Modelling the effect of individual differences in punishment sensitivity on behaviour in a public goods game

Previous research on social dilemmas demonstrated that various forms of punishment for free-riding can increase contribution levels in public goods games. The way individual group members react to the possibility of punishment can be also affected by individual differences in punishment sensitivity. Therefore, depending individual differences in punishment sensitivity of group members, different levels of punishment can be more or less effective to prevent free riding behaviour. This paper uses agent-based modelling to model the effect of punishment sensitivity on contribution levels in a public goods game. The paper then examines the correlation between punishment sensitivity and variability of free riding behaviour under different punishment conditions

Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach

Cooperation is of utmost importance to society as a whole, but is often challenged by individual self-interests. While game theory has studied this problem extensively, there is little work on interactions within and across groups with different preferences or beliefs. Yet, people from different social or cultural backgrounds often meet and interact. This can yield conflict, since behavior that is considered cooperative by one population might be perceived as non-cooperative from the viewpoint of another. To understand the dynamics and outcome of the competitive interactions within and between groups, we study game-dynamical replicator equations for multiple populations with incompatible interests and different power (be this due to different population sizes, material resources, social capital, or other factors). These equations allow us to address various important questions: For example, can cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma be promoted, when two interacting groups have different preferences? Under what conditions can costly punishment, or other mechanisms, foster the evolution of norms? When does cooperation fail, leading to antagonistic behavior, conflict, or even revolutions? And what incentives are needed to reach peaceful agreements between groups with conflicting interests? Our detailed quantitative analysis reveals a large variety of interesting results, which are relevant for society, law and economics, and have implications for the evolution of language and culture as well

Computational Intelligence Inspired Data Delivery for Vehicle-to-Roadside Communications

We propose a vehicle-to-roadside communication protocol based on distributed clustering where a coalitional game approach is used to stimulate the vehicles to join a cluster, and a fuzzy logic algorithm is employed to generate stable clusters by considering multiple metrics of vehicle velocity, moving pattern, and signal qualities between vehicles. A reinforcement learning algorithm with game theory based reward allocation is employed to guide each vehicle to select the route that can maximize the whole network performance. The protocol is integrated with a multi-hop data delivery virtualization scheme that works on the top of the transport layer and provides high performance for multi-hop end-to-end data transmissions. We conduct realistic computer simulations to show the performance advantage of the protocol over other approaches

A kernel-oriented algorithm for transmission expansion planning

With deregulation sweeping all over electrical systems around the world, transmission planning has undergone dramatic changes during this decade. Centralized cost allocation methods have become obsolete and new procedures are needed to deal with intelligent and self-sufficient players. In this paper we study the allocation of transmission costs in a decentralized manner. For this purpose we have developed a multi-agent system that is based on a well known cooperative game theory procedure, the kernel. Using our approach, the agents are able to form kernel-stable coalitions and the cost allocation procedure is performed at every step of the kernel- algorithm. A six bus example and an IEEE 24 bus case illustrate our model. © 2000 IEEE.published_or_final_versio