Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Game-Theoretic Approaches to Optimization Problems in Communication Networks

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Graphs and Algorithms in Communication Networks

Part of the book series: Texts in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series ((TTCS))

Abstract

In this chapter we consider fundamental optimization problems arising in communication networks. We consider scenarios where there is no central authority that coordinates the network users in order to achieve efficient solutions. Instead, the users act in an uncoordinated and selfish manner and reach solutions to the above problems that are consistent only with their selfishness. In this sense, the users act aiming to optimize their own objectives with no regard to the globally optimum system performance. Such a behavior poses several intriguing questions ranging from the definition of reasonable and practical models for studying it to the quantification of the efficiency loss due to the lack of users’ cooperation. We present several results we achieved recently in this research area and propose interesting future research directions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Aland, S., Dumrauf, D., Gairing, M., Monien, B., Schoppmann, F.: Exact price of anarchy for polynomial congestion games. In: Proceedings of the 23rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS ’06), LNCS 3884, pp. 218-229, 2006

    Google Scholar 

  2. Anshelevich, E., Dasgupta, A., Kleinberg, J. M., Tardos, E., Wexler, T., Roughgarden, T.: The price of stability for network design with fair cost allocation. In: Proceedings of the 45th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS ’04), IEEE Computer Society, pp. 295-304, 2004

    Google Scholar 

  3. Anshelevich, E., Dasgupta, A., Tardos, E., Wexler, T.: Near-optimal network design with selfish agents. In: Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC ’03). ACM Press, pp. 511-520, 2003

    Google Scholar 

  4. Awerbuch, B., Azar, Y., Epstein, A.: The price of routing unsplittable flow. In: Proceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC ’05), ACM Press, pp. 57-66, 2005

    Google Scholar 

  5. Azar Y., Epstein, A.: The hardness of network design for unsplittable flow with selfish users. In: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Approximation and Online Algorithms (WAOA ’05), LNCS 3879, pp. 41-54, 2005

    Google Scholar 

  6. Azar, Y., Jain, K., Mirrokni, V. S.: (Almost) optimal coordination mechanisms for unrelated machine scheduling. In: Proceedings of the 19th Annual ACM/SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA ’08), pp. 323-332, 2008

    Google Scholar 

  7. Bilò, V.: The price of Nash equilibria in multicast transmission games. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC ’07), LNCS 4835, pp. 390-401, 2007

    Google Scholar 

  8. Bilò, V., Fanelli, A., Flammini, M., Melideo, G., Moscardelli, L.: Designing fast converging cost sharing methods for multicast transmissions. Theory of Computing Systems, online first, 2009

    Google Scholar 

  9. Bilò, V., Fanelli, A., Flammini, M., Moscardelli, L.: Graphical congestion games with linear latencies. In: Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA ’08), pp. 194-196, 2008

    Google Scholar 

  10. Moscardelli, L.: When ignorance helps: graphical multicast cost sharing games. In: Proceedings of the 32nd International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS ’08), LNCS 5162, pp. 108-119, 2008

    Google Scholar 

  11. Bilò, V., Flammini, M.: Extending the notion of rationality of selfish agents: second order Nash equilibria. In: Proceedings of the 32nd International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS ’07), LNCS 4708, pp. 621-632, 2007

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bilò, V., Flammini, M., Moscardelli, L.: On Nash equilibria in non-cooperative all-optical networks. In: Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS ’05), LNCS 3404, pp. 448-459, 2005

    Google Scholar 

  13. Braess, D.: Über ein Paradoxon der Verkehrsplanung. Unternehmensforschung, 12:258-268, 1968

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Caragiannis, I.: Efficient coordination mechanisms for unrelated machine scheduling. In: Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM/SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA ’09), pp. 815–824, 2009

    Google Scholar 

  15. Caragiannis, I., Flammini, M., Kaklamanis, C., Kanellopoulos, P., and Moscardelli, L.: Tight bounds for selfish and greedy load balancing. In: Proceedings of the 33rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP ’06), LNCS 4051, Part I, pp. 311-322, 2006

