In multi-agent systems, agents are inclined to form coalitions to improve individual performance and perform tasks more efficiently. However, the most existing researches assume that the desired outcome is a coalition structure that consists of disjoint coalitions where every agent that has joined a coalition is no longer available to join other coalitions, which leads to waste of resources. In...

The aggregation of generic items into coalitions leads to the creation of sets of homogenous entities. In this paper we accomplish this for an input set of arguments, and the result is a partition according to distinct lines of thought, i.e., groups of “coherent” ideas. We extend Dung’s Argumentation Framework (AF) in order to deal with coalitions of arguments. The initial set of arguments is p...

During the last decade argumentation has evolved as a successful approach to formalize commonsense reasoning and decision making in multiagent systems. In particular, recent research has shown that argumentation can be used to provide a suitable framework for reasoning about coalition formation: which coalitions can be formed using different argumentation semantics. At the same time Alternating...

According to Coleman’s index of collective power, a decision rule that generates a larger number of winning coalitions imparts the collectivity a higher a-priori power to act. By the virtue of the monotonicity conditions, a decision rule is totally characterized by the set of minimal winning coalitions. In this paper we investigate the structure of the families of minimal winning coalitions cor...

The theory of cooperative games with vague cooperation is based on modelling fuzzy coalitions as fuzzy subsets of the set of all players who participate in the coalitions with some part of their “power”. Here, we suggest an alternative approach assuming that coalitions are formed by relatively compact groups of individual players each of which represents a specific common interest. Each individ...

Frameworks for arguing about coalitions are based on non-monotonic logic and are therefore formal and abstract, whereas social theories about agent coalitions typically are based on conceptual modeling languages and therefore semi-formal and detailed. In this paper we bridge the gap between these two research areas such that social viewpoints can be used to argue about coalitions. We formally d...

The cooperative games with fuzzy coalitions in which some players act in a coalition only with a fraction of their total “power” (endeavor, investments, material, etc.) or in which they can distribute their “power” in more coalitions, are connected with some formal or interpretational problems. Some of these problems can be avoided if we interpret each fuzzy coalition as a fuzzy class of crisp ...

In a simple game, coalitions belonging to a given class are “absolutely powerful” while others have no power. We attempt to make this distinction operational. Toward this end, we propose two axioms on social choice correspondences, Strong Non-Discrimination and Exclusion. Strong NonDiscrimination describes circumstances under which certain coalitions, the losing coalitions, have no influence ov...

Coalition formation is an important issue in multi-agent systems. Recent work in the area has focused on reducing the complexity of forming coalitions, i.e., each agent deliberately searches for potential coalition members before negotiating with them. We propose a framework for coalition formation of agents in a dynamic supply chain environment. The framework is composed of a negotiation proto...

Coalitions between animals are found in a variety of taxa, but are most common among primates. Here, we present data on the relative abundance of male–male coalitions within a group of free-ranging rhesus macaques, a species in which male coalitions are reportedly rare or absent. We then report a series of revolutionary coalitions among subordinates against higher ranked individuals that transf...