Promoting cooperation in service-oriented MAS through social plasticity and incentives

• Published in: The Journal of systems and software Vol. 86; no. 2; pp. 520 - 537
• Main Authors: del Val, E., Rebollo, M., Botti, V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Elsevier Inc 01.02.2013; Elsevier Sequoia S.A
• Subjects: Agents (artificial intelligence); Alliances; Complex networks; Computer programs; Cooperation; Decentralization; Decentralized; Expert systems; Incentives; Intelligent agents; Plasticity; Queries; Service discovery; Service oriented architecture; Studies; Service discovery; Incentives; Cooperation; Complex networks
• ISSN: 0164-1212; 1873-1228
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2012.09.031

► We propose a model to promote cooperation in decentralized service discovery scenarios where agent is situated in a network based on social preferences. ► The model integrates structural changes and the use of incentives to promote and maintain cooperation even in scenarios where there is a large number of non-cooperative agents. ► The model does not rely on third parties to take decisions. Each agent relies on local information generated during the service discovery process to take decisions about its neighbors and its behavior. In distributed environments where entities only have a partial view of the system, cooperation plays a key issue. In the case of decentralized service discovery in open service-oriented multi-agent systems, agents only know about the services they provide and their direct neighbors. Therefore, they need the cooperation of their neighbors in order to locate the required services. However, cooperation is not always present in open and distributed systems. Non-cooperative agents pursuing their own goals could refuse to forward queries from other agents to avoid the cost of this action; therefore, the efficiency of the decentralized service discovery could be seriously damaged. In this paper, we propose the combination of local structural changes and incentives in order to promote cooperation in the service discovery process. The results show that, even in scenarios where the predominant behavior is not collaborative the cooperation emerges.