Web bounty hunters chase research patients

Bounty Hunters and Multiagent Task Allocation

We propose a system for multiagent task allocation inspired by the model used by bounty hunters and bail bondsmen. A bondsman posts tasks for agents to complete, along with bounties to be collected by an agent on completion. Multiple agents, taking the role of the bounty hunters, compete to finish tasks and collect their bounties. While a task remains uncompleted, its bounty gradually rises, ma...

Throwing in the Towel: Faithless Bounty Hunters as a Task Allocation Mechanism

Bounty hunting has been shown to solve the multiagent task allocation problem robustly in noisy and dynamic scenarios with multiple other agents of unknown quality. This bounty hunting model does not require task exclusivity, but does require task commitment. We examine eliminating this second requirement, thus allowing bounty hunters to commit to tasks but abandon them later (to jump ship) for...

Mutiny over Bounty?

Bounty Services Ltd advertise commercial products on postnatal wards of hospitals throughout Britain by means of free gifts. Since the " Bounty lady" is apparently well known to nursing staff but may have gone unnoticed by paediatricians and obstetricians an investigation was conducted of the quality of the gifts and the nature of the company. With two exceptions the samples and promotional lea...

This thy bounty.

Inquiring Rock Hunters

The Inquiring Rock Hunters project is an example of Citizen Inquiry. Adult citizens designed and ran their own investigations in geology, through the online platform called nQuire, while collaborating with scientists. Analysis of the investigations shows patterns of collaboration and mentoring between novice, intermediate and expert geologists, however further work is needed to create a self-su...