discount. Make sure that you leave the "enable uncertainty" checkbox unchecked.
429
430\begin{enumerate}
431\item Adjust the relative weights of the issues by using the sliders next to that issue. Note that when you move a slider, the weights of the other sliders are automatically updated such that the all weights still sum up to one. If you do not want that the weight of another issue automatically changes, you can lock its weight by selecting the checkbox behind it. Now that we set the weights of the issues, it is a good idea to save the utility space.
432\item set the evaluation of the issues. To specify the evaluation of an issue you can double click it to open a new window looking similar to Figure~\ref{fig:createIssueD} or Figure~\ref{fig:createIssueI} depending on the type of the issue.
433
434For a discrete issue we need to specify the evaluation value of each discrete value. A specific value can be assigned any positive non-zero integer as evaluation value. During the negotiation the utility of a value is determined by dividing the value by the highest value for that particular issue. To illustrate, if we give 60 Gb evaluation 5, 80 Gb evaluation 8, and 120 Gb evaluation 10; then the utilities of these values are respectively 0.5, 0.8, and 1.0.
435
436Specifying the preference of a integer issue is even easier. In this case we simply need to specify the utility of the lowest possible value and the highest possible value. The utility of a value in this range is calculated during the negotiation by using linear interpolation of the utilities of both given utilities.
437
438\item The final step is to set the reservation value and discount of a preference profile.
439
440\item If you are satisfied with the profile you can save it by pressing ``Save changes''.
441\end{enumerate}
442
443\subsection{Creating an UncertainAdditiveUtilitySpace}
444To create an uncertain additive utility space, first make an AdditiveUtilitySpace (section \ref{sec:createAdditive}). Check the "Enable uncertainty" checkbox (Figure \ref{fig:utilcreated}).Set the nr of rankings and Nr. of errors as required. If you want to have the bid comparisons list to be fully random, leave the seed at 0. If you want to have a "controlled random" sequence that generates the same random bids at every run, select a non-zero seed. If your profile is for testing purposes, also check "Grant parties access to real utility functions". The details of these settings are explained in section \ref{sec:partialordering}. Press "Save changes" to store your profile.
445
446%=========================================================================================
447\section{Running Negotiations}
448This section discusses how to run a negotiation. There are two modes to run a negotiation:
449
450\begin{itemize}
451 \item \textbf{Session}. A single negotiation session in which a number of parties negotiate.
452 \item \textbf{Tournament}. A tournament of multiparty sessions.
453\end{itemize}
454
455you start one of these by selecting them from the Start menu (Figure \ref{Fig:negosimulator start}).
456
457Before going into detail on how each of these modes work, we first discuss the two types of parties that can be used: automated parties and non-automated parties. Automated parties are parties that can compete against other parties in a negotiation without relying on input by a user. In general, these parties are able to make a large amount of bids in a limited amount of time.
458
459In contrast, non-automated parties are parties that are fully controlled by the user. These types of parties ask the user each round which action they should make. \Genius~by default includes the UIAgent -- which has a simple user interface -- and the more extensive Extended UIAgent.
460
461
462\subsection{Running a Session}\label{sec:singlesessionrun}
463To run a negotiation session select the menu ``Start'' and then ``Session''. This opens a window similar to Figure~\ref{Fig:multipartysession}.
464
465\begin{figure}[h!]
466 \centering
467 \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{media/multipartysession.png}
468\caption{A multi-party negotiation session.}\label{Fig:multipartysession}
469\end{figure}
470
471The following parameters need to be specified to run a negotiation:
472
473\medskip
474\begin{minipage}{.8 \textwidth}
475\begin{itemize}
476 \item \textbf{Negotiation protocol}. The set of available protocols. See Chapter \ref{sec:protocols}.
477 \item \textbf{Mediator}. The mediator ID and strategy that is to be used for this session. This is only visible if the protocol uses a mediator.
478 \item \textbf{Participant Information}. The information (ID, strategy, profile) for the a party in the session. This information is copied into the table of participants when you click "Add Party".
479 \item \textbf{A table with participants}. This table shows all currently added participants. You can add a party by setting the participant information above, and then clicking "Add Party". You can remove a party by selecting the party to remove in the table, and then clicking "Remove Party".
480 \item \textbf{Deadline}. The deadline to use. Can be "Round" or "Time". This determines the maximum duration of the session.
481 \item \textbf{Data Persistency}. What kind of persistent data is available to the parties. The options are discussed in section \ref{sec:sessiongeneration}.
482 \item \textbf{Enable System.out print}. If disabled, all system.out.print is suppressed during the negotiation. This is useful if for instance parties are flooding the output console, slowing down the system.
483 \item \textbf{Enable progress graph}. If enabled (default), a progress chart is shown during the negotiation. You can disable this e.g. if the drawing is slowing down the system.
484\item \textbf{Bilateral options} These appear only if you have exactly 2 parties added. The sub-options of this panel are
485 \begin{itemize}
486 \item \textbf{Show Util-Util Graph}. If enabled, the progress panel will show a graph where the utilities of the 2 parties are set along the X and Y axes. Also, the pareto frontier and nash point are shown in this graph. If disabled, it will show the default: a graph where the utilities of all parties are along the Y axis, and the time along the X axis.
487 \item \textbf{Show all bids}. If enabled, and if 'Show Util-Util Graph' is enabled, this will show all the possible bids in the Util-Util graph.
488 \end{itemize}
489
490\end{itemize}
491\end{minipage}
492\medskip
493
494
495The negotiation is started when you press the start button. The tab contents will change to a progress overview panel
496showing you the results of the negotiation (Figure \ref{fig:biprogress} and Figure \ref{fig:multiprogress}). The results are also stored in a log file.
497 These results can be easily analyzed by importing them into spreadsheet software such as Excel.
498
499 \begin{figure}[ht]
500 \center
501 \begin{minipage}[b]{0.4\linewidth}
502 \includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{media/bilateralprogress.png}
503 \caption{Bilateral progress panel.}
504 \label{fig:biprogress}
505 \end{minipage}
506 \begin{minipage}[b]{0.4\linewidth}
507 \includegraphics[width=0.95\textwidth]{media/multilateralprogress.png}
508 \caption{Multilateral progress.}\label{fig:multiprogress}
509 \end{minipage}
510 \end{figure}
511
512
513\subsection{Running a Tournament}
514A tournament is a set of sessions. To prepare a tournament, select ``Start'' and then ``Tournament''.
515
516\begin{figure}[htb]
517 \centering
518 \includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{media/multipartytournament.png}
519\caption{Tournament}\label{Fig:multipartytournament}
520\end{figure}
521
522The Tournament tab will appear similar to Figure~\ref{Fig:multipartytournament}. This panel shows a set of tournament options. The detailed meaning of all these settings is explained in \ref{sec:sessiongeneration}.
523
524\begin{itemize}
525 \item \textbf{Protocol}. The protocol to use for each session.
526 \item \textbf{Deadline}. The limits on time and number of rounds for each session.
527 \item \textbf{Number of tournaments}. The number of times the entire tournament will be run.
528 \item \textbf{Agents per Session}. The number of agents N to use for each session.
529 \item \textbf{Agent Repetition}. whether to draw parties with or without return.
530 \item \textbf{Randomize session order}. whether to randomize the session order
531 \item \textbf{Data persistency}. The type of persistent data available to the parties. Same options as in section \ref{sec:singlesessionrun}.
532 \item \textbf{Mediator}. The mediator to use. This option is visible only if the selected protocol needs a mediator.
533 \item \textbf{Agents}. The pool of agents to draw from. Click or drag in the agents area to (de)select agents. Click "Clear" to clear the pool.
534 \item \textbf{Profiles}. The profiles pool. Click or drag in the profiles area to (de)select agents. Click "Clear" to clear the pool.
535 \item \textbf{Special bilateral options}. These options appear only if Agents per session is set to 2 and is discussed in below .
536\end{itemize}
537
538
539
540\subsubsection{Bilateral special options}
541If you have set 'Agents per session' to 2, and deselect 'Agent play both sides', you get an additional panel where you can select different Agents and Profiles for the B side of the 2-sided negotiation as in Figure~\ref{Fig:multipartytournament2}.
