Eitan Altman - Böcker

This book provides a unified approach for the study of constrained Markov decision processes with a finite state space and unbounded costs. Unlike the single controller case considered in many other books, the author considers a single controller with several objectives, such as minimizing delays and loss, probabilities, and maximization of throughputs. It is desirable to design a controller that minimizes one cost objective, subject to inequality constraints on other cost objectives. This framework describes dynamic decision problems arising frequently in many engineering fields. A thorough overview of these applications is presented in the introduction.The book is then divided into three sections that build upon each other.The first part explains the theory for the finite state space. The author characterizes the set of achievable expected occupation measures as well as performance vectors, and identifies simple classes of policies among which optimal policies exist. This allows the reduction of the original dynamic into a linear program. A Lagranian approach is then used to derive the dual linear program using dynamic programming techniques.In the second part, these results are extended to the infinite state space and action spaces. The author provides two frameworks: the case where costs are bounded below and the contracting framework.The third part builds upon the results of the first two parts and examines asymptotical results of the convergence of both the value and the policies in the time horizon and in the discount factor. Finally, several state truncation algorithms that enable the approximation of the solution of the original control problem via finite linear programs are given.

This book provides a state-of-the-art overview on the dynamics and coevolution in multi-level strategic interaction games. As such it summarizes the results of the European CONGAS project, which developed new mathematical models and tools for the analysis, prediction and control of dynamical processes in systems possessing a rich multi-level structure and a web of interwoven interactions among elements with autonomous decision-making capabilities. The framework is built around game theoretical concepts, in particular evolutionary and multi-resolution games, and includes also techniques drawn from graph theory, statistical mechanics, control and optimization theory. Specific attention is devoted to systems that are prone to intermittency and catastrophic events due to the effect of collective dynamics.

This book provides a state-of-the-art overview on the dynamics and coevolution in multi-level strategic interaction games. As such it summarizes the results of the European CONGAS project, which developed new mathematical models and tools for the analysis, prediction and control of dynamical processes in systems possessing a rich multi-level structure and a web of interwoven interactions among elements with autonomous decision-making capabilities. The framework is built around game theoretical concepts, in particular evolutionary and multi-resolution games, and includes also techniques drawn from graph theory, statistical mechanics, control and optimization theory. Specific attention is devoted to systems that are prone to intermittency and catastrophic events due to the effect of collective dynamics.

Table of Contents: Introduction / NS-2 Simulator Preliminaries / How to work with trace files / Description and simulation of TCP/IP / Routing and network dynamics / RED: Random Early Discard / Differentiated Services / Mobile Networks and Wireless Local Area Networks / Classical queueing models / Tcl and C++ linkage

Opening new directions in research in both discrete event dynamic systems as well as in stochastic control, this volume focuses on a wide class of control and of optimization problems over sequences of integer numbers. This is a counterpart of convex optimization in the setting of discrete optimization. The theory developed is applied to the control of stochastic discrete-event dynamic systems. Some applications are admission, routing, service allocation and vacation control in queuing networks. Pure and applied mathematicians will enjoy reading the book since it brings together many disciplines in mathematics: combinatorics, stochastic processes, stochastic control and optimization, discrete event dynamic systems, algebra.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second Euro-NF International Conference, NET-COOP 2008 held in Paris, France, in September 2008. The 13 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 27 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on economics and peer-to-peer networks; routing and measurements; scheduling; tcp and congestion control; as well as wireless networks.

This volume of LNICST is a collection of the papers of the 4th International Conference on Bio-Inspired Models of Network, Information, and Computing Systems (Bionetics). The event took place in the medieval city of Avignon, known also as the City of the Popes, during December 9 to 11, 2009. Bionetics main objective is to bring b- inspired paradigms into computer engineereing and networking, and to enhance the fruitful interactions between these fields and biology. The program of the conference indeed includes applications of various paradigms that have their origin in biology: population dynamics, branching processes, ant c- ony optimization. The proceedings include 19 papers covering a broad range of - portant issues in areas related to bio-inspired technologies. They correspond to pr- entations at 6 technical sessions. Four papers correspond to an invited session on the Epidemic-type forwarding in DTNs (sparse mobile ad-hoc wireless networks) org- ized by Dr Francesco De Pellegrini, (Italy, CREATE-NET). The following 9 papers (selected out of 15 submissions) correspond to contributions to regular sessions on Bio-inspired security, Bio-Inspired Networking, Bioinspired algorithms and software systems. The remaining 6 papers (selected out of a total of 9 submissions) are de- cated to work in progress. For each paper, we have provided at least two independent reviews, most of which were offered by members of the TPC.