4,928 research outputs found
On Ehrhart Polynomials and Probability Calculations in Voting Theory
In voting theory, analyzing how frequent is an event (e.g. a voting paradox) is, under some specific but widely used assumptions, equivalent to computing the exact number of integer solutions in a system of linear constraints. Recently, some algorithms for computing this number have been proposed in social choice literature by Huang and Chua [17] and by Gehrlein ([12, 14]). The purpose of this paper is threefold. Firstly, we want to do justice to Eug`ene Ehrhart, who, more than forty years ago, discovered the theoretical foundations of the above mentioned algorithms. Secondly, we present some efficient algorithms that have been recently developed by computer scientists, independently from voting theorists. Thirdly, we illustrate the use of these algorithms by providing some original results in voting theory.voting rules, manipulability, polytopes, lattice points, algorithms.
The tropical shadow-vertex algorithm solves mean payoff games in polynomial time on average
We introduce an algorithm which solves mean payoff games in polynomial time
on average, assuming the distribution of the games satisfies a flip invariance
property on the set of actions associated with every state. The algorithm is a
tropical analogue of the shadow-vertex simplex algorithm, which solves mean
payoff games via linear feasibility problems over the tropical semiring
. The key ingredient in our approach is
that the shadow-vertex pivoting rule can be transferred to tropical polyhedra,
and that its computation reduces to optimal assignment problems through
Pl\"ucker relations.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, appears in 41st International Colloquium, ICALP
2014, Copenhagen, Denmark, July 8-11, 2014, Proceedings, Part
Finding All Nash Equilibria of a Finite Game Using Polynomial Algebra
The set of Nash equilibria of a finite game is the set of nonnegative
solutions to a system of polynomial equations. In this survey article we
describe how to construct certain special games and explain how to find all the
complex roots of the corresponding polynomial systems, including all the Nash
equilibria. We then explain how to find all the complex roots of the polynomial
systems for arbitrary generic games, by polyhedral homotopy continuation
starting from the solutions to the specially constructed games. We describe the
use of Groebner bases to solve these polynomial systems and to learn geometric
information about how the solution set varies with the payoff functions.
Finally, we review the use of the Gambit software package to find all Nash
equilibria of a finite game.Comment: Invited contribution to Journal of Economic Theory; includes color
figure
Tropical polar cones, hypergraph transversals, and mean payoff games
We discuss the tropical analogues of several basic questions of convex
duality. In particular, the polar of a tropical polyhedral cone represents the
set of linear inequalities that its elements satisfy. We characterize the
extreme rays of the polar in terms of certain minimal set covers which may be
thought of as weighted generalizations of minimal transversals in hypergraphs.
We also give a tropical analogue of Farkas lemma, which allows one to check
whether a linear inequality is implied by a finite family of linear
inequalities. Here, the certificate is a strategy of a mean payoff game. We
discuss examples, showing that the number of extreme rays of the polar of the
tropical cyclic polyhedral cone is polynomially bounded, and that there is no
unique minimal system of inequalities defining a given tropical polyhedral
cone.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, revised versio
On the asymptotic and practical complexity of solving bivariate systems over the reals
This paper is concerned with exact real solving of well-constrained,
bivariate polynomial systems. The main problem is to isolate all common real
roots in rational rectangles, and to determine their intersection
multiplicities. We present three algorithms and analyze their asymptotic bit
complexity, obtaining a bound of \sOB(N^{14}) for the purely projection-based
method, and \sOB(N^{12}) for two subresultant-based methods: this notation
ignores polylogarithmic factors, where bounds the degree and the bitsize of
the polynomials. The previous record bound was \sOB(N^{14}).
Our main tool is signed subresultant sequences. We exploit recent advances on
the complexity of univariate root isolation, and extend them to sign evaluation
of bivariate polynomials over two algebraic numbers, and real root counting for
polynomials over an extension field. Our algorithms apply to the problem of
simultaneous inequalities; they also compute the topology of real plane
algebraic curves in \sOB(N^{12}), whereas the previous bound was
\sOB(N^{14}).
All algorithms have been implemented in MAPLE, in conjunction with numeric
filtering. We compare them against FGB/RS, system solvers from SYNAPS, and
MAPLE libraries INSULATE and TOP, which compute curve topology. Our software is
among the most robust, and its runtimes are comparable, or within a small
constant factor, with respect to the C/C++ libraries.
Key words: real solving, polynomial systems, complexity, MAPLE softwareComment: 17 pages, 4 algorithms, 1 table, and 1 figure with 2 sub-figure
Robust Region-of-Attraction Estimation
We propose a method to compute invariant subsets of the region-of-attraction for asymptotically stable equilibrium points of polynomial dynamical systems with bounded parametric uncertainty. Parameter-independent Lyapunov functions are used to characterize invariant subsets of the robust region-of-attraction. A branch-and-bound type refinement procedure reduces the conservatism. We demonstrate the method on an example from the literature and uncertain controlled short-period aircraft dynamics
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