    Google Scholar 

  16. Caragiannis, I., Kaklamanis, C., Kanellopoulos, P.: Taxes for linear atomic congestion games. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA ’06), LNCS 4168, pp. 184-195, 2006

    Google Scholar 

  17. Caragiannis, I., Kaklamanis, C., Kanellopoulos, P.: Improving the efficiency of load balancing games through taxes. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Internet and Network Economics (WINE ’08), LNCS 5385, pp. 374-385, 2008

    Google Scholar 

  18. Charikar, M., Mattieu, C., Karloff, H., Naor, J., Saks, M.: Best response dynamics in multicast cost sharing. In: Proceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA ’08), pp. 70-76, 2008

    Google Scholar 

  19. Chekuri, C., Chuzhoy, J., Lewin-Eytan, L., Naor, J., Orda, A.: Non-cooperative multicast and facility location games. In: Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce (EC ’06), ACM Press, pp. 72-81, 2006

    Google Scholar 

  20. Chen, H., Roughgarden, T., Valiant, G.: Designing networks with good equilibria. In: Proceedings of the 19th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA ’08), ACM Press, pp. 854-863, 2008

    Google Scholar 

  21. Christodoulou, G., Koutsoupias, E.: The price of anarchy of finite congestion games. In: Proceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC ’05), ACM Press, pp. 67-73, 2005

    Google Scholar 

  22. Christodoulou, G., Koutsoupias, E.: On the price of anarchy and stability of correlated equilibria of linear congestion games. In Proceedongs of the 13th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA ’05), LNCS 3669, pp. 59-70, 2005

    Google Scholar 

  23. Christodoulou, G., Koutsoupias, E., Nanavati, A.: Coordination mechanisms. In: Proceedings of the 31st Annual International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP ’04), LNCS 3142, pp. 345-357, 2004

    Google Scholar 

  24. Christodoulou, G., Mirrokni, V., Sidiropoulos, A.: Convergence and approximation in potential games. In: Proceedings of the 23rd Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS ’06), LNCS 3884, Springer, pp. 349-260, 2006

    Google Scholar 

  25. Cole, R., Dodis, Y., Roughgarden, T.: Pricing network edges for heterogeneous selfish users. In: Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC ’03), ACM Press, pp. 521-530, 2003

    Google Scholar 

  26. Fanelli, A., Flammini, M., Moscardelli, L.: On the convergence of multicast games in directed networks. In: Proceedings of the 19th Annual ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA ’07), ACM Press, pp. 330-338, 2007

    Google Scholar 

  27. Fanelli, A., Flammini, M., Moscardelli, L.: The speed of convergence in congestion games under best-response dynamics. In: Proceedings of the 35th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP ’08), LNCS 5125. Part I, pp. 796-807, 2008

    Google Scholar 

  28. Fiat, A., Kaplan, H., Levy, M., Olonetsky, S., Shabo, R.: On the price of stability for designing undirected networks with fair cost allocations. In: Proceedings of the 33rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP ’06), LNCS 4051, Part I, pp. 608-618, 2006

    Google Scholar 

  29. Fleischer, L., Jain, K., Mahdian, M.: Tolls for heterogeneous selfish users in multicommodity networks and generalized congestion games. In: Proceedings of the 45th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS ’04), IEEE Computer Society, pp. 277-285, 2004

    Google Scholar 

  30. Fotakis, D., Kontogiannis, S., Spirakis, P.: Selfish unsplittable flows. Theoretical Computer Science, 348(2-3): 226-239, 2005

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  31. Immorlica, N., Li, L., Mirrokni, V. S., Schulz, A.: Coordination mechanisms for selfish scheduling. In: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Internet and Network Economics (WINE ’05), LNCS 3828, pp. 55-69, 2005

