Re: [ebxml-cppa-negot] CPA negotiation, contact with negotiation research community plus some thoughts.

[Martin Sachs <msachs@cyclonecommerce.com>]

Hi Sacha,

As far as the negotiation research community goes, my main contacts have 
been with the DSTC group in Australia, in particular Zoran Milosevic.  I 
remember you telling me that you were aware of that team and know of Zoran.

I agree with your comments about where work is needed and in particular 
about having to carefully consider the NDD.

Regards,
Marty


At 10:58 AM 5/24/2004, Sacha Schlegel wrote:
>Hi CPA negotiation team
>
>When I started with the CPA negotiation research project I was looking
>at a negotiation suport system (at www.interneg.org) from the interneg
>project.
>
>Back then I exchanged 1 or 2 emails with:
>
> > Dr. Gregory E. Kersten
> > Professor of Decision and Information Systems, DSMIS
> > Director of Information Systems and Technologies
> > J. Molson School of Business, Concordia University
> > 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West
> > Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8
> > http://commerce.concordia.ca/gkersten
> > http://interneg.org/~gregory
>
>Today, after almost 2 years, I sent another email to Dr. Gregory E.
>Kersten telling him about my research project and the CPA negotiation
>specification. I added a link to screenshots of my work. To me, my
>prototype implementation looks a little bit like a negotiation support
>system. It guides the negotiation actor (currently a human user) through
>the negotiation and makes sure, the negotiation actor follows the
>negotiation protocol (bpss).
>
>In New Orleans, I told Kartha, that we should get some closer contact
>with the negotiation research community. Marty might also have some good
>contacts with the (negotiation) research community. So I started off
>with an email to Dr. Gregory E. Kersten.
>
>Currently, I am having problems to make the link between an ebXML BSI
>and a backend application. In the CPA negotiation process, the BSI
>executes the BPSS and uses a Message Service Interface to exchange the
>negotiation messages and the backend application will do the negotiation
>part.
>
>In my research project I provided a user interface, so the negotiation
>actor could do the negotiation, eg. select how to react to an offer (or
>counter offer) and to set values for a negotiable information item.
>
>Now, the user interface, looks like the backend application. So
>potentially, the automated negotiation of a CPA will be done completely
>in a backend application. If software programs (or software agents) will
>be the negotiation actors, I think this will be the backend application.
>
>If the Automated Negotiation of CPA specification does not deal with the
>actual negotiation, then I think the negotiation protocol (bpss), the
>negotiation messages, and some negotiation rules, are already pretty
>good. The problem I think is the high number of possiblites of what can
>be negotiated, there are so many possiblities, that its difficult to
>imagine.
>
>So, if we want to continue the negotiation path, I think we need to talk
>about the NDD more, specially about those types of the negotiable
>information items. In my research I did not realy use an NDD but sort of
>a restricted NDD, where users only could negotiate over values of
>elements and attributes of the CPA template, not about ranges or
>cardinality problems, or values with piecewise functions.
>
>Also, I wonder how much negoitation information is necessary in an NDD.
>Beacuse, in the end, the negotiation will be run in a negotiation
>application (or software agent). So for example, a piecewise function
>might expose already too much information. A simple reference to the
>negotiable element or attribute might be sufficient. The only reason for
>more information in the NDD was (as far as I remember), to potentially
>converge to a solution faster. On the other hand, the CPA composition
>process can use some more information, again on the cost of revealing
>those information.
>
>Please let me know what you think.
>
>Sacha
>--
>------------------------------------------------
>Sacha                                   Schlegel
>------------------------------------------------
>public key:            www.schlegel.li/sacha.gpg
>------------------------------------------------
>
>
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*************************************
Martin Sachs
standards architect
Cyclone Commerce
msachs@cyclonecommerce.com