Coalition structure generation in cooperative games with compact representations

This paper presents a new way of formalizing the coalition structure generation problem (CSG) so that we can apply constraint optimization techniques to it. Forming effective coalitions is a major research challenge in AI and multi-agent systems. CSG involves partitioning a set of agents into coalitions to maximize social surplus. Traditionally, the input of the CSG problem is a black-box function called a characteristic function, which takes a coalition as input and returns the value of the coalition. As a result, applying constraint optimization techniques to this problem has been infeasible. However, characteristic functions that appear in practice often can be represented concisely by a set of rules, rather than treating the function as a black box. Then we can solve the CSG problem more efficiently by directly applying constraint optimization techniques to this compact representation. We present new formalizations of the CSG problem by utilizing recently developed compact representation schemes for characteristic functions. We first characterize the complexity of CSG under these representation schemes. In this context, the complexity is driven more by the number of rules than by the number of agents. As an initial step toward developing efficient constraint optimization algorithms for solving the CSG problem, we also develop mixed integer programming formulations and show that an off-the-shelf optimization package can perform reasonably well

Efficient computation of the Shapley value for game-theoretic network centrality

The Shapley value—probably the most important normative payoff division scheme in coalitional games—has recently been advocated as a useful measure of centrality in networks. However, although this approach has a variety of real-world applications (including social and organisational networks, biological networks and communication networks), its computational properties have not been widely studied. To date, the only practicable approach to compute Shapley value-based centrality has been via Monte Carlo simulations which are computationally expensive and not guaranteed to give an exact answer. Against this background, this paper presents the first study of the computational aspects of the Shapley value for network centralities. Specifically, we develop exact analytical formulae for Shapley value-based centrality in both weighted and unweighted networks and develop efficient (polynomial time) and exact algorithms based on them. We empirically evaluate these algorithms on two real-life examples (an infrastructure network representing the topology of the Western States Power Grid and a collaboration network from the field of astrophysics) and demonstrate that they deliver significant speedups over the Monte Carlo approach. Fo

Algorithms for Graph-Constrained Coalition Formation in the Real World

Coalition formation typically involves the coming together of multiple, heterogeneous, agents to achieve both their individual and collective goals. In this paper, we focus on a special case of coalition formation known as Graph-Constrained Coalition Formation (GCCF) whereby a network connecting the agents constrains the formation of coalitions. We focus on this type of problem given that in many real-world applications, agents may be connected by a communication network or only trust certain peers in their social network. We propose a novel representation of this problem based on the concept of edge contraction, which allows us to model the search space induced by the GCCF problem as a rooted tree. Then, we propose an anytime solution algorithm (CFSS), which is particularly efficient when applied to a general class of characteristic functions called $m+a$ functions. Moreover, we show how CFSS can be efficiently parallelised to solve GCCF using a non-redundant partition of the search space. We benchmark CFSS on both synthetic and realistic scenarios, using a real-world dataset consisting of the energy consumption of a large number of households in the UK. Our results show that, in the best case, the serial version of CFSS is 4 orders of magnitude faster than the state of the art, while the parallel version is 9.44 times faster than the serial version on a 12-core machine. Moreover, CFSS is the first approach to provide anytime approximate solutions with quality guarantees for very large systems of agents (i.e., with more than 2700 agents).Comment: Accepted for publication, cite as "in press

Coalition structure generation over graphs

We give the analysis of the computational complexity of coalition structure generation over graphs. Given an undirected graph G = (N,E) and a valuation function v : P(N) → R over the subsets of nodes, the problem is to find a partition of N into connected subsets, that maximises the sum of the components values. This problem is generally NP-complete; in particular, it is hard for a defined class of valuation functions which are independent of disconnected members — that is, two nodes have no effect on each others marginal contribution to their vertex separator. Nonetheless, for all such functions we provide bounds on the complexity of coalition structure generation over general and minor free graphs. Our proof is constructive and yields algorithms for solving corresponding instances of the problem. Furthermore, we derive linear time bounds for graphs of bounded treewidth. However, as we show, the problem remains NP-complete for planar graphs, and hence, for any Kk minor free graphs where k ≥ 5. Moreover, a 3-SAT problem with m clauses can be represented by a coalition structure generation problem over a planar graph with O(m2) nodes. Importantly, our hardness result holds for a particular subclass of valuation functions, termed edge sum, where the value of each subset of nodes is simply determined by the sum of given weights of the edges in the induced subgraph

Mixed-integer programming representation for symmetrical partition function form games

