One of the fundamental activities in multiagent systems is the exchange of tasks among agents (Davis & Smith 1983). In particular, we are interested in contracts among selfinterested agents (Sandholm & Lesser 1995), where a contractor desires to find a contractee that will perform the task for the lowest payment, and a contractee wants to perform tasks that maximize its profit (payment received...

This paper describes preconditioned conjugate gradient methods for solving sparse symmetric and positive definite systems of linear equations. Necessary and sufficient conditions are given for when these preconditioners can be used and an analysis of their effectiveness is given. Efficient computer implementations of these methods are discussed and results on the CYBER 203 and the Finite Elemen...

In many countries, state and private owners often categorize contractors into various groups based on their capacities as well as their previous performance. These categories are then used for several purposes including contract award and prequalification. A number of different statistical algorithms can be used to categorize the contractors. No one algorithm can be used globally in all situati...

F iscal regime is one of the main differences between petroleum contracts. Fiscal regimes in oil contracts are divided to two main categories namely Concessionary and Contractual Systems. In contractual systems, the main difference between service and production sharing contracts is the way of compensation of contractor services which could be in cash or in kind. In production sharin...

in this paper, we analyze the effect of lack of capital investment on energy projects using game theory in the guise of cooperative games. we focus on the energy projects in the provincial level as case study during 2010-2011. therefore, we design a theoretical model of the lack of capital investment as a factor influencing the implement of energy projects. in the experimental section, we deter...

Sustainable development of any country to some extent depends on successful accomplishment construction projects, particularly infrastructures. Contractors have a key role in the success these projects. Hence, selection competent contractor as complicated and hard decision process has vital importance destiny project. Contractor is essence multicriteria decision-making that ought encompass so m...