542
543\begin{figure}[htb]
544 \centering
545 \includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{media/multipartytournament2.png}
546\caption{Bilateral Tournament}\label{Fig:multipartytournament2}
547\end{figure}
548
549After you click "Start Tournament", the tournament starts. The panel then is swapped for a tournament progress panel (Figure \ref{Fig:tournamentprogress}).
550In the top there is a progress bar showing the total number of sessions and the current session. The table shows all session results. The table is also saved to a $.csv$ log file in the log directory.
551
552\begin{figure}[htb]
553 \centering
554 \includegraphics[width=0.9\textwidth]{media/tournamentprogress.png}
555\caption{Tournament Progress panel}\label{Fig:tournamentprogress}
556\end{figure}
557
558The results of the tournament are shown on screen and also stored in a log file. These results can be easily analyzed by importing them into spreadsheet software such as Excel.
559
560
561\subsection{Running from the command line}
562You can run a multi-party tournament from the command line, as follows.
563
564\begin{enumerate}
565\item Prepare an xml file that describes the settings for the tournament
566\item Run the command runner and give it the prepared file
567\end{enumerate}
568
569\subsubsection{Prepare the XML settings file}
570The first step is to create an xml file containing the values needed for session generation (Section \ref{sec:sessiongeneration}).
571Make a copy of the \verb|multilateraltournament.xml| file inside your genius directory and edit it (with a plain text editor). Inside the \verb|<tournaments>| element you will find a number of \verb|<tournament>| elements. Each of these \verb|<tournament>| elements defines a complete tournament so you can run multiple tournaments using one xml file.
572
573The contents of each \verb|<tournament>| element is as follows. The meaning of the fields is detailed in section \ref{sec:sessiongeneration}.
574
575\begin{itemize}
576\item \textbf{protocolItem}. Contains the protocol to use, in the form of a protocolItem.
577\item \textbf{deadline}. the Deadline value.
578\item \textbf{repeats}. the repeats value.
579\item \textbf{persistentDataType}. The type of the persistent data.
580\item \textbf{numberOfPartiesPerSession}. the Parties per session value.
581\item \textbf{repetitionAllowed}. the value for the Party Repetition.
582\item \textbf{enablePrint}. allow agents to print.
583\item \textbf{partyRepItems}. This element contains a number of \verb|<item>| elements. Each of these party items contains a description of a party as discussed below.
584\item \textbf{mediator}. the mediator, if needed. This is similar in contents to a party item discussed below.
585 \item \textbf{partyProfileItems}. This element contains a number of items. There must be at least as much as numberOfNonMediatorsPerSession.
586 \end{itemize}
587
588We have a number of items:
589\begin{itemize}
590
591\item A profile item : contains
592 \begin{itemize}
593 \item \textbf{url} that contains the description of that party profile. These URIs point to files and therefore are of the form \verb|file:path/to/file.xml|
594 \end{itemize}
595
596\item A party item (and mediator) contains:
597 \begin{itemize}
598 \item \textbf{classPath} the java.party.class.path to the main class. That class must implement the NegotiationParty interface
599 \item \textbf{properties} can contain a number of \verb|<property>| nodes with these values
600 \begin{itemize}
601 \item isMediator: this property indicates the party item is a mediator. If not set, the party will be
602 run as a normal party instead of a mediator, which will probably cause protocol violations
603 \end{itemize}
604 \end{itemize}
605
606\item protocol item. This item contains the protocol information:
607 \begin{itemize}
608 \item \textbf{hasMediator} which is true iff protocol requires mediator
609 \item \textbf{description} a one-line textual description of the mediator
610 \item \textbf{classPath} the java full.class.path of the protocol class
611 \item \textbf{protocolName} a brief protocol name
612 \end{itemize}
613\end{itemize}
614
615
616
617The tournament will consist of sessions created creating all permutations of \verb|<numberOfNonMediatorsPerSession>| from the partyRepItems (with or without reuse, depending on \textbf{repetitionAllowed}. The randomization also is applied to the profile items.
618
619
620\subsubsection{Run the tournament}
621To run the tournament, open a terminal/console and change the working directory to the genius directory.
622Then enter this command (where yourfile.xml is the name of the file you just edited and XXX the version of genius that you use):
623
624\vspace{0.5cm}
625\verb|java -cp genius-XXX-jar-with-dependencies.jar genius.cli.Runner yourfile.xml|
626\vspace{0.5cm}
627
628Press return if the app prompts you for the log file location to log to the default \verb|logs/...csv| file.
629
630\subsection{Tournament Session Generation}\label{sec:sessiongeneration}
631Instead of manually setting all the setting, a tournament generates the exact session settings from the tournament settings. These
632settings are specified either in the user interface settings, or in an XML file. The parameters are:
633
634\begin{itemize}
635\item \textbf{Protocol} The protocol value is used for all sessions. See section \ref{sec:protocols}.
636\item \textbf{Mediator} The mediator to use for all sessions (ignored if the protocol does not need a mediator)
637\item \textbf{Deadline} The deadline is used for all sessions. A deadline contains two values:
638 \begin{itemize}
639 \item \textbf{value}. This is the maximum value determining the deadline. Must be an integer $\ge 1$.
640 \item \textbf{type.} Can be either $ROUND$ or $TIME$. If $ROUND$, the value is the number of rounds. If $TIME$, value is a time in seconds.
641 \end{itemize}
642\item \textbf{Data persistency}. The type of persistent data available to the parties. The next time a party of the same class and same profile runs in a tournament, it will receive the previously stored data. The options are
643 \begin{itemize}
644 \item \textbf{Disabled}. Parties do not receive any persistent data. This is the default.
645 \item \textbf{Serializable}. Parties can save anything serializable in the $PersistentDataContainer$.
646 \item \textbf{Standard}. Parties receive a prepared, read only StandardInfo object inside the $PersistentDataContainer$..
647 \end{itemize}
648\item \textbf{repeats} This is also called 'number of tournaments' and determines the number of times a complete tournament will be run.
649\item \textbf{Randomize Session Order} Whether all generated sessions within a tournament must be randomized.
650\item \textbf{Parties per session} The number of parties to draw for each session. This excludes a possible mediator.
651\item \textbf{Party Repetition} true if parties are to be drawn from the parties pool with return, false if they are to be drawn without return.
652\item \textbf{Parties and Profile pool for side A} A list from which parties and profiles will be drawn
653\item \textbf{Parties and Profile pool for side B} Another list of parties and profiles. Only used with bilateral generation (see below).
654\end{itemize}
655
656The tournament generation works as follows.
657
658If there are exactly 2 parties per session and the parties and profiles for side B have been set, then bilateral generation is used. Otherwise, multilateral generation is used. This generation method creates an ordered list of sessions for 1 tournament. If the 'Randomize Session Order' is set, the list is randomized. All sessions use the same protocol, mediator, deadline and data persistency.
659This generation is called repeatedly, as set in 'repeats', and all generated session lists are accumulated in a big session list. This is the final result of the tournament generation.
660
661\subsubsection{Multilateral generation}
662In multilateral generation, all possible combinations of parties and profiles (using pool A) are generated as follows. the indicated number of parties per session $N$ are drawn from party pool A, with our without return as specified in 'Party Repetition'. Also, $N$ profile items are drawn, ordered without return, from the profiles pool. These two lists are then paired into groups of $N$ party-profile pairs.
663
664\subsubsection{Bilateral generation}
665In bilateral generation, first a set of participants P of all combinations of 1 party and 1 profile are drawn from the side A pool. Similarly a set of participants Q is drawn for the B pool. Then, the sessions set consists of all combinations of one participant from P and another participant from Q .
666
667
668
669
670
671%=========================================================================================
672\section{Quality Measures}\label{sec:qm}
673
674Genius logs quality measures to log files. Logs are written both in \verb|.csv| and \verb|.xml| format.
675Logs are written to the \verb|log/| directory. Filenames contain the date and time the session/tournament started.
