Competence-Based Coalition Choice, a Non-additive Approach

This contribution considers the choice of a coalition on the basis of its competence, with a constraint on the cost of the coalition itself. First of all, we consider a set C of competencies and assume that each expert is characterized by one or more of them. We define a suitable set function in order to evaluate the competence of each coalition. This set function turns out to be a non-additive measure, see [3, 5]. As a first proposal, competencies will be represented by Boolean quantities, meaning that an expert can only have or not have a certain competence. The extension to a degree of competence between zero and one is straightforward. Moreover, each coalition is associated with a cost that depends on its size and the cost of each expert. In this form, the optimization problem is that of maximizing the coalition competence by respecting a cost constraint. We describe some examples in order to clarify our contribution. We also propose a multi-objective approach where one will try to maximize competence and minimize cost. We compute the Pareto front and compare the results of the two approaches.