Title: Design of a shared ontology used for translating negotiation primitives

Authors: Maricela Bravo, Joaquin Perez, Jose Velazquez, Víctor Sosa, Azucena Montes, Maximo Lopez

Addresses: National Center of Research and Technological Development, Cuernavaca 62490, Mexico. ' National Center of Research and Technological Development, Cuernavaca 62490, Mexico. ' National Center of Research and Technological Development, Cuernavaca 62490, Mexico. ' National Center of Research and Technological Development, Cuernavaca 62490, Mexico. ' National Center of Research and Technological Development, Cuernavaca 62490, Mexico. ' National Center of Research and Technological Development, Cuernavaca 62490, Mexico

Abstract: In this paper, we present the design of a shared ontology, with the objective of translating a variety of negotiation primitives. Our approach focuses on facilitating the communication between agents during the negotiation process execution. Traditional negotiation systems impose several restrictions on the type and format of negotiation primitives that can be exchanged between agents. In contrast, we propose the incorporation of an ontology-based solution to overcome heterogeneity and provide communication facilities for participation in negotiations based on open environments such as the internet. To evaluate our ontology, we implemented a web-based negotiation system, and incorporated a translation module that uses the ontology as a vocabulary of negotiation primitives. The experimental results show that the incorporation of the ontology improves the continuity of the execution of negotiation processes, resulting in more agreements.

Keywords: ontology design; electronic negotiation; multi-agent systems; translation systems; agent-based systems; negotiation primitives; shared ontology; communication; web-based negotiation; web services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWGS.2006.011356

International Journal of Web and Grid Services, 2006 Vol.2 No.3, pp.237 - 259

Published online: 22 Nov 2006 *

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