676
677The output of the log files differs, depending on whether you ran a tournament or a single session. The following subsections discuss the output for these.
678
679Party names are printed as follows. If the party is a normal NegotiationParty, then the party will print out as something like \verb|Atlas32016@2|. The part before the '@' is the party's name, the part after the '@' is added by the runner to make the name unique. If the party is a BOA party, the name is "boa-" followed by the concatenation of its offering strategy, acceptance condition, opponentmodel and omstrategy. For example you may get this as boa party name:
680
681\begin{verbatim}
682boa-genkus.core.boaframework.offeringstrategy.anac2012.CUHKAgent_Offering-
683genius.core.boaframework.acceptanceconditions.anac2012.AC_CUHKAgent-
684genius.core.boaframework.opponentmodel.CUHKFrequencyModelV2-
685genius.core.boaframework.omstrategy.TheFawkes_OMS@3
686\end{verbatim}
687
688
689\subsection{Session logs}
690Both the XML and CSV log files from a session get the filename \verb|Log-Session_| followed by day and time. The contents however differ.
691
692\subsubsection{Session CSV file}
693 The \verb|.csv| file contains one line for each turn, like this:
694\verb|1,1,0.0055248618784530384,AgentHP2_main@0,(Offer bid:Bid[Food: Chips and Nuts, ...ials, ])|
695
696The columns are, in order:
697\begin{enumerate}
698\item round number.
699\item turn number
700\item the time of agreement, in the range [0,1] where 0 means the start of the session and 1 the maximum time/number of rounds allowed for the negotiation.
701\item the party that acted.
702\item the action that the party did. The action consists of the action type name ("Offer", "Accept", "EndNegotiation", etc) and the bid details if available.
703\end{enumerate}
704
705
706\subsubsection{Session XML file}
707When running a session, the XML file contains only the details of the final outcome of the negotiation.
708
709The fields in the \verb|NegotiationOutcome| element:\label{table:NegotiationOutcome}
710\begin{enumerate}
711\item currentTime: the moment when the final outcome was available.
712\item timeOfAgreement, agreement time in the range [0,1] where 0 means the start of the session and 1 the maximum time/number of rounds allowed for the negotiation.
713\item lastAction: the last action that was done
714\item the domain that was being run
715\item bids: the total number of bids that have been done in this session
716\item the total run time in seconds
717\item the outcome : the final accepted bid , or "-" if there was no final agreement
718\item the startingAgent,
719\item the deadline = maximum amount of time/rounds for this session.
720\end{enumerate}
721
722and then, for each of the parties that participated a "resultsOfAgent" element containing:
723\begin{enumerate}
724\item the party's name.
725\item the party's description
726\item the party's utilityspace filename
727\item the full party class path
728\item the final utility (un-discounted) of this party, or 0 if there was no agreement
729\item the final utility (discounted)
730\item the value of discount(1,1). This is the remaining utility that a un-discounted utility of 1 would have at the end time (t=1). For default discount formulas, this equals the 'discount factor'.
731\end{enumerate}
732
733
734Here's an example
735\begin{verbatim}
736<?xml version="1.0"?>
737<Session>
738 <NegotiationOutcome currentTime="Thu Mar 08 12:50:33 CET 2018"
739 timeOfAgreement="0.3425414364640884"
740 lastAction="(Accept bid:Bid[Food: Chips and Nuts, Drinks: Handmade ...oap, ])"
741 domain="etc/templates/partydomain/party_domain.xml" bids="175" runtime="0.652346172"
742 finalOutcome="Bid[Food: Chips and Nuts, Drinks: .....d Soap, ]"
743 startingAgent="-" deadline="180rounds">
744 <resultsOfAgent agent="AgentHP2_main@0" agentDesc="ANAC2016 agenthp2"
745 utilspace="etc/templates/partydomain/party1_utility.xml"
746 agentClass="agents.anac.y2016.agenthp2.AgentHP2_main"
747 finalUtility="0.8483333333333334" discountedUtility="0.8483333333333334" discount="1.0">
748 </resultsOfAgent>
749 <resultsOfAgent agent="AgentLight@1" agentDesc="ANAC2016 agentLight"
750 utilspace="etc/templates/partydomain/party2_utility.xml"
751 agentClass="agents.anac.y2016.agentlight.AgentLight"
752 finalUtility="0.8564909885811369" discountedUtility="0.8564909885811369" discount="1.0">
753 </resultsOfAgent>
754 <resultsOfAgent agent="Atlas32016@2" agentDesc="ANAC2016 Atlas3"
755 utilspace="etc/templates/partydomain/party3_utility.xml"
756 agentClass="agents.anac.y2016.atlas3.Atlas32016"
757 finalUtility="0.6924080946242358"
758 discountedUtility="0.6924080946242358" discount="1.0">
759 </resultsOfAgent>
760 </NegotiationOutcome>
761</Session>\end{verbatim}
762
763
764
765\subsection{Tournament logs}
766All log files from a tournament get the filename \verb|tournament-| followed by day and time followed by the domain name and an extension.
767There are 3 log files created: a log.csv file, a log.xml file and a logStats.xml file.
768
769If you terminate a tournament before it completes, the .log. files will be written up to the last completed session and there will be no logStats file.
770
771\subsubsection{Tournament log.csv file}
772
773tournament .csv files start with these a line containing \verb|sep=;| indicating that we use the comma as separator character for fields.
774Then there is a table header typically looking like this (if there are 3 parties in each session, and all this on 1 line)
775\begin{verbatim}
776Run time (s);Round;Exception;deadline;Agreement;Discounted;#agreeing;min.util.;max.util.;
777 Dist. to Pareto;Dist. to Nash;Social Welfare;
778 Agent 1;Agent 2;Agent 3;
779 Utility 1;Utility 2;Utility 3;
780 Disc. Util. 1;Disc. Util. 2;Disc. Util. 3;
781 Perceived. Util. 1;Perceived. Util. 2;Perceived. Util. 3;
782 Profile 1;Profile 2;Profile 3
783\end{verbatim}
784
785The rest of the log file contains one line for each final session outcome, matching the columns in the header:
786
787\begin{enumerate}
788\item the run time of that session (seconds).
789\item the number of rounds that were completed
790\item the exception message, if an exception occured
791\item the deadline = maximum amount of time/rounds for this session.
792\item whether an agreement was reached (Yes) or not (No).
793\item whether there was a discount factor (i.e. discount(1,1) is not 1) (Yes or No).
794\item the final number of agreeing parties
795\item the minimum utility achieved by the parties
796\item the maximum utility achieved by the parties
797\item the distance to the pareto curve (the nearest bidpoint on the pareto)
798\item the distance to the nash optimum point
799\item the distance to the social welfare point
800\item the names of all parties
801\item the un-discounted utilities of all parties.
802\item the discounted utilities of all parties
803\item the perceived utilities of all parties.
804\item the profile names of all the parties
805\end{enumerate}
806
807If the profile is a Utilityspace, then the discounted and un-discounted utilities are as in the original utilityspace provided to the agent. The perceived utility in that case equals to the discounted utility.
808If the profile is a partially ordered profile, the core (but not the agent) knows the utility in the AdditiveUtilitySpace that was used to create the profile. In that case, the un-discounded and discounted utilities are utilities as in the AdditiveUtilitySpace. The agent is provided with another AdditiveUtilitySpace that was generated based on the partially ordered profile, and usually will differ from the original AdditiveUtilitySpace. The perceived utility is the (discounted) utility of the bid in that estimated space.
809The perceived utility is available only in the CSV file in tournament logs, not in XML log files.
810
811For example, one line of the output can look like this (all on 1 line)
812
813\begin{verbatim}
8144.965;173;;180rounds;Yes;No;3;0.58083;0.95256;0.00000;0.44991;2.13706;
815ClockworkAgent@14;Farma@15;Caduceus@16;
8160.5808333333333333;0.6036696609166442;0.9525594478616071;
8170.5808333333333333;0.6036696609166442;0.9525594478616071;
8180.5808333333333333;0.6036696609166442;0.9525594478616071;
819party1_utility.xml;party2_utility.xml;party3_utility.xml
820\end{verbatim}
821
822\subsubsection{Tournament log.xml file}
823
824The .log.xml file contains one \verb|<NegotiationOutcome>| element for each completed round.