In contexts involving multiple agents (players), determining how they can cooperate through the formation of coalitions and how they can share surplus benefits coming from the collaboration is crucial. This can provide decision-aid to players and analysis tools for policy makers regulating economic markets. Such settings belong to the field of cooperative game theory. A critical element in this area has been the size of the representation of these games: for each possible partition of players, the value of each coalition on it must be provided. Symmetric partition function form games (SPFGs) belong to a class of cooperative games with two important characteristics. First, they account for externalities provoked by any group of players joining forces or splitting into subsets on the remaining coalitions of players. Second, they consider that players are indistinct, meaning that only the number of players in each coalition is relevant for the SPFG. Using mixed-integer programming, we present the first representation of SPFGs that is polynomial on the number of players in the game. We also characterize the family of SPFGs that we can represent. In particular, the representation is able to encode exactly all SPFGs with five players or less. Furthermore, we provide a compact representation approximating SPFGs when there are six players or more and the SPFG cannot be represented exactly. We also introduce a flexible framework that uses stability methods inspired from the literature to identify a stable social-welfare maximizing game outcome using our representation. We showcase the value of our compact (approximated) representation and approach to determine a stable partition and payoff allocation to a competitive market from the literature.Dans tout contexte impliquant plusieurs agents (joueurs), il est impératif de déterminer comment les agents coopéreront par la formation de coalitions et comment ils partageront les bénéfices supplémentaires issus de la collaboration. Ceci peut fournir une aide à la décision aux joueurs, ou encore des outils d'analyse pour les responsables en charge de réguler les marchés économiques. De telles situations relèvent de la théorie des jeux coopérative. Un élément crucial de ce domaine est la taille de la représentation de ces jeux : pour chaque partition de joueurs possible, la valeur de chaque coalition qu'on y retrouve doit être donnée. Les jeux symétriques à fonction de partition (SPFG) appartiennent à une classe de jeux coopératifs possédant deux caractéristiques principales. Premièrement, ils sont sensibles aux externalités, provoquées par n'importe quel groupe de joueurs qui s'allient ou défont leurs alliances, qui sont ressenties par les autres coalitions de joueurs. Deuxièmement, ils considèrent que les joueurs sont indistincts, et donc que seul le nombre de joueurs dans chaque coalition est à retenir pour représenter un SPFG. Par l'utilisation d'outils de programmation mixte en nombres entiers, nous présentons la première représentation de SPFG qui est polynomiale en nombre de joueurs dans le jeu. De surcroît, nous caractérisons la famille des SPFG qu'il est possible de représenter, qui inclut notamment tous les SPFG de cinq joueurs ou moins. De plus, elle dispose d'une approximation compacte pour le cas où, dans un jeu à six joueurs ou plus, le SPFG ne peut pas être représenté de façon exacte. Également, nous introduisons un cadre flexible qui utilise des méthodes visant la stabilité inspirées par la littérature pour identifier, à l'aide de notre représentation, une issue stable qui maximise le bien-être social des joueurs. Nous démontrons la valeur de notre représentation (approximée) compacte et de notre approche pour sélectionner une partition stable et une allocation des profits dans une application de marché compétitif provenant de la littérature

Optimal Coalition Structures in Cooperative Graph Games

Representation languages for coalitional games are a key research area in algorithmic game theory. There is an inherent tradeoff between how general a language is, allowing it to capture more elaborate games, and how hard it is computationally to optimize and solve such games. One prominent such language is the simple yet expressive Weighted Graph Games (WGGs) representation [14], which maintains knowledge about synergies between agents in the form of an edge weighted graph. We consider the problem of finding the optimal coalition structure in WGGs. The agents in such games are vertices in a graph, and the value of a coalition is the sum of the weights of the edges present between coalition members. The optimal coalition structure is a partition of the agents to coalitions, that maximizes the sum of utilities obtained by the coalitions. We show that finding the optimal coalition structure is not only hard for general graphs, but is also intractable for restricted families such as planar graphs which are amenable for many other combinatorial problems. We then provide algorithms with constant factor approximations for planar, minor-free and bounded degree graphs.Comment: 16 pages. A short version of this paper is to appear at AAAI 201

Shapley Meets Shapley

This paper concerns the analysis of the Shapley value in matching games. Matching games constitute a fundamental class of cooperative games which help understand and model auctions and assignments. In a matching game, the value of a coalition of vertices is the weight of the maximum size matching in the subgraph induced by the coalition. The Shapley value is one of the most important solution concepts in cooperative game theory. After establishing some general insights, we show that the Shapley value of matching games can be computed in polynomial time for some special cases: graphs with maximum degree two, and graphs that have a small modular decomposition into cliques or cocliques (complete k-partite graphs are a notable special case of this). The latter result extends to various other well-known classes of graph-based cooperative games. We continue by showing that computing the Shapley value of unweighted matching games is #P-complete in general. Finally, a fully polynomial-time randomized approximation scheme (FPRAS) is presented. This FPRAS can be considered the best positive result conceivable, in view of the #P-completeness result.Comment: 17 page

The complexity of the nucleolus in compact games

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ACM via the DOI in this recordThe nucleolus is a well-known solution concept for coalitional games to fairly distribute the total available worth among the players. The nucleolus is known to be NP-hard to compute over compact coalitional games, that is, over games whose functions specifying the worth associated with each coalition are encoded in terms of polynomially computable functions over combinatorial structures. In particular, hardness results have been exhibited over minimum spanning tree games, threshold games, and flow games. However, due to its intricate definition involving reasoning over exponentially many coalitions, a nontrivial upper bound on its complexity was missing in the literature and looked for. This article faces this question and precisely characterizes the complexity of the nucleolus, by exhibiting an upper bound that holds on any class of compact games, and by showing that this bound is tight even on the (structurally simple) class of graph games. The upper bound is established by proposing a variant of the standard linear-programming based algorithm for nucleolus computation and by studying a framework for reasoning about succinctly specified linear programs, which are contributions of interest in their own. The hardness result is based on an elaborate combinatorial reduction, which is conceptually relevant for it provides a "measure" of the computational cost to be paid for guaranteeing voluntary participation to the distribution process. In fact, the pre-nucleolus is known to be efficiently computable over graph games, with this solution concept being defined as the nucleolus but without guaranteeing that each player is granted with it at least the worth she can get alone, that is, without collaborating with the other players. Finally, this article identifies relevant tractable classes of coalitional games, based on the notion of type of a player. Indeed, in most applications where many players are involved, it is often the case that such players do belong in fact to a limited number of classes, which is known in advance and may be exploited for computing the nucleolus in a fast way.Part of E. Malizia’s work was supported by the European Commission through the European Social Fund and by Calabria Regio