Dynamic Policies for Cooperative Networked Systems

TL;DR

This paper develops a dynamic model for resource exchange and production policies in cooperative networked systems, addressing sustainability, feasibility, and incentive compatibility under diverse conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel dynamic scheduling and exchange framework that ensures sustainability and incentive compatibility without prior knowledge of entities' needs.

Findings

Proposes conditions for sustainable cooperation.

Designs online policies for resource exchange feasibility.

Develops production policies maximizing economic sustainability.

Abstract

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.