45,617 research outputs found
Game Theoretic Approaches to Massive Data Processing in Wireless Networks
Wireless communication networks are becoming highly virtualized with
two-layer hierarchies, in which controllers at the upper layer with tasks to
achieve can ask a large number of agents at the lower layer to help realize
computation, storage, and transmission functions. Through offloading data
processing to the agents, the controllers can accomplish otherwise prohibitive
big data processing. Incentive mechanisms are needed for the agents to perform
the controllers' tasks in order to satisfy the corresponding objectives of
controllers and agents. In this article, a hierarchical game framework with
fast convergence and scalability is proposed to meet the demand for real-time
processing for such situations. Possible future research directions in this
emerging area are also discussed
The political economy of international regulatory convergence in public utilities
To what extent should public utilities regulation be expected to converge across countries? When it occurs, will regulatory convergence lead to positive outcomes for utility sectors? This paper attempts to provide new answers to these questions. Building on the core proposition of the New Institutional Economics (NIE) that similar regulations generate different outcomes depending on their fit with the underlying domestic institutions, we develop a simple theoretical model and explore its implications by examining the diffusion of local loop unbundling (LLU) regulations in the telecommunications sector. We find support for the ideas (1) that once institutional factors are taken into account, one should expect some convergence in public utility regulation but with still a significant degree of local experimentation, and (2) this process will lead to very different results regarding the impact of regulation.Regulatory convergence, lobbying, utilities
Competition and Cooperation Analysis for Data Sponsored Market: A Network Effects Model
The data sponsored scheme allows the content provider to cover parts of the
cellular data costs for mobile users. Thus the content service becomes
appealing to more users and potentially generates more profit gain to the
content provider. In this paper, we consider a sponsored data market with a
monopoly network service provider, a single content provider, and multiple
users. In particular, we model the interactions of three entities as a
two-stage Stackelberg game, where the service provider and content provider act
as the leaders determining the pricing and sponsoring strategies, respectively,
in the first stage, and the users act as the followers deciding on their data
demand in the second stage. We investigate the mutual interaction of the
service provider and content provider in two cases: (i) competitive case, where
the content provider and service provider optimize their strategies separately
and competitively, each aiming at maximizing the profit and revenue,
respectively; and (ii) cooperative case, where the two providers jointly
optimize their strategies, with the purpose of maximizing their aggregate
profits. We analyze the sub-game perfect equilibrium in both cases. Via
extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the network effects significantly
improve the payoff of three entities in this market, i.e., utilities of users,
the profit of content provider and the revenue of service provider. In
addition, it is revealed that the cooperation between the two providers is the
best choice for all three entities.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to one conferenc
Networks Within Cities and Among Cities: A Paradigm for Urban Development and Governance
Networks and networking have become fashionable concepts and terms in regional science, and in particular in regional and urban geography in the last decade: we speak about network firms, network society, network economy but also network cities, city-networks, reti urbane, reseaux de villes. Only catch-words for somebody; a true new scientific paradigm according to others. Our opinion is that in fact we are confronted with a new paradigm in spatial sciences, under some precise conditions: - that its exact meaning is thoroughly defined, - that its theoretical economic rationale is justified, - that the novelty of its empirical content is clearly pointed out, with respect to more traditional spatial facts and processes that can easily be interpreted through existing spatial paradigms. The relevant theoretical building block on which the network concept or paradigm may be constructed are: - a new view of the economy as a system or web of links between individuals, firms and institutions, where links depend on experience and evolve through learning processes; the existing endowment of knowledge and other production factors is put into value through a relational capability addressed towards the exchange and collection of information, building reputation and trust, creating synergies, cutting down uncertainty, boosting learning processes; - the acknowledgement of cooperation as a new organisational and behavioural form, intermediate between hierarchy (internal development and merging of external activities through direct control) and market resort; cooperation networks among firms collaborating with each other on technological advances and innovation projects were the earlier phenomena that were abundantly explored in the past. In a spatial perspective, two phenomena in particular are worth exploring today through the network concept: - networking as cooperation among individuals, firms and institutions taking place inside the cities concerning collective action, public/private partnerships on large urban projects and the supply of public goods, and giving rise to new forms of urban governance; - networking as inter-urban cooperation, assuming the cities as economic actors, competing but also cooperating in the global arena where locations of internationally mobile factors (professionals, corporations, institutions) are decided and negotiated. The paper is organised in the following way: - a major section is devoted to the interpretation of the micro-economic efficiency of local networking (local urban networks), in terms of the usual criteria of optimal allocation of resources and collective welfare, viewing the network as an organisational alternative between market failure and state failure; - a transition section deals with the interpretation of cities, a collective actor at best, as individual/unitary economic actors, given the case for collective action among interest groups, the possibility of defining in broad terms a function of collective preference referring to non-mobile local actors, the engagement of public and private actors in processes of strategic planning and definition of shared visions for the future of the city vis-a-vis mobile actors; - another main section interprets competition and cooperation among cities (inter-city-networks) underlining advantages, risks and conditions for maximising overall comprehensive well-being. JEL classification: D70, H77, R58
Transforming Energy Networks via Peer to Peer Energy Trading: Potential of Game Theoretic Approaches
Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading has emerged as a next-generation energy
management mechanism for the smart grid that enables each prosumer of the
network to participate in energy trading with one another and the grid. This
poses a significant challenge in terms of modeling the decision-making process
of each participant with conflicting interest and motivating prosumers to
participate in energy trading and to cooperate, if necessary, for achieving
different energy management goals. Therefore, such decision-making process
needs to be built on solid mathematical and signal processing tools that can
ensure an efficient operation of the smart grid. This paper provides an
overview of the use of game theoretic approaches for P2P energy trading as a
feasible and effective means of energy management. As such, we discuss various
games and auction theoretic approaches by following a systematic classification
to provide information on the importance of game theory for smart energy
research. Then, the paper focuses on the P2P energy trading describing its key
features and giving an introduction to an existing P2P testbed. Further, the
paper zooms into the detail of some specific game and auction theoretic models
that have recently been used in P2P energy trading and discusses some important
finding of these schemes.Comment: 38 pages, single column, double spac
Cooperative Control and Potential Games
We present a view of cooperative control using the language of learning in games. We review the game-theoretic concepts of potential and weakly acyclic games, and demonstrate how several cooperative control problems, such as consensus and dynamic sensor coverage, can be formulated in these settings. Motivated by this connection, we build upon game-theoretic concepts to better accommodate a broader class of cooperative control problems. In particular, we extend existing learning algorithms to accommodate restricted action sets caused by the limitations of agent capabilities and group based decision making. Furthermore, we also introduce a new class of games called sometimes weakly acyclic games for time-varying objective functions and action sets, and provide distributed algorithms for convergence to an equilibrium
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