TY - GEN
T1 - Acquiring an optimal amount of information for choosing from alternatives
AU - Azoulay-Schwartz, Rina
AU - Kraus, Sarit
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - An agent operating in the real world must often choose from among alternatives in incomplete information environments, and frequently it can obtain additional information about them. Obtaining information can result in a better decision, but the agent may incur expenses for obtaining each unit of information. The problem of finding an optimal strategy for obtaining information appears in many domains. For example, in ecommerce when choosing a seller, and in solving programming problems when choosing heuristics. We focus on cases where the agent has to decide in advance on how much information to obtain about each alternative. In addition, each unit of information about an alternative gives the agent only partial information about the alternative, and the range of each information unit is continues. We first formalize the problem of deciding how many information units to obtain about each alternative, and we specify the expected utility function of the agent, given a combination of information units. This function should be maximized by choosing the optimal number of information units. We proceed by suggesting methods for finding the optimal allocation of information units between the different alternatives.
AB - An agent operating in the real world must often choose from among alternatives in incomplete information environments, and frequently it can obtain additional information about them. Obtaining information can result in a better decision, but the agent may incur expenses for obtaining each unit of information. The problem of finding an optimal strategy for obtaining information appears in many domains. For example, in ecommerce when choosing a seller, and in solving programming problems when choosing heuristics. We focus on cases where the agent has to decide in advance on how much information to obtain about each alternative. In addition, each unit of information about an alternative gives the agent only partial information about the alternative, and the range of each information unit is continues. We first formalize the problem of deciding how many information units to obtain about each alternative, and we specify the expected utility function of the agent, given a combination of information units. This function should be maximized by choosing the optimal number of information units. We proceed by suggesting methods for finding the optimal allocation of information units between the different alternatives.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84877740076&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/3-540-45741-0_12
DO - 10.1007/3-540-45741-0_12
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontobookanthology.conference???
AN - SCOPUS:84877740076
SN - 3540441735
SN - 9783540441731
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 123
EP - 137
BT - Cooperative Information Agents VI - 6th International Workshop, CIA 2002, Proceedings
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - 6th International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents, CIA 2002
Y2 - 18 September 2002 through 20 September 2002
ER -