Basic Information

Course ID:

• CS 3150, CRN 35846

• Title: Game Theoretic Approach in Computer Science.

• (Advanced Topics in Design and Analysis of Algorithms)

• http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~utp/cs3150

Class Meetings: Tuesday and Thursday 2:30pm-3:50pm 6516 Sennott Square

Instructor: Patchrawat Uthaisombut

Prerequisite and Enrollment: Please contact the instructor.

Course Description:

With its exploding popularity, Internet has become a new computing medium.  Unlike traditional computing systems, which are built, operated, and used by single entities.  The Internet is built, operated, and used by diverse entities, which usually have conflicting interests.  Game theory is a subject in Economics that studies the behaviors of selfish and rational agents in competitive and cooperative environments.  In the past few years, ideas from game theory have been applied to problems arising in the Internet and other problems in computer sciences.

The purpose of this course is to explore the interaction between concepts from economics and computer sciences and their applications to the Internet and other areas.  The concepts and mathematical techniques in the interface between computer science and game theory will be covered.  Their applications to problems arising in the context of the Internet and other problems in Computer Science will be explored.  In the fist few weeks of the course, the instructor will give lectures on Game Theory and other background knowledge.  After that, we will read 2-3 papers per week.  A tentative list of topics is shown below.  Topics can be added and tailored depending on the students' interests.  A list of papers are provided on the course web page.

• Introduction to game theory
• Nash equilibrium and other equilibria
• Mechanism design
• Multicast pricing
• Routing and congestion control
• Worst-case equilibria and "the price of anarchy"
• Combinatorial auctions
• Games played by automata and bounded rationality
• Evolutionary game theory and repeated games
• Fairness in cooperative games

Course Requirements:

• Each student will present at least 3 papers during the semester.  The presentations should be at least 30 minutes long (15-20 slides).  A good presentation should lead the class discussion, pose questions, identify important ideas, and critically analyze the paper.  In addition, you must prepare a short summary of the paper (1-2 paragraphs).  The summary and the slides must be emailed to the instructor at least one day before your presentation. You will not receive credit for the presentation if you do not submit the slides and summary.
• Each student is expected to critically read every paper to be presented in the class and to participate in all class discussions.   Participations includes giving new ideas, answering questions, asking questions, making comments, giving alternate explanations of ideas, giving informative examples, etc.  In addition, you must prepare at least 3 questions about the paper and email them to the instructor at least one day before the class discussion.  You will not receive credit for your class participation if you do not submit the questions.
• Each student has an option to do a project and give fewer presentations.  The projects could be any theoretical or experimental research work.  The students are encourage to take this option.  If you are interested, please see the instructor.

Grading:

• There are 2 tracks
  • presentations only
    • 55% presentations
    • 35% discussion
    • 10% homework
  • presentations and a project
    • 30% presentations (fewer presentations)
    • 35% discussion
    • 10% homework
    • 25% project

Office Hours:

• Place: 5325 Sennott Square

• Time:

  • Monday 1:00pm - 3:00pm

  • Thursday 11:00am - 12:00noon and 1:00pm - 2:00pm.

  • and by appointments

• email:

• web: http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~utp

• phone: 412-624-8416