825These elements are formatted exactly as in \ref{table:NegotiationOutcome}.
826
827\subsubsection{Tournament logStats.xml file}
828The logStats.xml file contains for each of the parties that participated in the tournament statistical info:
829
830\begin{enumerate}
831\item agentname: the party's name (full class path)
832\item totalUndiscounted: the total sum of the un-discounted utilities that it achieved
833\item totalDiscounted: the total sum of the discounted utilities that it achieved
834\item numberOfSessions: the total number of sessions that it participated in
835\item totalNashDist: the accumulated distances to the Nash Point
836\item totalWelfare: the accumulated distances to the Social Welfare Point
837\item totalParetoDistance: the accumulated distances to the Pareto frontier
838\item meanDiscounted: totalDiscounted / numberOfSessions
839\item meanUndiscounted: totalUndiscounted / numberOfSessions
840\item meanNashDistance: totalNashDistance / numberOfSessions
841\item meanWelfare: totalWelfare / numberOfSessions
842\item meanPareto: totalPareto / numberOfSessions
843\end{enumerate}
844
845
846%
847%
848%\subsection{Analyzing Logs using Excel}~\label{sec:analysisExcel}
849%The logs are in XML and CSV format, so we can easily analyze them with Excel. Note that the following discussion does not apply to the starter edition of Excel, as it does not support Pivot tables.
850%
851%The XML data of the standard log can be converted to a normal table by importing the data into Excel using the default options. This results in a large table showing the result for both agents A and B for each session. Analyzing these results manually is complicated, therefore we recommend to use pivot tables. Pivot tables allow to summarize a large set of data using statistics and can be created by selecting ``Insert'' and then ``Pivot Table''. To illustrate, by dragging the \textit{agentName} in ``Row Labels'' and the \textit{discountedUtility} in ``Values'' (see Figure~\ref{fig:pivottable}), we can easily see which agent scored best in the tournament. If solely the amount of matches of each agent is displayed, you need to set the ``Value Field Settings'' of \textit{discountedUtility} to average instead of count.
852%
853%\begin{figure}[htb]
854% \centering
855% \includegraphics[width=0.4\textwidth]{media/PivotTable.png}
856%\caption{Configuration required to summarize the discounted utility of each agent.}\label{fig:pivottable}
857%\end{figure}
858
859
860%=========================================================================================
861
862\section{Creating a Negotiation Party}\label{sec:createagent}
863To create an negotiation party, we suggest to follow the instructions in the Appendix and start with one of the examples.
864You can then proceed by changing the example.
865
866
867\subsection{Example Parties}
868The \Genius zip file contains three example parties: the multiparty example, the storage example and the uncertainty example. To compile an example, set up your workspace as in the appendix (Section \ref{sec:appendix}) and copy an example folder into \verb|src/|.
869
870\begin{enumerate}
871\item The multiparty example just accepts any acceptable bid with a random probability of 0.5.
872
873\item The storage example demonstrates using the persistent data storage. This example is showing how the storage can be used to wait a little longer every next time the party is in a negotiation.
874
875To run this example, you need to set up \Genius to allow persistent data storage (the default is off). In the \Genius tournament setup panel, use the following settings
876\begin{itemize}
877\item number of tournaments= 20
878\item agents per session =2
879\item persistency=standard
880\item agent side A: GroupX, \verb|party1_utility.xml|
881\item agent side B: Random Party, \verb|party6_utility.xml|
882\end{itemize}
883
884and start the tournament and check the number of rounds till agreement: it will increase every session.
885
886Now run another tournament with the same settings but pick select both \verb|party1_utility.xml| and \verb|party2_utility.xml|. Run the tournament.
887Now you will see that the the number of rounds till agreement goes up every other run. This is because your party gets a different profile every other run and thus there are persistent data stores, one for each profile.
888
889
890\item The uncertainty example is an example to illustrate the use of uncertainty in your negotiation party. You should run this agent with an UncertainAdditiveutilitySpace.
891
892\end{enumerate}
893
894\subsection{Implementing NegotiationParty}
895This section discusses details of implementing a NegotiationParty.
896
897Every party must at least implement the \texttt{genius.core.parties.NegotiationParty} interface (Table \ref{table:NegotiationPartyInterface}), Also the implementation must have a public default (no-argument) constructor. Please refer to the javadocs for details on the parameters.
898
899\begin{table*}[t]
900 \centering
901 \begin{tabular}{|p{4cm}|p{7cm}|}
902 \hline
903 Method & description \\
904 \hline\hline
905 init &Initializes the party, informing it of many negotiation details. This is be called exactly once by the negotiation system, immediately after construction of the class \\
906 chooseAction & When this function is called, it is expected that the Party chooses one of the actions from the possible action list and returns an instance of the chosen action. \\
907 receiveMessage & This method is called to inform the party that another NegotiationParty chose an Action.\\
908 getDescription & Returns a human-readable description for this party \\
909 getProtocol & The actual supported MultilateralProtocol. Usually this returns StackedAlternating\-Offers\-Protocol. Your party should override this if it supports a another protocol\\
910 negotiationEnded & This is called to inform the party that the negotiation has been ended. This allows the party to record some final conclusions about the run\\
911 \hline
912 \end{tabular}
913 \caption{Methods of NegotiationParty. Check the javadoc for all the details}
914 \label{table:NegotiationPartyInterface}
915\end{table*}
916
917
918For convenience, you can also extend the class \texttt{genius.core.parties.AbstractNegotiationParty} which is a basic implementation of NegotiationParty. This class also provides convenient support functions for building your party.
919
920Your party might need to check the exact type of the provided AbstractUtilitySpace (inside NegotiationInfo), for instance if your party supports for example only AdditiveutilitySpace. Also check the provided UserModel, if that is set (not null) then this overrides the value returned by getUtilitySpace..
921
922A number of useful classes is given in \ref{tab:agentclass}. The javadoc contains the full details of all available classes. We recommend to use the javadoc included with the distribution to check the details of all the involved classes. Notice that some classes, e.g. SortedOutcomeSpace, may take a long time and large amounts of memory to sort a large bid space, which may exceed the available time and space for your party. Therefore these methods should be used with caution.
923
924\begin{table}
925\begin{tabular}{m{0.9\textwidth}}
926\hline
927\texttt{NegotiationInfo}\\
928The context of the negotiation: the partial profile ("UserModel"), utility space, the timeline and deadline, the agentID and persistent data container.\\
929\hline
930\texttt{UtilitySpace}\\
931The preference profile of the scenario allocated to the party. It is recommended to use this class when implementing a model of the opponent's preference profile.\\
932\hline
933\texttt{Timeline }\\
934Use timeline for every time-related by using \texttt{getTime()}.\\
935\texttt{Action chooseAction(List<Class<? extends Action>> possibleActions)}\\
936This function should return the action your party wants to make next.\\
937\hline
938\texttt{Action}\\
939Superclass of negotiation actions like Offer, Accept and EndNegotiation..\\
940\hline
941\texttt{BidHistory}\\
942a structure to keep track of the bids presented by the party and the opponent.\\
943\hline
944\texttt{SortedOutcomeSpace}\\
945a structure which stores all possible bids and their utilities by using BidIterator. In addition, it implements search algorithms that can be used to search the space of possible bids for bids near a given utility or within a given utility range. WARNING (1) SortedOutcomeSpace iterates over all bids and thus might be unusable in large bidspaces (2) Some parties have created their own copy of SortedOutcomeSpace, so be careful to pick the genius.core version. \\
946\hline
947\texttt{BidIterator}\\
948a class used to enumerate all possible bids. Also refer to \textit{SortedOutcomeSpace}.\\
949\hline
950\texttt{BidDetails}\\
951a structure to store a bid and its utility.\\
952\hline
953\end{tabular}
954
955\caption{Important classes used for creating a NegotiationParty.}
956\label{tab:agentclass}
957\end{table}
958
959\FloatBarrier
960
961\subsubsection{Receiving the Opponent's Action}\label{sec:receiveAction}
962The \texttt{ReceiveMessage(Action opponentAction)} informs you that the opponent just performed the action \texttt{opponentAction}. The \texttt{opponentAction} may be \texttt{null} if you are the first to place a bid, or an \texttt{Offer}, \texttt{Accept} or \texttt{EndNegotiation} action.
