Chapter 1 Multi-agent Cooperation and Stability 1.1 Semi-competitive Multi-agent Systems 1.1.1 Characteristics of Multi-agent Systems 1.1.2 Two Basic Solution Concepts of Coalition Formations 1.2 Coalition Formation and Game Theory 1.2.1 Transferable Utility Games 1.2.2 Non-transferable Utility Games 1.3 Problem with the Common Knowledge Assumption References Chapter 2 Non-transferable Utility Games and Coalition Formation Mechanisms 2.1 Non-transferable Utility Cooperative Games 2.2 Transferable Utility Cooperative Games 2.3 Coalition Formation Mechanisms 2.4 Belief and Uncertainties References Chapter 3 Two Classes of Stability -- Strong Core and Weak Core 3.1 Coalition Formation and Stability 3.2 An Example 3.3 NTU Games with Internal Uncertainty 3.4 Opinions and Preferences of Agents 3.5 The Strong Core and the Weak Core 3.6 Effect of Refinedness of Agent Opinions 3.7 Application Areas 3.8 Summary References Chapter 4 The b-Core: Belief-based Coalition Stability 4.1 Games Without Common Knowledge 4.2 Belief-based Coalitional Games 4.3 NTU Games with Private Beliefs 4.4 The Core, the b-Core and Belief Accuracy 4.5 Discussion 4.6 On Dynamic Beliefs 4.7 Summary References Chapter 5 Example Application of the b-Core: Buyer Coalition Problem with Beliefs 5.1 Buyer Coalition Problems 5.1.1 Are the Utility Really Transferable? 5.1.2 How About Stability? 5.1.3 Private Information in Buyer Coalition 5.1.4 Existing Approaches 5.1.5 A New Approach 5.2 Background of Buyer Coalition Problem 5.2.1 Unit Price Schedule and Agent Preference 5.2.2 Agent Beliefs 5.2.3 NTU Buyer Coalition Games 5.2.4 Properties of the b-Core in NTU-Buyer Games 5.2.5 On Mechanism Design 5.3 A Distributed Mechanism 5.3.1 Distributed Non-transferable Utility Coalition Formation Mechanism 5.3.2 An Example of the Mechanism 5.4 Experiment 5.4.1 Performance of the Mechanism 5.4.2 Evidence of Incentive Compatibility 5.5 Summary References Chapter 6 The Complete Picture: sb-Core and wb-Core 6.1 Uncertain Opinion and Private Beliefs 6.2 An Illustrating Example 6.3 NTU-BU Games 6.3.1 Preferences and Beliefs in NTU-BU Games 6.3.2 NTU-BU Games Stability 6.4 Properties 6.4.1 Relationships of the Four Criteria 6.4.2 Effect of Refinedness 6.4.3 Effect of Accuracy 6.5 Summary References Chapter 7 Conclusion 7.1 New Solution Concepts for Belief-based NTU Games 7.2 The Future References Book References Index
