A Generalized Voting Game for Categorical Network Choices

This paper presents a game-theoretical framework for data classification and network discovery, focusing on pairwise influences in multivariate choices. The framework consists of two complementary games in which individuals, connected through a signed weighted graph, exhibit network similarity. A voting rule captures the influence of an individual’s neighbors, categorized as attractive (friend-like) or repulsive (enemy-like), … Read more

A Branch-and-Price-and-Cut Algorithm for Discrete Network Design Problems Under Traffic Equilibrium

This study addresses discrete network design problems under traffic equilibrium conditions or DNDPs. Given a network and a budget, DNDPs aim to model all-or-nothing decisions such as link addition to minimize network congestion effects. Congestion is measured using traffic equilibrium theory where link travel times are modeled as convex flow-dependent functions and where users make … Read more

A Jamming Game for Fleets of Mobile Vehicles

We consider a two-player Nash game in which each player represents a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles. Each fleet is supposed to distribute information among fleet members, while simultaneously trying to prevent the opposite fleet from achieving this. Using the electro-magnetic spectrum’s properties, we model each fleet’s task as a nonlinear Nash game. By reformulating … Read more

On the Complexity of Finding Locally Optimal Solutions in Bilevel Linear Optimization

We consider the theoretical computational complexity of finding locally optimal solutions to bilevel linear optimization problems (BLPs), from the leader’s perspective. We show that, for any constant \(c > 0\), the problem of finding a leader’s solution that is within Euclidean distance \(c^n\) of any locally optimal leader’s solution, where \(n\) is the total number … Read more

Time-dependent Stackelberg Protection Location Games

We study a Stackelberg game in which a government positions rapid response teams and thereafter a terrorist attacks a location on a line segment. We assume the damage associated to such an attack to be time dependent. We show that there exists a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium that balances the possible damage on all intervals … Read more

Stackelberg Games with k-Submodular Function under Distributional Risk-Receptiveness and Robustness

We study submodular optimization in adversarial context, applicable to machine learning problems such as feature selection using data susceptible to uncertainties and attacks. We focus on Stackelberg games between an attacker (or interdictor) and a defender where the attacker aims to minimize the defender’s objective of maximizing a k-submodular function. We allow uncertainties arising from … Read more

Scheduling Bodyguards

Security agencies throughout the world use bodyguards to protect government officials and public figures. In this paper, we consider a two-person zero-sum game between a defender who allocates such bodyguards to protect several targets and an attacker who chooses one target to attack. Because the number of feasible bodyguard allocations grows quickly as either the … Read more

Fast convergence of the primal-dual dynamical system and algorithms for a nonsmooth bilinearly coupled saddle point problem

This paper is devoted to study the convergence rates of a second-order dynamical system and its corresponding discretizations associated with a nonsmooth bilinearly coupled convex-concave saddle point problem. We derive the convergence rate of the primal-dual gap for the second-order dynamical system with asymptotically vanishing damping term. Based on the implicit discretization, we propose a … Read more

A Jacobi-type Newton method for Nash equilibrium problems with descent guarantees

A common strategy for solving an unconstrained two-player Nash equilibrium problem with continuous variables is applying Newton’s method to the system obtained by the corresponding first-order necessary optimality conditions. However, when taking into account the game dynamics, it is not clear what is the goal of each player when considering they are taking their current … Read more

Solution methods for partial inverse combinatorial optimization problems in which weights can only be increased

Partial inverse combinatorial optimization problems are bilevel optimization problems in which the leader aims to incentivize the follower to include a given set of elements in the solution of their combinatorial problem. If the set of required elements defines a complete follower solution, the inverse combinatorial problem is solvable in polynomial time as soon as … Read more