12 February 2010, Computational Social Choice Seminar, Stéphane Airiau

Abstract

In this talk I will present recent work on multiagent resource allocation with indivisible, but sharable resources. In our model, the utility of an agent for using a bundle of resources is the difference between the valuation of that bundle and a congestion cost (or delay), a figure formed by adding up the individual congestion costs of each resource in the bundle. The valuation and the delay can be agent-dependent. When the agents that share a resource also share the resource's control, the current users of a resource will require some compensation when a new agent wants to use the resource. I will discuss two problems that arise in the context of this model: the design of simple negotiation protocols that guarantee convergence to a social optimum in case agents share control of the resources, and the existence of pure Nash equilibria in case there is no joint control. This is joint work with Ulle Endriss.

For more information, see http://www.illc.uva.nl/~ulle/seminar/ or contact Ulle Endriss (ulle.endriss at uva.nl).