73 research outputs found
Dynamic Policies for Cooperative Networked Systems
A set of economic entities embedded in a network graph collaborate by
opportunistically exchanging their resources to satisfy their dynamically
generated needs. Under what conditions their collaboration leads to a
sustainable economy? Which online policy can ensure a feasible resource
exchange point will be attained, and what information is needed to implement
it? Furthermore, assuming there are different resources and the entities have
diverse production capabilities, which production policy each entity should
employ in order to maximize the economy's sustainability? Importantly, can we
design such policies that are also incentive compatible even when there is no a
priori information about the entities' needs? We introduce a dynamic production
scheduling and resource exchange model to capture this fundamental problem and
provide answers to the above questions. Applications range from infrastructure
sharing, trade and organisation management, to social networks and sharing
economy services.Comment: 6-page version appeared at ACM NetEcon' 1
Exchange of Services in Networks: Competition, Cooperation, and Fairness
Exchange of services and resources in, or over, networks is attracting
nowadays renewed interest. However, despite the broad applicability and the
extensive study of such models, e.g., in the context of P2P networks, many
fundamental questions regarding their properties and efficiency remain
unanswered. We consider such a service exchange model and analyze the users'
interactions under three different approaches. First, we study a centrally
designed service allocation policy that yields the fair total service each user
should receive based on the service it others to the others. Accordingly, we
consider a competitive market where each user determines selfishly its
allocation policy so as to maximize the service it receives in return, and a
coalitional game model where users are allowed to coordinate their policies. We
prove that there is a unique equilibrium exchange allocation for both game
theoretic formulations, which also coincides with the central fair service
allocation. Furthermore, we characterize its properties in terms of the
coalitions that emerge and the equilibrium allocations, and analyze its
dependency on the underlying network graph. That servicing policy is the
natural reference point to the various mechanisms that are currently proposed
to incentivize user participation and improve the efficiency of such networked
service (or, resource) exchange markets.Comment: to appear in ACM Sigmetrics 201
Auction-Based Coopetition between LTE Unlicensed and Wi-Fi
Motivated by the recent efforts in extending LTE to the unlicensed spectrum,
we propose a novel spectrum sharing framework for the coopetition (i.e.,
cooperation and competition) between LTE and Wi-Fi in the unlicensed band.
Basically, the LTE network can choose to work in one of the two modes: in the
competition mode, it randomly accesses an unlicensed channel, and interferes
with the Wi-Fi access point using the same channel; in the cooperation mode, it
delivers traffic for the Wi-Fi users in exchange for the exclusive access of
the corresponding channel. Because the LTE network works in an
interference-free manner in the cooperation mode, it can achieve a much larger
data rate than that in the competition mode, which allows it to effectively
serve both its own users and the Wi-Fi users. We design a second-price reverse
auction mechanism, which enables the LTE provider and the Wi-Fi access point
owners (APOs) to effectively negotiate the operation mode. Specifically, the
LTE provider is the auctioneer (buyer), and the APOs are the bidders (sellers)
who compete to sell their channel access opportunities to the LTE provider. In
Stage I of the auction, the LTE provider announces a reserve rate. In Stage II
of the auction, the APOs submit their bids. We show that the auction involves
allocative externalities, i.e., the cooperation between the LTE provider and
one APO benefits other APOs who are not directly involved in this cooperation.
As a result, a particular APO's willingness to cooperate is affected by its
belief about other APOs' willingness to cooperate. This makes our analysis much
more challenging than that of the conventional second-price auction, where
bidding truthfully is a weakly dominant strategy. We show that the APOs have a
unique form of the equilibrium bidding strategies in Stage II, based on which
we analyze the LTE provider's optimal reserve rate in Stage I.Comment: 32 page
Incentive Mechanisms for Hierarchical Spectrum Markets
In this paper, we study spectrum allocation mechanisms in hierarchical
multi-layer markets which are expected to proliferate in the near future based
on the current spectrum policy reform proposals. We consider a setting where a
state agency sells spectrum channels to Primary Operators (POs) who
subsequently resell them to Secondary Operators (SOs) through auctions. We show
that these hierarchical markets do not result in a socially efficient spectrum
allocation which is aimed by the agency, due to lack of coordination among the
entities in different layers and the inherently selfish revenue-maximizing
strategy of POs. In order to reconcile these opposing objectives, we propose an
incentive mechanism which aligns the strategy and the actions of the POs with
the objective of the agency, and thus leads to system performance improvement
in terms of social welfare. This pricing-based scheme constitutes a method for
hierarchical market regulation. A basic component of the proposed incentive
mechanism is a novel auction scheme which enables POs to allocate their
spectrum by balancing their derived revenue and the welfare of the SOs.Comment: 9 page
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