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A Distributed Algorithm for Optimising over Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria

A Distributed Algorithm for Optimising over Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria
A Distributed Algorithm for Optimising over Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria
We develop an efficient algorithm for computing pure strategy Nash equilibria that satisfy various criteria (such as the utilitarian or Nash--Bernoulli social welfare functions) in games with sparse interaction structure. Our algorithm, called Valued Nash Propagation (VNP), integrates the optimisation problem of maximising a criterion with the constraint satisfaction problem of finding a game's equilibria to construct a criterion that defines a c-semiring. Given a suitably compact game structure, this criterion can be efficiently optimised using message-passing. To this end, we first show that VNP is complete in games whose interaction structure forms a hypertree. Then, we go on to provide theoretic and empirical results justifying its use on games with arbitrary structure; in particular, we show that it computes the optimum >82% of the time and otherwise selects an equilibrium that is always within 2% of the optimum on average.
Game theory, distributed optimisation
749-755
Chapman, Archie
2eac6920-2aff-49ab-8d8e-a0ea3e39ba60
Farinelli, Alessandro
d2f26070-f403-4cae-b712-7097cb2e3fc6
Munoz De Cote Flores Luna, Jose Enrique
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Rogers, Alex
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Jennings, Nicholas R.
ab3d94cc-247c-4545-9d1e-65873d6cdb30
Chapman, Archie
2eac6920-2aff-49ab-8d8e-a0ea3e39ba60
Farinelli, Alessandro
d2f26070-f403-4cae-b712-7097cb2e3fc6
Munoz De Cote Flores Luna, Jose Enrique
afb4bdd8-8511-4961-a639-15521220a213
Rogers, Alex
f9130bc6-da32-474e-9fab-6c6cb8077fdc
Jennings, Nicholas R.
ab3d94cc-247c-4545-9d1e-65873d6cdb30

Chapman, Archie, Farinelli, Alessandro, Munoz De Cote Flores Luna, Jose Enrique, Rogers, Alex and Jennings, Nicholas R. (2010) A Distributed Algorithm for Optimising over Pure Strategy Nash Equilibria. Twenty-Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Atlanta, USA, Georgia. 11 - 15 Jul 2010. pp. 749-755 .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

We develop an efficient algorithm for computing pure strategy Nash equilibria that satisfy various criteria (such as the utilitarian or Nash--Bernoulli social welfare functions) in games with sparse interaction structure. Our algorithm, called Valued Nash Propagation (VNP), integrates the optimisation problem of maximising a criterion with the constraint satisfaction problem of finding a game's equilibria to construct a criterion that defines a c-semiring. Given a suitably compact game structure, this criterion can be efficiently optimised using message-passing. To this end, we first show that VNP is complete in games whose interaction structure forms a hypertree. Then, we go on to provide theoretic and empirical results justifying its use on games with arbitrary structure; in particular, we show that it computes the optimum >82% of the time and otherwise selects an equilibrium that is always within 2% of the optimum on average.

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More information

Published date: July 2010
Additional Information: Event Dates: 11 - 15 July, 2010
Venue - Dates: Twenty-Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Atlanta, USA, Georgia, 2010-07-11 - 2010-07-15
Keywords: Game theory, distributed optimisation
Organisations: Agents, Interactions & Complexity

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 270818
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/270818
PURE UUID: 5bd31b00-e026-4172-8c80-451277d328fe

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Date deposited: 09 Apr 2010 14:15
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 09:17

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Contributors

Author: Archie Chapman
Author: Alessandro Farinelli
Author: Jose Enrique Munoz De Cote Flores Luna
Author: Alex Rogers
Author: Nicholas R. Jennings

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