    Google Scholar 

  32. Karakostas, G., Kolliopoulos, S.: Edge pricing of multicommodity networks for heterogeneous selfish users. In: Proceedings of the 45th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS ’04), IEEE Computer Society, pp. 268-276, 2004

    Google Scholar 

  33. Kleinberg, J.: The small-world phenomenon: an algorithm perspective. In: Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC ’00), ACM Press, pp. 163-170, 2000

    Google Scholar 

  34. Kleinberg, J.: Small-world phenomena and the dynamics of information. In: Proceedings of the 14th Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS ’01), pp. 431-438, 2001

    Google Scholar 

  35. Koutsoupias, E., Papadimitriou, C. H.: Worst-case Equilibria. In: Proceedings of the 16th Annual Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS ’99), LNCS 1653, pp. 404-413, 1999

    Google Scholar 

  36. Mirrokni, V. S., Vetta, A.: Convergence issues in competitive games. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (APPROX ’04), LNCS 3122, pp. 183-194, 2004

    Google Scholar 

  37. Monderer, D., Shapley, L. S.: Potential games. Games and Economic Behavior. 14:124-143, 1996

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  38. Nash, J.: Equilibrium points in n-person games. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, volume 36, pp. 48-49, 1950

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  39. Nisan, N., Roughgarden, T., Tardos, E., Vazirani, V. V.: Algorithmic game theory. Cambridge University Press, 2007

    Google Scholar 

  40. Pigou, A. C.: The economics of welfare. Macmillan, 1920

    Google Scholar 

  41. Rosenthal, R. W.: A class of games possessing pure-strategy Nash equilibria. International Journal of Game Theory, 2:65-67, 1973

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  42. Roughgarden, T.: Stackelberg scheduling strategies. SIAM Journal on Computing, 33(2): 332-350, 2004

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  43. Roughgarden, T.: On the severity of Braess’s Paradox: designing networks for selfish users is hard. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 72(5): 922-953, 2006

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  44. Roughgarden, T., Tardos, E.: How bad is selfish routing? Journal of the ACM, 49(2): 236-259, 2002

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  45. Shapley, L. S.: The value of n-person games. Contributions to the theory of games, pp. 31-40, Princeton University Press, 1953

    Google Scholar 

  46. Suri, S., Tóth, C., Zhou, Y.: Selfish load balancing and atomic congestion games. Algorithmica, 47(1): 79-96, 2007

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the European Union under the IST FET Integrated Project AEOLUS and EU COST action 293 – Graphs and Algorithms in Communication Networks (GRAAL) – and by a “Caratheodory” research grant from the University of Patras.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Salento, Provinciale Lecce-Arnesano, P.O. Box 193, 73100, Lecce, Italy

    Vittorio Bilò

  2. Computer Technology Institute & Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, 26500, Rio, Greece

    Ioannis Caragiannis & Christos Kaklamanis

  3. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, Via Vetoio, Loc. Coppito, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy

    Angelo Fanelli, Michele Flammini, Gianpiero Monaco & Luca Moscardelli

Authors
  1. Vittorio Bilò
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ioannis Caragiannis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Angelo Fanelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Michele Flammini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Christos Kaklamanis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Gianpiero Monaco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Luca Moscardelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Vittorio Bilò , Ioannis Caragiannis , Angelo Fanelli , Michele Flammini , Christos Kaklamanis , Gianpiero Monaco or Luca Moscardelli .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. LS II für Mathematik, RWTH Aachen, Templergraben 55, Aachen, 52056, Germany

    Arie Koster

  2. Depto. Matematica Aplicada IV, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, C. Jordi Girona 1-3, Barcelona, 08034, Spain

    Xavier Muñoz

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bilò, V. et al. (2009). Game-Theoretic Approaches to Optimization Problems in Communication Networks. In: Koster, A., Muñoz, X. (eds) Graphs and Algorithms in Communication Networks. Texts in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02250-0_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02250-0_9

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-02249-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-02250-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation