20,594 research outputs found
Simple Dynamics for Plurality Consensus
We study a \emph{Plurality-Consensus} process in which each of anonymous
agents of a communication network initially supports an opinion (a color chosen
from a finite set ). Then, in every (synchronous) round, each agent can
revise his color according to the opinions currently held by a random sample of
his neighbors. It is assumed that the initial color configuration exhibits a
sufficiently large \emph{bias} towards a fixed plurality color, that is,
the number of nodes supporting the plurality color exceeds the number of nodes
supporting any other color by additional nodes. The goal is having the
process to converge to the \emph{stable} configuration in which all nodes
support the initial plurality. We consider a basic model in which the network
is a clique and the update rule (called here the \emph{3-majority dynamics}) of
the process is the following: each agent looks at the colors of three random
neighbors and then applies the majority rule (breaking ties uniformly).
We prove that the process converges in time with high probability, provided that .
We then prove that our upper bound above is tight as long as . This fact implies an exponential time-gap between the
plurality-consensus process and the \emph{median} process studied by Doerr et
al. in [ACM SPAA'11].
A natural question is whether looking at more (than three) random neighbors
can significantly speed up the process. We provide a negative answer to this
question: In particular, we show that samples of polylogarithmic size can speed
up the process by a polylogarithmic factor only.Comment: Preprint of journal versio
Fast Discrete Consensus Based on Gossip for Makespan Minimization in Networked Systems
In this paper we propose a novel algorithm to solve the discrete consensus problem, i.e., the problem of distributing evenly a set of tokens of arbitrary weight among the nodes of a networked system. Tokens are tasks to be executed by the nodes and the proposed distributed algorithm minimizes monotonically the makespan of the assigned tasks. The algorithm is based on gossip-like asynchronous local interactions between the nodes. The convergence time of the proposed algorithm is superior with respect to the state of the art of discrete and quantized consensus by at least a factor O(n) in both theoretical and empirical comparisons
Opinion modeling on social media and marketing aspects
We introduce and discuss kinetic models of opinion formation on social
networks in which the distribution function depends on both the opinion and the
connectivity of the agents. The opinion formation model is subsequently coupled
with a kinetic model describing the spreading of popularity of a product on the
web through a social network. Numerical experiments on the underlying kinetic
models show a good qualitative agreement with some measured trends of hashtags
on social media websites and illustrate how companies can take advantage of the
network structure to obtain at best the advertisement of their products
Distributed anonymous discrete function computation
We propose a model for deterministic distributed function computation by a
network of identical and anonymous nodes. In this model, each node has bounded
computation and storage capabilities that do not grow with the network size.
Furthermore, each node only knows its neighbors, not the entire graph. Our goal
is to characterize the class of functions that can be computed within this
model. In our main result, we provide a necessary condition for computability
which we show to be nearly sufficient, in the sense that every function that
satisfies this condition can at least be approximated. The problem of computing
suitably rounded averages in a distributed manner plays a central role in our
development; we provide an algorithm that solves it in time that grows
quadratically with the size of the network
An Upper Bound on the Convergence Time for Quantized Consensus of Arbitrary Static Graphs
We analyze a class of distributed quantized consensus algorithms for
arbitrary static networks. In the initial setting, each node in the network has
an integer value. Nodes exchange their current estimate of the mean value in
the network, and then update their estimation by communicating with their
neighbors in a limited capacity channel in an asynchronous clock setting.
Eventually, all nodes reach consensus with quantized precision. We analyze the
expected convergence time for the general quantized consensus algorithm
proposed by Kashyap et al \cite{Kashyap}. We use the theory of electric
networks, random walks, and couplings of Markov chains to derive an upper bound for the expected convergence time on an arbitrary graph of size
, improving on the state of art bound of for quantized consensus
algorithms. Our result is not dependent on graph topology. Example of complete
graphs is given to show how to extend the analysis to graphs of given topology.Comment: to appear in IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, January, 2015. arXiv
admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1208.078
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