2,355 research outputs found
Hedonic Games with Graph-restricted Communication
We study hedonic coalition formation games in which cooperation among the
players is restricted by a graph structure: a subset of players can form a
coalition if and only if they are connected in the given graph. We investigate
the complexity of finding stable outcomes in such games, for several notions of
stability. In particular, we provide an efficient algorithm that finds an
individually stable partition for an arbitrary hedonic game on an acyclic
graph. We also introduce a new stability concept -in-neighbor stability- which
is tailored for our setting. We show that the problem of finding an in-neighbor
stable outcome admits a polynomial-time algorithm if the underlying graph is a
path, but is NP-hard for arbitrary trees even for additively separable hedonic
games; for symmetric additively separable games we obtain a PLS-hardness
result
Forming Probably Stable Communities with Limited Interactions
A community needs to be partitioned into disjoint groups; each community
member has an underlying preference over the groups that they would want to be
a member of. We are interested in finding a stable community structure: one
where no subset of members wants to deviate from the current structure. We
model this setting as a hedonic game, where players are connected by an
underlying interaction network, and can only consider joining groups that are
connected subgraphs of the underlying graph. We analyze the relation between
network structure, and one's capability to infer statistically stable (also
known as PAC stable) player partitions from data. We show that when the
interaction network is a forest, one can efficiently infer PAC stable coalition
structures. Furthermore, when the underlying interaction graph is not a forest,
efficient PAC stabilizability is no longer achievable. Thus, our results
completely characterize when one can leverage the underlying graph structure in
order to compute PAC stable outcomes for hedonic games. Finally, given an
unknown underlying interaction network, we show that it is NP-hard to decide
whether there exists a forest consistent with data samples from the network.Comment: 11 pages, full version of accepted AAAI-19 pape
On Parameterized Complexity of Group Activity Selection Problems on Social Networks
In Group Activity Selection Problem (GASP), players form coalitions to
participate in activities and have preferences over pairs of the form
(activity, group size). Recently, Igarashi et al. have initiated the study of
group activity selection problems on social networks (gGASP): a group of
players can engage in the same activity if the members of the group form a
connected subset of the underlying communication structure. Igarashi et al.
have primarily focused on Nash stable outcomes, and showed that many associated
algorithmic questions are computationally hard even for very simple networks.
In this paper we study the parameterized complexity of gGASP with respect to
the number of activities as well as with respect to the number of players, for
several solution concepts such as Nash stability, individual stability and core
stability. The first parameter we consider in the number of activities. For
this parameter, we propose an FPT algorithm for Nash stability for the case
where the social network is acyclic and obtain a W[1]-hardness result for
cliques (i.e., for classic GASP); similar results hold for individual
stability. In contrast, finding a core stable outcome is hard even if the
number of activities is bounded by a small constant, both for classic GASP and
when the social network is a star. Another parameter we study is the number of
players. While all solution concepts we consider become polynomial-time
computable when this parameter is bounded by a constant, we prove W[1]-hardness
results for cliques (i.e., for classic GASP).Comment: 9 pages, long version of accepted AAMAS-17 pape
On a Simple Hedonic Game with Graph-Restricted Communication
International audienceWe study a hedonic game for which the feasible coalitions are prescribed by a graph representing the agents' social relations. A group of agents can form a feasible coalition if and only if their corresponding vertices can be spanned with a star. This requirement guarantees that agents are connected, close to each other, and one central agent can coordinate the actions of the group. In our game everyone strives to join the largest feasible coalition. We study the existence and computational complexity of both Nash stable and core stable partitions. Then, we provide tight or asymptotically tight bounds on their quality, with respect to both the price of anarchy and stability, under two natural social functions, namely, the number of agents who are not in a singleton coalition, and the number of coalitions. We also derive refined bounds for games in which the social graph is restricted to be claw-free. Finally, we investigate the complexity of computing socially optimal partitions as well as extreme Nash stable ones
Group formation: The interaction of increasing returns and preferences' diversity
The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 focuses on competition in a simple economy under increasing returns to scale and heterogeneous consumers. The concept of sustainable oligopoly is discussed and analyzed. Section 3 studies in a more general and abstract set up competition among groups in the absence of spillovers. Whereas Section 3 develops some insights of Section 2, it can be read first. Finally Section 4 analyzes public decisions in a simple public good economy through the previous approach, and addresses the interaction between free mobility and free entry under negative externalities.group formation
Approximate Equilibrium and Incentivizing Social Coordination
We study techniques to incentivize self-interested agents to form socially
desirable solutions in scenarios where they benefit from mutual coordination.
Towards this end, we consider coordination games where agents have different
intrinsic preferences but they stand to gain if others choose the same strategy
as them. For non-trivial versions of our game, stable solutions like Nash
Equilibrium may not exist, or may be socially inefficient even when they do
exist. This motivates us to focus on designing efficient algorithms to compute
(almost) stable solutions like Approximate Equilibrium that can be realized if
agents are provided some additional incentives. Our results apply in many
settings like adoption of new products, project selection, and group formation,
where a central authority can direct agents towards a strategy but agents may
defect if they have better alternatives. We show that for any given instance,
we can either compute a high quality approximate equilibrium or a near-optimal
solution that can be stabilized by providing small payments to some players. We
then generalize our model to encompass situations where player relationships
may exhibit complementarities and present an algorithm to compute an
Approximate Equilibrium whose stability factor is linear in the degree of
complementarity. Our results imply that a little influence is necessary in
order to ensure that selfish players coordinate and form socially efficient
solutions.Comment: A preliminary version of this work will appear in AAAI-14:
Twenty-Eighth Conference on Artificial Intelligenc
Hedonic Games and Treewidth Revisited
We revisit the complexity of the well-studied notion of Additively Separable Hedonic Games (ASHGs). Such games model a basic clustering or coalition formation scenario in which selfish agents are represented by the vertices of an edge-weighted digraph G = (V,E), and the weight of an arc uv denotes the utility u gains by being in the same coalition as v. We focus on (arguably) the most basic stability question about such a game: given a graph, does a Nash stable solution exist and can we find it efficiently?
We study the (parameterized) complexity of ASHG stability when the underlying graph has treewidth t and maximum degree ?. The current best FPT algorithm for this case was claimed by Peters [AAAI 2016], with time complexity roughly 2^{O(??t)}. We present an algorithm with parameter dependence (? t)^{O(? t)}, significantly improving upon the parameter dependence on ? given by Peters, albeit with a slightly worse dependence on t. Our main result is that this slight performance deterioration with respect to t is actually completely justified: we observe that the previously claimed algorithm is incorrect, and that in fact no algorithm can achieve dependence t^{o(t)} for bounded-degree graphs, unless the ETH fails. This, together with corresponding bounds we provide on the dependence on ? and the joint parameter establishes that our algorithm is essentially optimal for both parameters, under the ETH.
We then revisit the parameterization by treewidth alone and resolve a question also posed by Peters by showing that Nash Stability remains strongly NP-hard on stars under additive preferences. Nevertheless, we also discover an island of mild tractability: we show that Connected Nash Stability is solvable in pseudo-polynomial time for constant t, though with an XP dependence on t which, as we establish, cannot be avoided
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