963The \texttt{chooseAction()} asks you to specify an \texttt{Action} to send to the opponent.
964
965In the SimpleAgent code, the following code is available for \texttt{receiveMessage}. The SimpleAgent stores the opponent's action to use it when choosing an action.
966
967\begin{lstlisting}
968public void receiveMessage(Action opponentAction) {
969 actionOfPartner = opponentAction;
970}
971\end{lstlisting}
972
973\subsubsection{Choosing an Action}\label{sec:chooseAction}
974The code block below shows the code of the method \texttt{chooseAction} for SimpleAgent. For safety, all code was wrapped in a try-catch block, because if our code would accidentally contain a bug we still want to return a good action (failure to do so is a protocol error and results in a utility of 0.0).
975
976The sample code works as follows. If we are the first to place a bid, we place a random bid with sufficient utility (see the .java file for the details on that). Else, we determine the probability to accept the bid, depending on the utility of the offered bid and the remaining time. Finally, we randomly accept or pose a new random bid.
977
978While this strategy works, in general it will lead to suboptimal results as it does not take the opponent into account. More advanced parties try to model the opponent's strategy or preference profile.
979
980\begin{lstlisting}
981public Action chooseAction() {
982 Action action = null;
983 Bid partnerBid = null;
984 try {
985 if (actionOfPartner == null)
986 action = chooseRandomBidAction();
987 if (actionOfPartner instanceof Offer) {
988 partnerBid = ((Offer) actionOfPartner).getBid();
989 double offeredUtilFromOpponent = getUtility(partnerBid);
990 double time = timeline.getTime();
991 action = chooseRandomBidAction();
992 Bid myBid = ((Offer) action).getBid();
993 double myOfferedUtil = getUtility(myBid);
994 // accept under certain circumstances
995 if (isAcceptable(offeredUtilFromOpponent, myOfferedUtil, time))
996 action = new Accept(getAgentID(), partnerBid);
997 }
998 if (timeline.getType().equals(Timeline.Type.Time)) {
999 sleep(0.005); // just for fun
1000 }
1001 } catch (Exception e) {
1002 // best guess if things go wrong. Notice this may still fail
1003 action = new Accept(getAgentID(), partnerBid);
1004 }
1005 return action;
1006}
1007\end{lstlisting}
1008
1009The method \textit{isAcceptable} implements the probabilistic acceptance function$P_\text{accept}$:
1010
1011\begin{equation}
1012 P_\text{accept} = \dfrac{u - 2ut + 2\left(t - 1 + \sqrt{(t - 1)^2 + u(2t - 1)}\right)}{2t - 1}
1013\end{equation}
1014where $u$ is the utility of the bid made by the opponent (as measured in our utility space), and $t$ is the current time as a fraction of the total available time. Figure~\ref{Fig:Paccept} shows how this function behaves depending on the utility and remaining time. Note that this function only decides if a bid is acceptable or not. More advanced acceptance strategies also use the \texttt{EndNegotiation} action.
1015\begin{figure}[htb]
1016 \centering
1017 \includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{media/image21.png}
1018 \caption{$P_\text{accept}$ value as function of the utility and time (as a fraction of the total available time).}\label{Fig:Paccept}
1019\end{figure}
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025\subsection{Implementing a party with uncertainty}
1026\label{sec:newUncertainAgent}
1027
1028In order to program an agent with uncertainty, we recommend that your agent extends the \textit{AbstractNegotiationParty} class. That class has some support functions that load the normal utilityspace with an approximation that is useful for plotting outcomes.
1029% This example is not yet there.
1030%An example of an agent that can work with uncertainty is the \textit{UncertaintyAgentExample}.
1031%When referring to code in this section, this will be code from either the \textit{AbstractNegotiationParty} class or the \textit{UncertaintyAgentExample}.
1032
1033\subsubsection{Overriding functions}
1034In order to change the way your agent handles the uncertainty, you can override the \textit{estimateUtilitySpace()} function. This function in AbstractNegotiationParty returns an \textit{AbstractUtilitySpace} object. In the \textit{AbstractNegotiationParty} class, this code looks as follows:
1035 \begin{lstlisting}
1036public AbstractUtilitySpace estimateUtilitySpace() {
1037 Domain domain = getDomain();
1038 AdditiveUtilitySpaceFactory factory
1039 = new AdditiveUtilitySpaceFactory(domain);
1040 BidRanking bidRanking = userModel.getBidRanking();
1041 factory.estimateUsingBidRanks(bidRanking);
1042 return factory.getUtilitySpace();
1043}
1044\end{lstlisting}
1045
1046As can be seen from the function, a custom \textit{AbstractUtilitySpace} is created using the domain and the bid ranking. This function tries to approximate the utility function using a simple counting heuristic. This heuristic does not perform very well, so there is need to implement your own function. An example is included in the \textit{UncertaintyAgentExample}. In this example, the \textit{AbstractNegotiationParty} class is extended and the \textit{estimateUtilitySpace()} function is overridden. Overriding this function can be done as follows:
1047\begin{lstlisting}
1048@Override
1049public AbstractUtilitySpace estimateUtilitySpace()
1050{
1051 return new AdditiveUtilitySpaceFactory(
1052 getDomain()).getUtilitySpace();
1053}
1054\end{lstlisting}
1055
1056This function overrides the standard function and implements its own method to estimate the Utility space. Currently, this returns a utility function with equal weights and values set to zero. To estimate the utility function, you can use the \textit{BidRanking} class. The bid ranking for the current session can be accessed using \textit{userModel.getBidRanking()}. The next section will show what information is included in the \textit{BidRanking}.
1057
1058\subsubsection{Bid Ranking}
1059When running an uncertain agent, all utility information is given through a bid ranking. This bid ranking consists of an ordering of different bids for the current domain. The ranking that the agent receives is ordered from low utility to high utility. This ranking can be used to estimate a utility function.
1060
1061The \textit{BidRanking} class consists of a list of \verb|Bid|s To obtain the \textit{Bid} classes from the \textit{Bidranking}, you can use the \textit{getBidOrder()} function on the \textit{Bidranking} object. This object is obtained in the agent using \textit{userModel.getBidRanking()}. Check the javadoc for more details, and we suggest you check the source code of BidRanking, and makes it a little easier to compare the original utilityspace with the estimation.
1062
1063To access the list of \textit{Bid} objects directly, you can use the following snippet:
1064\begin{lstlisting}
1065List<Bid> bids = userModel.getBidRanking().getBidOrder();
1066\end{lstlisting}
1067
1068The bids that are obtained from the \textit{BidRanking} using the \textit{getBidOrder()} function are listed from low utility to high utility. This means that the first element in the list has the lowest utility score. When iterating over the list, every next bid will be either valued \textbf{higher or the same} as the current bid in the list.
1069
1070\textit{BidRanking} also contains the recommended utility values through \textit{getLowUtility()} and \textit{getHighUtility()}. These values can be used for the worst and best bid in the list.
1071
1072
1073\subsubsection{Accessing the real utility space for debugging}
1074If the utiltity space was saved with the "experimental setup" checkbox enabled (Figure \ref{fig:utilcreated}) then your agent can access the real utility function. Such a utility space can be used to verify the utility function that your agent creates itself. In order to get access to this function, the userModel should be cast to an \textit{ExperimentalUserModel} object. This can be done as follows:
1075\begin{lstlisting}
1076ExperimentalUserModel e = (ExperimentalUserModel) userModel;
1077UncertainAdditiveUtilitySpace realUSpace = e.getRealUtilitySpace();
1078\end{lstlisting}
1079
1080Now, you will have access to the real utility space with \textit{realUSpace}.
