155 research outputs found
Decisiveness indices are semiindices
In this note we prove that any decisiveness index, defined for any voter as the probability of him/her being decisive, is a semiindex when the probability distribution over coalitions is anonymous, and it is a semiindex with binomial coefficients when the probability over coalitions is anonymous and independent.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Approximations of Lovasz extensions and their induced interaction index
The Lovasz extension of a pseudo-Boolean function is
defined on each simplex of the standard triangulation of as the
unique affine function that interpolates at the
vertices of the simplex. Its degree is that of the unique multilinear
polynomial that expresses . In this paper we investigate the least squares
approximation problem of an arbitrary Lovasz extension by Lovasz
extensions of (at most) a specified degree. We derive explicit expressions of
these approximations. The corresponding approximation problem for
pseudo-Boolean functions was investigated by Hammer and Holzman (1992) and then
solved explicitly by Grabisch, Marichal, and Roubens (2000), giving rise to an
alternative definition of Banzhaf interaction index. Similarly we introduce a
new interaction index from approximations of and we present some of
its properties. It turns out that its corresponding power index identifies with
the power index introduced by Grabisch and Labreuche (2001).Comment: 19 page
False-Name Manipulation in Weighted Voting Games is Hard for Probabilistic Polynomial Time
False-name manipulation refers to the question of whether a player in a
weighted voting game can increase her power by splitting into several players
and distributing her weight among these false identities. Analogously to this
splitting problem, the beneficial merging problem asks whether a coalition of
players can increase their power in a weighted voting game by merging their
weights. Aziz et al. [ABEP11] analyze the problem of whether merging or
splitting players in weighted voting games is beneficial in terms of the
Shapley-Shubik and the normalized Banzhaf index, and so do Rey and Rothe [RR10]
for the probabilistic Banzhaf index. All these results provide merely
NP-hardness lower bounds for these problems, leaving the question about their
exact complexity open. For the Shapley--Shubik and the probabilistic Banzhaf
index, we raise these lower bounds to hardness for PP, "probabilistic
polynomial time", and provide matching upper bounds for beneficial merging and,
whenever the number of false identities is fixed, also for beneficial
splitting, thus resolving previous conjectures in the affirmative. It follows
from our results that beneficial merging and splitting for these two power
indices cannot be solved in NP, unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses,
which is considered highly unlikely
The Complexity of Power-Index Comparison
We study the complexity of the following problem: Given two weighted voting
games G' and G'' that each contain a player p, in which of these games is p's
power index value higher? We study this problem with respect to both the
Shapley-Shubik power index [SS54] and the Banzhaf power index [Ban65,DS79]. Our
main result is that for both of these power indices the problem is complete for
probabilistic polynomial time (i.e., is PP-complete). We apply our results to
partially resolve some recently proposed problems regarding the complexity of
weighted voting games. We also study the complexity of the raw Shapley-Shubik
power index. Deng and Papadimitriou [DP94] showed that the raw Shapley-Shubik
power index is #P-metric-complete. We strengthen this by showing that the raw
Shapley-Shubik power index is many-one complete for #P. And our strengthening
cannot possibly be further improved to parsimonious completeness, since we
observe that, in contrast with the raw Banzhaf power index, the raw
Shapley-Shubik power index is not #P-parsimonious-complete.Comment: 12 page
Weighted Banzhaf power and interaction indexes through weighted approximations of games
The Banzhaf power index was introduced in cooperative game theory to measure
the real power of players in a game. The Banzhaf interaction index was then
proposed to measure the interaction degree inside coalitions of players. It was
shown that the power and interaction indexes can be obtained as solutions of a
standard least squares approximation problem for pseudo-Boolean functions.
Considering certain weighted versions of this approximation problem, we define
a class of weighted interaction indexes that generalize the Banzhaf interaction
index. We show that these indexes define a subclass of the family of
probabilistic interaction indexes and study their most important properties.
Finally, we give an interpretation of the Banzhaf and Shapley interaction
indexes as centers of mass of this subclass of interaction indexes
Measuring the interactions among variables of functions over the unit hypercube
By considering a least squares approximation of a given square integrable
function by a multilinear polynomial of a specified
degree, we define an index which measures the overall interaction among
variables of . This definition extends the concept of Banzhaf interaction
index introduced in cooperative game theory. Our approach is partly inspired
from multilinear regression analysis, where interactions among the independent
variables are taken into consideration. We show that this interaction index has
appealing properties which naturally generalize the properties of the Banzhaf
interaction index. In particular, we interpret this index as an expected value
of the difference quotients of or, under certain natural conditions on ,
as an expected value of the derivatives of . These interpretations show a
strong analogy between the introduced interaction index and the overall
importance index defined by Grabisch and Labreuche [7]. Finally, we discuss a
few applications of the interaction index
Manipulating the Quota in Weighted Voting Games
Weighted voting games provide a popular model of decision making in multiagent systems. Such games are described by a set of players, a list of players' weights, and a quota; a coalition of the players is said to be winning if the total weight of its members meets or exceeds the quota. The power of a player in such games is traditionally identified with her Shapley--Shubik index or her Banzhaf index, two classical power measures that reflect the player's marginal contributions under different coalition formation scenarios. In this paper, we investigate by how much the central authority can change a player's power, as measured by these indices, by modifying the quota. We provide tight upper and lower bounds on the changes in the individual player's power that can result from a change in quota. We also study how the choice of quota can affect the relative power of the players. From the algorithmic perspective, we provide an efficient algorithm for determining whether there is a value of the quota that makes a given player a {\em dummy}, i.e., reduces his power (as measured by both indices) to 0. On the other hand, we show that checking which of the two values of the quota makes this player more powerful is computationally hard, namely, complete for the complexity class PP, which is believed to be significantly more powerful than NP
Average Weights and Power in Weighted Voting Games
We investigate a class of weighted voting games for which weights are
randomly distributed over the standard probability simplex. We provide
close-formed formulae for the expectation and density of the distribution of
weight of the -th largest player under the uniform distribution. We analyze
the average voting power of the -th largest player and its dependence on the
quota, obtaining analytical and numerical results for small values of and a
general theorem about the functional form of the relation between the average
Penrose--Banzhaf power index and the quota for the uniform measure on the
simplex. We also analyze the power of a collectivity to act (Coleman efficiency
index) of random weighted voting games, obtaining analytical upper bounds
therefor.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
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