I found this journal Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems and their list of publications and conference proceedings here.  They look like a very neat conference.  I took a look at their most recent proceedings and found to my delight that they have some cool applications that I’m interested in and make me think that some of my ideas for applications for the Bounty system aren’t so bad.

First, I think that my idea for using the bounty system for reducing traffic problem in an earlier post might be a good one (here and maybe here but it seems like maybe they could be developed a bit more).  Or at least that the bounty model should be applied.  I found the paper, From Goods to Traffic: First Steps Toward an Auction-Based Traffic Signal Controller, that was published this year in paamas which shows that there is some interest in using these sorts of methods.

The other idea I had a while back was to use the bounty system for parking (here)!  They have a paper, Evaluating the Social Benefit of a Negotiation–Based Parking Allocation, which looks into the problem of parking in cities and methods for doing this and how it can help both the city and the drivers.  So, again there is a body of work (they cite) that is interested in this problem.

Maybe I should put together some of my ideas for applying bounties to these problems and try and publish them there?  Also, I’m excited to find out what other problems that paamas has published.  Glad I found this and can’t wait for the semester to begin :).