2,231 research outputs found
Hedonic Coalition Formation for Distributed Task Allocation among Wireless Agents
Autonomous wireless agents such as unmanned aerial vehicles or mobile base
stations present a great potential for deployment in next-generation wireless
networks. While current literature has been mainly focused on the use of agents
within robotics or software applications, we propose a novel usage model for
self-organizing agents suited to wireless networks. In the proposed model, a
number of agents are required to collect data from several arbitrarily located
tasks. Each task represents a queue of packets that require collection and
subsequent wireless transmission by the agents to a central receiver. The
problem is modeled as a hedonic coalition formation game between the agents and
the tasks that interact in order to form disjoint coalitions. Each formed
coalition is modeled as a polling system consisting of a number of agents which
move between the different tasks present in the coalition, collect and transmit
the packets. Within each coalition, some agents can also take the role of a
relay for improving the packet success rate of the transmission. The proposed
algorithm allows the tasks and the agents to take distributed decisions to join
or leave a coalition, based on the achieved benefit in terms of effective
throughput, and the cost in terms of delay. As a result of these decisions, the
agents and tasks structure themselves into independent disjoint coalitions
which constitute a Nash-stable network partition. Moreover, the proposed
algorithm allows the agents and tasks to adapt the topology to environmental
changes such as the arrival/removal of tasks or the mobility of the tasks.
Simulation results show how the proposed algorithm improves the performance, in
terms of average player (agent or task) payoff, of at least 30.26% (for a
network of 5 agents with up to 25 tasks) relatively to a scheme that allocates
nearby tasks equally among agents.Comment: to appear, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computin
Maximizing Profit in Green Cellular Networks through Collaborative Games
In this paper, we deal with the problem of maximizing the profit of Network
Operators (NOs) of green cellular networks in situations where
Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees must be ensured to users, and Base Stations
(BSs) can be shared among different operators. We show that if NOs cooperate
among them, by mutually sharing their users and BSs, then each one of them can
improve its net profit. By using a game-theoretic framework, we study the
problem of forming stable coalitions among NOs. Furthermore, we propose a
mathematical optimization model to allocate users to a set of BSs, in order to
reduce costs and, at the same time, to meet user QoS for NOs inside the same
coalition. Based on this, we propose an algorithm, based on cooperative game
theory, that enables each operator to decide with whom to cooperate in order to
maximize its profit. This algorithms adopts a distributed approach in which
each NO autonomously makes its own decisions, and where the best solution
arises without the need to synchronize them or to resort to a trusted third
party. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through a
thorough experimental evaluation considering real-world traffic traces, and a
set of realistic scenarios. The results we obtain indicate that our algorithm
allows a population of NOs to significantly improve their profits thanks to the
combination of energy reduction and satisfaction of QoS requirements.Comment: Added publisher info and citation notic
Mechanism Design for Team Formation
Team formation is a core problem in AI. Remarkably, little prior work has
addressed the problem of mechanism design for team formation, accounting for
the need to elicit agents' preferences over potential teammates. Coalition
formation in the related hedonic games has received much attention, but only
from the perspective of coalition stability, with little emphasis on the
mechanism design objectives of true preference elicitation, social welfare, and
equity. We present the first formal mechanism design framework for team
formation, building on recent combinatorial matching market design literature.
We exhibit four mechanisms for this problem, two novel, two simple extensions
of known mechanisms from other domains. Two of these (one new, one known) have
desirable theoretical properties. However, we use extensive experiments to show
our second novel mechanism, despite having no theoretical guarantees,
empirically achieves good incentive compatibility, welfare, and fairness.Comment: 12 page
Measuring Quality Change due to Technological Externality in Multi-Feature Service Bundles
Technological innovation, externalities and network effects keep shifting the preference parameters in cellular telecommunication service sector. The paper suggests a framework to model these changes.It notes two channels that affect the service prices (in possibly opposite ways). In each corresponding period, consumer with lower reservation prices are shopping for the services. But these reservation prices are going up due to complementarity/ network effects. Under some reasonable assumptions on industry and cost structure, market data can be used to identify these changes. A price index is suggested that decomposes service bundle price changes into the change in price for same-quality of service and change in quality of the service bundle. Some interesting properties of these indexes are also discussed.
The Egalitarian Sharing Rule in Provision of Public Projects
In this note we consider a society that partitions itself into disjoint jurisdictions, each choosing a location of its public project and a taxation scheme to finance it. The set of public project is multi-dimensional, and their costs could vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. We impose two principles, egalitarianism, that requires the equalization of the total cost for all agents in the same jurisdiction, and efficiency, that implies the minimization of the aggregate total cost within jurisdiction. We show that these two principles always yield a core-stable partition but a Nash stable partition may fail to exist.Jurisdictions, Stable partitions, Public projects, Egalitarianism
Coalition formation in the Airport Problem
We have studied the incentives of forming coalitions in the Airport Problem. It has shown that in this class of games, if coalitions form freely, the Shapley value does not lead to the formation of grand or coalitions with many players. Just a coalition with a few number of players forms to act as the producer and other players would be the consumers of the product. We have found the two member coalition which forms and we have checked its stability.
Which activities do those with long commutes forego, and should we care?
Commuting imposes opportunity costs on travelers since those with long commutes have less time to participate in other activities. This paper examines how commute duration is associated with activity patterns. It utilizes a two-day time use survey administered in the United Kingdom in 2014 and 2015. Focusing on full-time employees and controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, we regress time spent engaging in 22 different activities on commute duration using OLS and Cragg two-part hurdle modeling. We separately test the effects of commute duration on activity participation for men versus women and for single persons versus persons in couples. We also report the subjective well-being (SWB), specifically the hedonic affect, associated with these activities as determined by using fixed-effects panel regression. The estimations suggest that commutes are associated with time constraints and entail trade-offs, with longer commutes being associated with significantly less time engaging in most of our activities including sleep, cooking, housework, shopping/accessing services, arts/entertainment activities, TV/music time, computer games and other computer use, visiting with others, sports/exercise/outdoor activities, hobbies, volunteering, and non-work travel. Those with longer commutes are found to tend to engage in more of two activities: work and eating out. The activities those with longer commutes tend to forego run the gamut from high-SWB to low-SWB. Given that the lowest-SWB activity in our sample is commuting itself, it appears as if the substitution of nearly any activity for commuting may bring emotional benefits. In all, the results suggest that longer commutes are associated with significant emotional costs
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
Advances in Negotiation Theory: Bargaining, Coalitions and Fairness
Bargaining is ubiquitous in real-life. It is a major dimension of political and business activities. It appears at the international level, when governments negotiate on matters ranging from economic issues (such as the removal of trade barriers), to global security (such as fighting against terrorism) to environmental and related issues (e.g. climate change control). What factors determine the outcome of negotiations such as those mentioned above? What strategies can help reach an agreement? How should the parties involved divide the gains from cooperation? With whom will one make alliances? This paper addresses these questions by focusing on a non-cooperative approach to negotiations, which is particularly relevant for the study of international negotiations. By reviewing non-cooperative bargaining theory, non-cooperative coalition theory, and the theory of fair division, this paper will try to identify the connection among these different facets of the same problem in an attempt to facilitate the progress towards a unified framework.Negotiation theory, Bargaining, Coalitions, Fairness, Agreements
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