1081
1082\subsubsection{Uncertainty agent checklist}
1083This section will give a short overview of what to do in order to enable your agent to work with uncertainty. You should take the following steps:
1084\begin{enumerate}
1085 \item Extend the \textit{AbstractNegotiationParty} class.
1086 \item Override the \textit{estimateUtilitySpace()} function that returns an \textit{AbstractUtilitySpace} class.
1087 \item Using the \textit{getDomain()} function and the \textit{BidRanking}, create an estimation for the utility function. (E.g. Counting, Machine Learning, Statistical methods, etc.)
1088 \item Implement the normal methods necessary for the agent to do the bidding. This is the same as for normal agents, the uncertainty is only used on startup of the agent in order to estimate the utility function.
1089\end{enumerate}
1090
1091
1092\subsection{Loading a NegotiationParty}
1093
1094You need to load your custom party into the \Genius party repository in order to use it. After adding, your party will appear in the combo boxes in the multilateral tournament runner and session runner where you can select the party to use.
1095
1096Locate the Parties repository tab in the GUI (Figure \ref{fig:partiesrepo}). Right click in this area and select "Add Party". A file browser panel pops up. Browse to your compiled \verb|.class| file that implements the NegotiationParty and select it. Typically Eclipse compiles into \verb|bin|. Your party will appear at the bottom of the parties repository. The \verb|partyrepository.xml| file is automatically updated accordingly.
1097
1098\begin{figure}[h!]
1099 \center
1100 \includegraphics[width=10cm]{media/partiesrepo.png}
1101 \caption{The parties repository.}
1102 \label{fig:partiesrepo}
1103\end{figure}
1104
1105
1106To do this manually without using the GUI, quit \Genius, open the \verb|partyrepository.xml| file \footnote{This file is automatically created the first time you run \Genius} and add a section like this
1107
1108\begin{lstlisting}
1109<partyRepItem classPath="full.class.of.your.party" <properties/> />
1110\end{lstlisting}
1111
1112After that you can restart \Genius so that it loads the new party.
1113\FloatBarrier
1114
1115\subsection{Third party code}
1116You should not use maven or jars to add dependencies for your party. The reason is \Genius or other parties might already have another version of your library in use. Java 8 can not deal properly with multiple versions of the same library within a single JVM. The result would be inconsistent, incorrect or buggy behaviour, or even crashes.
1117
1118Instead, if you want to use a third party library, you will have to include all the source code of that library with your code, including all sub-dependencies. Also ensure the imports in all sources are renamed accordingly. The code should be copied inside the package name of your party, instead of using the original package name of that library (so do not use "org.apache" for instance). This is to ensure that we are really running your party on the specific version of the library that your party needs and to avoid version conflicts (java will run an unspecified version of the library in case of conficts).
1119
1120
1121%=========================================================================================
1122\section{Creating a BOA Party}\label{sec:boa}
1123Instead of implementing your negotiating party from scratch, you can create a BOA party using the \textit{BOA framework}.
1124The BOA negotiation party architecture allows to reuse existing components from other BOA parties. Many of the sophisticated party strategies that currently exist are comprised of a fixed set of modules. Generally, a distinction can be made between four different modules: one module that decides whether the opponent's bid is acceptable (\textit{acceptance strategy}); one that decides which set of bids could be proposed next (\textit{offering strategy}); one that tries to guess the opponent's preferences (\textit{opponent model}), and finally a component which specifies how the opponent model is used to select a bid for the opponent (\textit{opponent model strategy}). The overall negotiation strategy is a result of the interaction between these components.
1125
1126The advantages of separating the negotiation strategy into these four components (or equivalently, fitting a party into the BOA framework) are threefold: first, it allows to \textit{study the performance of individual components}; second, it allows to \textit{systematically explore the space of possible negotiation strategies}; third, the reuse of existing components \textit{simplifies the creation of new negotiation strategies}.
1127
1128\begin{tabular}{|l|}
1129\hline
1130{\bf WARNING} \\
1131Many of the provided BOA components currently assume a single opponent party. \\
1132These will behave incorrectly when used with multiple opponents. \\
1133We recommend checking the source code of the BOA components you want to use, \\
1134or write your own components if you are creating a NegotiationParty.\\
1135\hline
1136\end{tabular}
1137
1138
1139\subsection{Components of the BOA Framework}
1140A negotiation party in the BOA framework, called a \textit{BOA party}, consists of four components:
1141\begin{description}
1142 \item[Offering strategy] An offering strategy is a mapping which maps a negotiation trace to a bid. The offering strategy can interact with the opponent model by consulting with it.%, passing one or multiple bids and see how they compare within the opponent's utility space.
1143
1144 \item[Opponent model] An opponent model is in the BOA framework a learning technique that constructs a model of the opponent's preference profile.% In our approach, the opponent model should be able to estimate the opponent's utility of a given bid.
1145 \item[Opponent model strategy] An opponent model strategy specifies how the opponent model is used to select a bid for the opponent and if the opponent model may be updated in a specific turn.
1146 \item[Acceptance strategy] The acceptance strategy determines whether the opponent's bid is acceptable and may even decide to prematurely end the negotiation.
1147\end{description}
1148The components interact in the following way (the full process is visualized in Figure~\ref{fig:flowchart}). When receiving a bid, the BOA party first updates the \textit{bidding history}. Next, the \textit{opponent model strategy} is consulted if the \textit{opponent model} may be updated this turn. If so, the \textit{opponent model} is updated.
1149
1150Given the opponent's bid, the \textit{offering strategy} determines the counter offer by first generating a set of bids with a similar preference for the party. The \textit{offering strategy} uses the \textit{opponent model strategy} to select a bid from this set taking the opponent's utility into account.
1151
1152Finally, the \textit{acceptance strategy} decides whether the opponent's action should be accepted. If the opponent's bid is not accepted by the acceptance strategy, then the generated bid is offered instead.
1153
1154\begin{figure}[t]
1155 \center
1156 \includegraphics[width=15.0cm]{media/BOAflow.png}
1157 \caption{The BOA Framework Architecture.}
1158 \label{fig:flowchart}
1159\end{figure}
1160
1161\FloatBarrier
1162
1163\subsection{Create a BOA Party}
1164A boa parties can be edited in the "Boa Parties" repository tab (Figure \ref{fig:boaparties}). Right-click in the panel to add items. Select an item and right-click to remove or edit an item.
1165
1166
1167\begin{figure}[!ht]
1168 \center
1169 \includegraphics[width=10.0cm]{media/boacomponants.png}
1170 \caption{The BOA Parties repository tab.}
1171 \label{fig:boaparties}
1172\end{figure}
1173
1174
1175After you selected to add or edit a BOA party (Figure \ref{fig:editboaparty}). Here you can select a different Offering Strategy, Acceptance Strategy, Opponent Model and Opponent Model Strategy by selecting the appropriate strategy with the combo boxes. If the strategy has parameters, the current parameter settings are shown and the respective "Change" button enables.
1176
1177
1178\begin{figure}[!ht]
1179 \center
1180 \includegraphics[width=10.0cm]{media/EditBoaParty.png}
1181 \caption{Editing a BOA party.}
1182 \label{fig:editboaparty}
1183\end{figure}
1184
1185If you click on the "Change" button, another panel pops up where you can edit the parameters (Figure \ref{fig:editparameters}). You can click directly in the table to edit values.
1186
1187\begin{figure}[!ht]
1188 \center
1189 \includegraphics[width=10.0cm]{media/EditParameters.png}
1190 \caption{Editing the Parameters of a BOA party.}
1191 \label{fig:editparameters}
1192\end{figure}
1193
1194When you have correctly set all strategies and their parameters, you can click the "OK" button in the BOA party editor (Figure \ref{fig:editboaparty}). Then, parties with the given name are generated, one for each permutation of the range of settings you set in the parameters. For example, if you set you want parameter m to have values 0,1 and 2 and x to have values 7 and 8, there will appear 6 new parties, with settings [0,7],[0,8],[1,7],[1,8],[2,7], and [2,8]. Be careful with this generation as it is easy to create an excessive amount of boa parties this way.
