14,246 research outputs found
Pricing in Social Networks with Negative Externalities
We study the problems of pricing an indivisible product to consumers who are
embedded in a given social network. The goal is to maximize the revenue of the
seller. We assume impatient consumers who buy the product as soon as the seller
posts a price not greater than their values of the product. The product's value
for a consumer is determined by two factors: a fixed consumer-specified
intrinsic value and a variable externality that is exerted from the consumer's
neighbors in a linear way. We study the scenario of negative externalities,
which captures many interesting situations, but is much less understood in
comparison with its positive externality counterpart. We assume complete
information about the network, consumers' intrinsic values, and the negative
externalities. The maximum revenue is in general achieved by iterative pricing,
which offers impatient consumers a sequence of prices over time.
We prove that it is NP-hard to find an optimal iterative pricing, even for
unweighted tree networks with uniform intrinsic values. Complementary to the
hardness result, we design a 2-approximation algorithm for finding iterative
pricing in general weighted networks with (possibly) nonuniform intrinsic
values. We show that, as an approximation to optimal iterative pricing, single
pricing can work rather well for many interesting cases, but theoretically it
can behave arbitrarily bad
Optimal Pricing Effect on Equilibrium Behaviors of Delay-Sensitive Users in Cognitive Radio Networks
This paper studies price-based spectrum access control in cognitive radio
networks, which characterizes network operators' service provisions to
delay-sensitive secondary users (SUs) via pricing strategies. Based on the two
paradigms of shared-use and exclusive-use dynamic spectrum access (DSA), we
examine three network scenarios corresponding to three types of secondary
markets. In the first monopoly market with one operator using opportunistic
shared-use DSA, we study the operator's pricing effect on the equilibrium
behaviors of self-optimizing SUs in a queueing system. %This queue represents
the congestion of the multiple SUs sharing the operator's single \ON-\OFF
channel that models the primary users (PUs) traffic. We provide a queueing
delay analysis with the general distributions of the SU service time and PU
traffic using the renewal theory. In terms of SUs, we show that there exists a
unique Nash equilibrium in a non-cooperative game where SUs are players
employing individual optimal strategies. We also provide a sufficient condition
and iterative algorithms for equilibrium convergence. In terms of operators,
two pricing mechanisms are proposed with different goals: revenue maximization
and social welfare maximization. In the second monopoly market, an operator
exploiting exclusive-use DSA has many channels that will be allocated
separately to each entering SU. We also analyze the pricing effect on the
equilibrium behaviors of the SUs and the revenue-optimal and socially-optimal
pricing strategies of the operator in this market. In the third duopoly market,
we study a price competition between two operators employing shared-use and
exclusive-use DSA, respectively, as a two-stage Stackelberg game. Using a
backward induction method, we show that there exists a unique equilibrium for
this game and investigate the equilibrium convergence.Comment: 30 pages, one column, double spac
Tolling, Capacity Selection and Equilibrium Problems with Equilibrium Constraints
An Equilibrium problem with an equilibrium constraint is a mathematical construct that can be applied to private competition in highway networks. In this paper we consider the problem of finding a Nash Equilibrium regarding competition in toll pricing on a network utilising 2 alternative algorithms. In the first algorithm, we utilise a Gauss Siedel fixed point approach based on the cutting constraint algorithm for toll pricing. In the second algorithm, we extend an existing sequential linear complementarity approach for finding Nash equilibrium subject to Wardrop Equilibrium constraints. Finally we consider how the equilibrium may change between the Nash competitive equilibrium and a collusive equilibrium where the two players co-operate to form the equivalent of a monopoly operation
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llc: a collection of R functions for fitting a class of Lee-Carter mortality models using iterative fitting algorithms
We implement a specialised iterative regression methodology in R for the analysis of age-period mortality data based on a class of generalised Lee-Carter (LC) type modelling structures. The LC-based modelling frameworks is viewed in the current literature as among the most efficient and transparent methods of modelling and projecting mortality improvements. Thus, we make use of the modelling approach discussed in Renshaw and Haberman (2006), which extends the basic LC model and proposes to make use of a tailored iterative process to generate parameter estimates based on Poisson likelihood. Furthermore, building on this methodology we develop and implement a stratified LC model for the measurement of the additive effect on the log scale of an explanatory factor (other than age and time). This modelling methodology is implemented in a publically available collection of programming functions that facilitate both the preparation of mortality data and the fitting and analysis of the given log-linear modelling structures. Also, the package incorporates methods to produce forecasts of future mortality rates and to compute the corresponding future life expectancy
Communication-efficient Distributed Multi-resource Allocation
In several smart city applications, multiple resources must be allocated
among competing agents that are coupled through such shared resources and are
constrained --- either through limitations of communication infrastructure or
privacy considerations. We propose a distributed algorithm to solve such
distributed multi-resource allocation problems with no direct inter-agent
communication. We do so by extending a recently introduced additive-increase
multiplicative-decrease (AIMD) algorithm, which only uses very little
communication between the system and agents. Namely, a control unit broadcasts
a one-bit signal to agents whenever one of the allocated resources exceeds
capacity. Agents then respond to this signal in a probabilistic manner. In the
proposed algorithm, each agent makes decision of its resource demand locally
and an agent is unaware of the resource allocation of other agents. In
empirical results, we observe that the average allocations converge over time
to optimal allocations.Comment: To appear in IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2 2018),
Kansas City, USA, September, 2018. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap
with arXiv:1711.0197
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