Università degli Studi dell'Aquila
Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Scienze dell'Informazione e Matematica
Via Vetoio, Località Coppito, 67010 L'AQUILA


COURSE PROGRAM
Non-cooperative Networks
A.Y. 2018/19 Prof. Guido Proietti

 


PART I: Equilibria in networks

September 19, 2018: Introduction to non-cooperative networks. Basics of game theory. Equilibria. Dominant strategy equilibrium: the prisoners’ dilemma.

Slides: Introductory elements.

September 20, 2018: Nash equilibrium (NE): the battle of sexes. Games without equilibria: Head or Tail game. The Nash’s Theorem. Computational aspects of Nash equilibria: mixed and pure strategies. Existence of NE in pure and mixed strategies.

Slides: Nash equilibria.

September 26, 2018: The selfish routing problem. The price of anarchy (PoA). Pigou’s example and Braess’ paradox. Existence of a Nash flow. PoA for the selfish routing: linear and non-linear latencies.

Slides: Selfish routing.

September 27, 2018: Global connection games. Existence of a NE: the potential method. Lower and upper bounds for the PoA. The price of stability (PoS). Lower and upper bounds for the PoS.

Slides: Global connection games.

October 3, 2018: Network creation games. Hardness of finding a best response.

October 4, 2018: Network creation games: Stable graphs: cliques and stars. Upper bound to the PoS. Upper bound to the PoA.

Slides: Network creation games.

 

PART II: Algorithmic mechanism design (AMD)

Lecture notes: Algorithmic Mechanism Design (print from page 2 to page 14).

October 10, 2018: The implementation problem. Second-price auction. Mechanism design. Computational aspects of mechanisms. Strategy-proof mechanisms. Utilitarian problems. VCG mechanisms.

October 11, 2018: VCG mechanisms. Clarke payments. Algorithmic Mechanism Design for graph optimization problems.

Slides: Algorithmic mechanism design.

October 17, 2018: VCG-mechanism for the private-edge Shortest-Path problem. Trivial O(mn) time implementation. Efficient O(m + n log n) time implementation based on the Malik, Mittal, and Gupta algorithm.

Slides: VCG-mechanism for the private-edge SP problem.

October 18, 2018: VCG-mechanism for the private-edge Minimum Spanning Tree problem. Trivial O(mn α(m,n)) time implementation. Efficient O(m α(m,n)) time implementation based on the transmuter.

Slides: VCG-mechanism for the private-edge MST problem.

October 24, 2018: Non-utilitarian, one-parameter problems. One-parameter mechanisms. Truthfulness of one-parameter mechanisms.

October 25, 2018: One-parameter mechanism for the private-edge Shortest-Path Tree problem. Trivial O(mn+n2 log n) time implementation. Efficient O(m + n log n) time implementation based on the transmuter. Summary and question time.

Slides: VCG-mechanism for the private-edges SPT problem.

 

          November 7, 2018, at 9.30, Room A1.2: Mid-term exam.