7,717 research outputs found
Transformations in the Scale of Behaviour and the Global Optimisation of Constraints in Adaptive Networks
The natural energy minimisation behaviour of a dynamical system can be interpreted as a simple optimisation process, finding a locally optimal resolution of problem constraints. In human problem solving, high-dimensional problems are often made much easier by inferring a low-dimensional model of the system in which search is more effective. But this is an approach that seems to require top-down domain knowledge; not one amenable to the spontaneous energy minimisation behaviour of a natural dynamical system. However, in this paper we investigate the ability of distributed dynamical systems to improve their constraint resolution ability over time by self-organisation. We use a ‘self-modelling’ Hopfield network with a novel type of associative connection to illustrate how slowly changing relationships between system components can result in a transformation into a new system which is a low-dimensional caricature of the original system. The energy minimisation behaviour of this new system is significantly more effective at globally resolving the original system constraints. This model uses only very simple, and fully-distributed positive feedback mechanisms that are relevant to other ‘active linking’ and adaptive networks. We discuss how this neural network model helps us to understand transformations and emergent collective behaviour in various non-neural adaptive networks such as social, genetic and ecological networks
Market response to external events and interventions in spherical minority games
We solve the dynamics of large spherical Minority Games (MG) in the presence
of non-negligible time dependent external contributions to the overall market
bid. The latter represent the actions of market regulators, or other major
natural or political events that impact on the market. In contrast to
non-spherical MGs, the spherical formulation allows one to derive closed
dynamical order parameter equations in explicit form and work out the market's
response to such events fully analytically. We focus on a comparison between
the response to stationary versus oscillating market interventions, and reveal
profound and partially unexpected differences in terms of transition lines and
the volatility.Comment: 14 pages LaTeX, 5 (composite) postscript figures, submitted to
Journal of Physics
Statics and dynamics of selfish interactions in distributed service systems
We study a class of games which model the competition among agents to access
some service provided by distributed service units and which exhibit congestion
and frustration phenomena when service units have limited capacity. We propose
a technique, based on the cavity method of statistical physics, to characterize
the full spectrum of Nash equilibria of the game. The analysis reveals a large
variety of equilibria, with very different statistical properties. Natural
selfish dynamics, such as best-response, usually tend to large-utility
equilibria, even though those of smaller utility are exponentially more
numerous. Interestingly, the latter actually can be reached by selecting the
initial conditions of the best-response dynamics close to the saturation limit
of the service unit capacities. We also study a more realistic stochastic
variant of the game by means of a simple and effective approximation of the
average over the random parameters, showing that the properties of the
average-case Nash equilibria are qualitatively similar to the deterministic
ones.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure
Statistical Mechanics of maximal independent sets
The graph theoretic concept of maximal independent set arises in several
practical problems in computer science as well as in game theory. A maximal
independent set is defined by the set of occupied nodes that satisfy some
packing and covering constraints. It is known that finding minimum and
maximum-density maximal independent sets are hard optimization problems. In
this paper, we use cavity method of statistical physics and Monte Carlo
simulations to study the corresponding constraint satisfaction problem on
random graphs. We obtain the entropy of maximal independent sets within the
replica symmetric and one-step replica symmetry breaking frameworks, shedding
light on the metric structure of the landscape of solutions and suggesting a
class of possible algorithms. This is of particular relevance for the
application to the study of strategic interactions in social and economic
networks, where maximal independent sets correspond to pure Nash equilibria of
a graphical game of public goods allocation
Social Game for Building Energy Efficiency: Utility Learning, Simulation, and Analysis
We describe a social game that we designed for encouraging energy efficient
behavior amongst building occupants with the aim of reducing overall energy
consumption in the building. Occupants vote for their desired lighting level
and win points which are used in a lottery based on how far their vote is from
the maximum setting. We assume that the occupants are utility maximizers and
that their utility functions capture the tradeoff between winning points and
their comfort level. We model the occupants as non-cooperative agents in a
continuous game and we characterize their play using the Nash equilibrium
concept. Using occupant voting data, we parameterize their utility functions
and use a convex optimization problem to estimate the parameters. We simulate
the game defined by the estimated utility functions and show that the estimated
model for occupant behavior is a good predictor of their actual behavior. In
addition, we show that due to the social game, there is a significant reduction
in energy consumption
Dynamical Optimal Transport on Discrete Surfaces
We propose a technique for interpolating between probability distributions on
discrete surfaces, based on the theory of optimal transport. Unlike previous
attempts that use linear programming, our method is based on a dynamical
formulation of quadratic optimal transport proposed for flat domains by Benamou
and Brenier [2000], adapted to discrete surfaces. Our structure-preserving
construction yields a Riemannian metric on the (finite-dimensional) space of
probability distributions on a discrete surface, which translates the so-called
Otto calculus to discrete language. From a practical perspective, our technique
provides a smooth interpolation between distributions on discrete surfaces with
less diffusion than state-of-the-art algorithms involving entropic
regularization. Beyond interpolation, we show how our discrete notion of
optimal transport extends to other tasks, such as distribution-valued Dirichlet
problems and time integration of gradient flows
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