Agent-based bidding in electronic auctions

该项目将研究使用代理的投标策略，这些代理可以在满足用户偏好和预算限制的同时从多个拍卖中购买商品和服务。特别令人感兴趣的是捆绑竞价策略的研究和开发，这将允许代理商为用户从仅出售单个物品的在线拍卖中为用户组合首选的捆绑商品。自动捆绑竞价程序与充分理解的性能预期将使用户能够以更少的努力和更大的成功形成捆绑。捆绑竞价问题提出了具有挑战性和趣味性的研究问题，涉及异步事件、未来拍卖的不确定性以及用户及其代理人的估值和竞价策略的广泛变化。我们将识别和研究捆绑投标问题的几个变种。该项目还将在代表个人、组织和供应链的自私自利的自治代理人之间进行更广泛的协调的背景下，调查拍卖与其他形式的信息处理的使用情况。

This project will investigate bidding strategies using agents which can buy goods and services from multiple auctions while satisfying user preferences and budgetary constraints. Of particular interest is the study and development of bundle bidding strategies, which will allow agents to put together preferred bundles of goods for users from online auctions selling only individual items. Automated bundle bidding procedures with well-understood performance expectations will allow users to form bundles with significantly less effort and much more success. The bundle bidding problem presents challenging and interesting research problems that involve asynchronous events, uncertainty about future auctions, and the widely varying valuations and bidding strategies of users and their proxies. Several variations of the bundle-bidding problem will be identified and studied. The project will also investigate the usage of auctions in conjunction with other forms of information processing within a broader context of coordination between self-interested autonomous agents representing individuals, organizations and supply chains.