Dynamic selection of negotiation protocol in multi-agent systems for disaster management

Collaboration between human experts during distributed problem solving for disaster management requires advanced selfconfiguration mechanisms for selection of potentially good service providers. Self-configuration is based on a framework for development of cooperative multi-issue one-to-many service negotiations. The framework allows the definition of: negotiation protocols, negotiation subjects composed of multiple negotiation issues, properties of negotiation issues, and utility functions of participant stakeholders. We show how this framework can be applied for service contracting in a disaster management information system. We provide initial experimental results concerning the effect of dynamic selection of negotiation protocol onto the quality of the negotiation outcome and the communication complexity of negotiation interactions.