A Non-manipulable Meeting Scheduling System

In this paper we present three scheduling mechanisms that are manipulation-proof for closed systems. The amount of information that each user must encode in the mechanism increases with the complexity of the mechanism. On the other hand, the more complex the mechanism is, the more it maintains the privacy of the users. The first mechanism is a centralized, calendar-oriented one. It is the least computationally complex of the three, but does not maintain user privacy. The second is a distributed meeting-oriented mechanism that maintains user privacy, but at the cost of greater computational complexity. The third mechanism, while being the most complex, maintains user privacy (for the most part) and allows users to have the greatest influence on the resulting schedule.

[1]  Eithan Ephrati,et al.  Reaching Agreement through Partial Revelation of Preferences , 1992, ECAI.

[2]  E. Maskin,et al.  Advances in Economic Theory: The theory of incentives: an overview , 1982 .

[3]  I. J. Good.  Justice in voting by demand revelation , 1977 .

[4]  L. Hurwicz.  On informationally decentralized systems , 1977 .

[5]  Jeffrey S. Rosenschein,et al.  A Domain Theory for Task Oriented Negotiation , 1993, IJCAI.

[6]  Jerry R. Green,et al.  Partial Equilibrium Approach to the Free-Rider Problem , 1976 .

[7]  Adi Shamir,et al.  A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems , 1978, CACM.

[8]  Gordon Tullock,et al.  A New and Superior Process for Making Social Choices , 1976, Journal of Political Economy.

[9]  James H. Patterson,et al.  A Comparison of Exact Approaches for Solving the Multiple Constrained Resource, Project Scheduling Problem , 1984 .

[10]  Jon Doyle,et al.  Impediments to Universal Preference-Based Default Theories , 1989, KR.

[11]  G. Zlotkin,et al.  Negotiation with incomplete information about worth: strict versus tolerant mechanisms , 1993, [1993] Proceedings International Conference on Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems.

[12]  Pierre Sablayrolles,et al.  Conflict resolving negotiation for COoperative Schedule Management Agents (COSMA) , 1993 .

[13]  Krithi Ramamritham,et al.  Distributed Scheduling of Tasks with Deadlines and Resource Requirements , 1989, IEEE Trans. Computers.

[14]  J. Nash.  THE BARGAINING PROBLEM , 1950, Classics in Game Theory.

[15]  Steven Vajda,et al.  Games and Decisions. By R. Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa. Pp. xi, 509. 70s. 1957. (J Wiley & Sons) , 1959, The Mathematical Gazette.

[16]  Eithan Ephrati,et al.  Distributed consensus mechanisms for self-interested heterogeneous agents , 1993, [1993] Proceedings International Conference on Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems.

[17]  Kenneth J. Arrow,et al.  Social choice and public decision making , 1986 .

[18]  R. P. Mohanty,et al.  Multiple projects-multiple resources-constrained scheduling: some studies , 1989 .

[19]  H. Moulin.  Characterizations of the pivotal mechanism , 1986 .

[20]  P. Fishburn.  Condorcet Social Choice Functions , 1977 .

[21]  Eithan Ephrati,et al.  The Clarke Tax as a Consensus Mechanism Among Automated Agents , 1991, AAAI.

[22]  J. Nash.  Two-Person Cooperative Games , 1953 .

[23]  Eithan Ephrati,et al.  Multi-Agent Planning as Search for a Consensus that Maximizes Social Welfare , 1992, MAAMAW.

[24]  Jeffrey S. Rosenschein,et al.  Negotiation and Task Sharing Among Autonomous Agents in Cooperative Domains , 1989, IJCAI.

[25]  Gordon Tullock.  The demand-revealing process as a welfare indicator , 1977 .

[26]  Adi Shamir,et al.  A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems , 1978, CACM.

[27]  Philip D. Straffin,et al.  Topics in the theory of voting , 1980 .

[28]  Theodore Groves,et al.  Incentives in Teams , 1973 .

[29]  V. V. S. Sarma,et al.  Knowledge-Based Approaches to Scheduling Problems: A Survey , 1991, IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng..

[30]  B. Peleg.  Game Theoretic Analysis of Voting in Committees , 1984 .

[31]  John C. Harsanyi,et al.  Social choice and public decision making: Utilitarian morality in a world of very half-hearted altruists , 1986 .

[32]  F. W. Roush,et al.  Topics in the theory of voting, The UMAP expository monograph series : Philip D. Straffin, Jr. Boston, Birkhauser, 1980, US $5.00 , 1982 .

[33]  Bart Selman,et al.  An Experiment in the Design of Software Agents , 1994, AAAI.

[34]  Edmund H. Durfee,et al.  On the design of an adaptive meeting scheduler , 1994, Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Applications.