1195
1196
1197\subsection{Creating BOA Components}
1198This section discusses how create your own components. An example implementation of each component is included in the ``boaexamplepackage'' folder. The next section discusses how these components can be added to the list of available components in the BOA framework GUI.
1199
1200The \verb|boaexample| folder contains two acceptance components:
1201\begin{itemize}
1202\item \verb|AC_Next| which will accept an opponent bid if the utility is higher than the bid the agent is ready to present
1203\item \verb|AC_Uncertain| which can handle both normal and uncertain profiles.
1204\end{itemize}
1205
1206\subsubsection{Set up a Workspace}
1207BOA components must be compiled before they can be loaded into Genius.
1208To compile a BOA component, follow the steps in (Section \ref{sec:appendix}). Then, create your BOA code into \verb|src|. For a quick start, you can copy the boaexample folder into \verb|src|. Eclipse automatically compiles your BOA components into \verb|bin|.
1209
1210Please refer to chapter \ref{sec:debugging} for instructions on running \Genius in debug mode to debug your components.
1211
1212\subsubsection{Add component to Genius}
1213After your component has been compiled, you need to tell Genius where to find it.
1214Go to the "BOA Components" tab and right click in the table. Select "Add new component". Enter the component name and click "Open". Browse to your compiled component and click "Open". Click ""Add component". After this, your component appears in the list and is ready for use.
1215
1216\subsubsection{Parameters}
1217All BOA components have the same mechanism to be tuned with parameters. They should have no constructor : the default empty constructor will be called. They initialize through a call to init().
1218
1219The parameters and their default parameters are indicated by the component by overriding the getParameters() function. This function should return a set of $BAOparameter$ objects, each parameter having a unique name, description and default value.
1220
1221
1222\begin{table}[h]
1223\begin{tabular}{m{0.9\textwidth}}
1224\hline
1225\texttt{public Set<BOAparameter> getParameterSpec() }\\
1226 Override this function to add parameters to the module.\\
1227\hline
1228\end{tabular}
1229\caption{The getParameters method. Override if your component has parameters.}
1230\label{tab:parameters}
1231\end{table}
1232
1233
1234When the component is actually used, the actual values for the parameters (which may differ from the default) are passed to the init function when the component is initialized.
1235
1236\subsubsection{Creating an Offering Strategy}
1237An offering strategy can be easily created by extending the \textit{OfferingStrategy} class. Table~\ref{tab:BOAbs} depicts the methods which need to be overridden. The \textit{init} method of the offering strategy is automatically called by the BOA framework with four parameters: the negotiation session, the opponent model, the opponent model strategy, and the parameters of the component. The negotiation session object keeps track of the negotiation state, which includes all offers made by both partiess, the timeline, the preference profile, and the domain. The parameters object specifies the parameters as specified in the GUI. In the previous section we specified the parameter $b$ for the acceptance strategy $Other - Next$ to be 0.0. In this case the party can retrieve the value of the parameter by calling \textit{parameters.get(``b'')}.
1238
1239An approach often taken by many offering strategies is to first generate all possible bids. This can be efficiently done by using the \textit{SortedOutcomeSpace} class. For an example on using this class see the \textit{TimeDependent\_Offering} class in the \textit{boaexamplepackage} directory.
1240
1241\begin{table}[h]
1242\begin{tabular}{m{0.9\textwidth}}
1243\hline
1244\texttt{void init(NegotiationSession negotiationSession, OpponentModel opponentModel,
1245 OMStrategy omStrategy, Map<String, Double> parameters)}\\
1246Method directly called after creating the party which should be used to initialize the component.\\
1247\hline
1248\texttt{BidDetails determineOpeningBid()}\\
1249Method which determines the first bid to be offered to the component.\\
1250\hline
1251\texttt{BidDetails determineNextBid()}\\
1252Method which determines the bids offered to the opponent after the first bid.\\
1253\hline
1254\end{tabular}
1255\caption{The main methods of the offering strategy component.}
1256\label{tab:BOAbs}
1257\end{table}
1258
1259
1260\subsubsection{Creating an Acceptance Condition}
1261This section discusses how to create an acceptance strategy class by extending the abstract class \textit{AcceptanceStrategy}. Table~\ref{tab:BOAas} depicts the two methods which need to specified.
1262
1263\begin{table}[h]
1264\begin{tabular}{m{0.9\textwidth}}
1265\hline
1266\texttt{void init(NegotiationSession negotiationSession, OfferingStrategy offeringStrategy,
1267 OpponentModel opponentModel, Map<String, Double> parameters)}\\
1268Method directly called after creating the party which should be used to initialize the component.\\
1269\hline
1270\texttt{Actions determineAcceptability()}\\
1271Method which determines if the party should accept the opponent's bid (\textit{Actions.Accept}), reject it and send a counter offer (\textit{Actions.Reject}), or leave the negotiation (\textit{Actions.Break}).\\
1272\hline
1273\end{tabular}
1274\caption{The main methods of the acceptance strategy component.}
1275\label{tab:BOAas}
1276\end{table}
1277
1278\subsubsection{Creating an Opponent Model}
1279This section discusses how to create an opponent model by extending the abstract class \textit{OpponentModel}. Table~\ref{tab:BOAom} provides an overview of the main methods which need to specified. For performance reasons it is recommended to use the \textit{UtilitySpace} class.
1280
1281\begin{table}[h]
1282\begin{tabular}{m{0.9\textwidth}}
1283\hline
1284\texttt{void init(NegotiationSession negotiationSession, Map<String, Double> parameters)}\\
1285Method directly called after creating the party which should be used to initialize the component.\\
1286\hline
1287\texttt{double getBidEvaluation(Bid bid)}\\
1288Returns the estimated utility of the given bid.\\
1289\hline
1290\texttt{double updateModel(Bid bid)}\\
1291Updates the opponent model using the given bid.\\
1292\hline
1293\texttt{UtilitySpace getOpponentUtilitySpace()}\\
1294Returns the opponent's preference profile. Use the \textit{UtilitySpaceAdapter} class when not using the UtilitySpace class for the opponent's preference profile.\\
1295\hline
1296\end{tabular}
1297\caption{The main methods of the opponent model component.}
1298\label{tab:BOAom}
1299\end{table}
1300
1301\subsubsection{Creating an Opponent Model Strategy}
1302This section discusses how to create an opponent model strategy by extending the abstract class \textit{OMStrategy}. Table~\ref{tab:BOAoms} provides an overview of the main methods which need to specified.
1303
1304\begin{table}[h]
1305\begin{tabular}{m{0.9\textwidth}}
1306\hline
1307\texttt{void init(NegotiationSession negotiationSession, OpponentModel model, Map<String, Double> parameters)}\\
1308Method directly called after creating the party which should be used to initialize the component.\\
1309\hline
1310\texttt{BidDetails getBid(List<BidDetails> bidsInRange);}\\
1311This method returns a bid to be offered from a set of given similarly preferred bids by using the opponent model.\\
1312\hline
1313\texttt{boolean canUpdateOM();}\\
1314Determines if the opponent model may be updated this turn.\\
1315\hline
1316\end{tabular}
1317\caption{The main methods of the opponent model strategy component.}
1318\label{tab:BOAoms}
1319\end{table}
1320
1321
1322
1323% DISABLED: Boa framework sessiondata is not good, it should use PersistentDataStore.
1324
1325%\subsection{SessionData}
1326%The BOA framework stores an object \textit{SessionData} that includes the data saved by all three components. This object is loaded and saved automatically by the BOA framework. A component can easily access the data it saved by using the \textit{loadData} method. A component can at each moment during the negotiation update the saved information by using the \textit{storeData} method, although we recommend updating the information at the end of the negotiation by using the the \textit{endSession} method. The \textit{endSession} method of each method is automatically called at the end of the negotiation to inform the component of the result obtained and should be used to update the \textit{SessionData} object before it is automatically stored.
1327
1328\subsection{Advanced: Converting a BOA Party to a Party}
1329To convert a BOA party to a normal party you have to create a class that extends \textit{BoaParty} and override the \textit{init} method. Below is an example of a BOA party wrapped as a normal party. It's a bit hack-y because the BoaParty constructor assumes all components known while an party often can decide this only at init time.
1330
1331\begin{lstlisting}
1332public class SimpleBoaParty extends BoaParty {
1333
1334 public SimpleBoaParty() {
1335 super(null, new HashMap<String, Double>(), null,
1336 new HashMap<String, Double>(), null,
1337 new HashMap<String, Double>(), null,
1338 new HashMap<String, Double>());
1339 }
1340
1341 @Override
1342 public void init(NegotiationInfo info) {
1343 SessionData sessionData = null;
1344 if (info.getPersistentData()
1345 .getPersistentDataType() == PersistentDataType.SERIALIZABLE) {
1346 sessionData = (SessionData) info.getPersistentData().get();
1347 }
1348 if (sessionData == null) {
1349 sessionData = new SessionData();
1350 }
1351
1352 negotiationSession = new NegotiationSession(sessionData,
1353 info.getUtilitySpace(), info.getTimeline());
1354 opponentModel = new MyrequencyModel();
1355 opponentModel.init(negotiationSession, new HashMap<String, Double>());
1356 omStrategy = new NullStrategy(negotiationSession);
1357 offeringStrategy = new MyBiddingStrategy(negotiationSession,
1358 opponentModel, omStrategy);
1359
1360 acceptConditions = new AC_Next(negotiationSession, offeringStrategy, 1,
1361 0);
1362 // we have init'd all params here, don't call super init
1363 }
1364
1365 @Override
1366 public String getDescription() {
1367 return "Simple BOA Party";
1368 }
1369}
1370\end{lstlisting}
1371
1372\subsection{Advanced: Multi-Acceptance Criteria (MAC)}
1373The \textit{BOA framework} allows us to better explore a large space of negotiation strategies. MAC can be used to scale down the negotiation space, and thereby make it better computationally explorable.
1374
1375As discussed in the introduction of this chapter, the acceptance condition determines solely if a bid should be accepted. This entails that it does not influence the bidding trace, except for when it is stopped. In fact, the only difference between \textit{BOA parties} where only the acceptance condition vary, is the time of agreement (assuming that the computational cost of the acceptance conditions are negligible).
1376
1377Given this property, multiple acceptance criteria can be tested in parallel during the same negotiation trace. In practice, more than 50 variants of a simple acceptance condition as for example $\textbf{AC}_{next}$ can be tested in the same negotiation at a negligible computational cost.
1378
1379To create a multi-acceptance condition component you first need to extend the class \textit{Mulit Acceptance Condition}, this gives access to the ACList which is a list of acceptance conditions to be tested in parallel. Furthermore, the method \textit{isMac} should be overwritten to return \textit{true} and the name of the components in the repository should be \textit{Multi Acceptance Criteria}. An acceptance can be added to the MAC by appending it to the AClist as shown below.
1380
1381\begin{lstlisting}[language=Java, caption={Example code for Acceptance condition}]
1382public class AC_MAC extends Multi_AcceptanceCondition {
1383 @Override
1384 public void init(NegotiationSession negoSession,
1385 OfferingStrategy strat, OpponentModel opponentModel,
1386 HashMap<String, Double> parameters) throws Exception {
1387 this.negotiationSession = negoSession;
1388 this.offeringStrategy = strat;
1389 outcomes = new ArrayList<OutcomeTuple> ();
1390 ACList = new ArrayList<AcceptanceStrategy>();
1391 for (int e = 0; e < 5; e++) {
1392 ACList.add(new AC_Next(negotiationSession,
1393 offeringStrategy, 1, e * 0.01));
1394 }
1395 }
1396}
1397\end{lstlisting}
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402%=========================================================================================
1403
1404\section{Debugging}\label{sec:debugging}
1405This section explains how to debug your party using Eclipse. It is assumed you set up your party already as in Chapter \ref{sec:createagent}.
1406
1407You can place a breakpoint in your party (or any other place in \Genius) and run \Genius using the standard Eclipse methods (e.g. open a java file with Eclipse and click in the left border to add a breakpoint at that point).
1408
1409To debug your party as it runs in Genius, right click on your project root in the Navigator (or Project explorer, whichever you use) and select Debug As.../Java Application. Then select \verb|Application - genius| and click ok.
1410
1411
1412\subsection{Source code and javadocs}
1413The genius core source codes and javadocs are included in the genius.jar file. But if you like you can browse and download all sources at \url{https://tracinsy.ewi.tudelft.nl/pubtrac/Genius}.
1414
1415\FloatBarrier
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422\section{Conclusion}
1423This concludes the manual of \Genius. If you experience problems or have suggestions on how to improve \Genius, please send them to \url{negotiation@ii.tudelft.nl}.
1424
1425\Genius\ is actively used in academic research. If you want to cite \Genius\ in your paper, please refer to \cite{Genius}.
1426
1427%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
1428
1429\newpage
1430\section{Appendix}
1431This appendix describes how to set up Eclipse to create and debug your own party.
1432
1433\label{sec:appendix}
1434
1435\subsection{Connect Genius to Eclipse}
1436\label{sec:appendix-run-genius}
1437We expect that you installed Eclipse (Neon or higher) and Java version 8 on your computer.
1438\begin{enumerate}
1439
1440\item Open the Eclipse Navigator with the menu Window/Show View/Navigator. You can close the Package Explorer.
1441
1442\item Right click in the Navigator area and select New/Java Project. Create a new Java project. We name it \texttt{Group3assignment} but you can use any convenient name. Make sure you select "JavaSE-1.8" or equivalent to ensure your code will be java 8 compatible (Figure \ref{fig:run-genius-1}). Click Finish.
1443
1444\begin{figure}[h!]
1445 \centering
1446 \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{media/dialogNewJavaProject.png}
1447 \caption{Create a new java project with the proper name and settings.}
1448 \label{fig:run-genius-1}
1449\end{figure}
1450
1451\item Drag the genius.jar file (from your unzipped download) into the project in the Eclipse Navigator area. Select "Copy files" and press OK.
1452
1453\FloatBarrier
1454
1455\item{Connect \texttt{genius} Jar:
1456 \begin{enumerate}
1457 \item Right click on the \texttt{Group3assignment} icon and select "Properties".
1458 \item Select the Java Build Path.
1459 \item Select the Libraries Tab.
1460 \item Select "Add JARs", in the JAR Selection window (Figure \ref{fig:run-genius-3}).
1461 \item Open the \texttt{Group3assignment} folder and scroll down to select \texttt{genius.jar}.
1462 \item click a few times ok to close all dialog boxes.
1463 \end{enumerate}
1464 }
1465
1466\begin{figure}[h!]
1467 \centering
1468 \includegraphics[width=0.6\textwidth]{media/selectjar.png}
1469 \caption{Attach the negosimulator jar to the project.}
1470 \label{fig:run-genius-3}
1471\end{figure}
1472
1473
1474
1475\item Now you can run G\textsc{enius} as a Java application, by launching it as a \texttt{Application} (Figure \ref{fig:startgenius}). To do this, right click on the project, select \texttt{Run As}, select \texttt{Java Application} and then in the browser select \texttt{Application - genius}.
1476
1477\begin{figure}[h!]
1478 \centering
1479 \includegraphics[width=0.6\textwidth]{media/startup.png}
1480 \caption{Starting Genius in Eclipse.}
1481 \label{fig:startgenius}
1482\end{figure}
1483\end{enumerate}
1484
1485\FloatBarrier
1486
1487\subsection{Insert example party}
1488To compile an example party, just drag an example folder, eg storageexample, from your unzipped genius download entirely into the src folder in Eclipse. Select "Copy files and folders" and click ok.
1489
1490\subsection{Debugging}
1491Once you have Genius running in Eclipse, you can simply place a breakpoint in your party and run Genius from Eclipse in debug mode.
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496\bibliographystyle{plain}
1497\bibliography{genius}
1498
1499\end{document}
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