Game Theory and epidemics
Predicting how people behave during epidemics is crucial for disease control and containment. In order to effectively do this, sometimes the relevant authorities do not reveal all of the information to the public. The article linked shows how we can use game theory to predict people’s behavior in an epidemic. As the article notes, people’s […]
Refurbishing Metros, Nash Equilibrium, and Braess’ Paradox
Two of the east coasts’ largest metropolises will soon be needing a few network scientists. New York City and Washington D.C. are both entering into major periods of traffic disruption and rerouting as they push to modernize their metro systems. The work has planners in both cities trying to find out the best way to […]
Bullying in Social Networks
Many of the examples of social networks contain neutral or positive relationships. For example, ties representing a co-authorship of two scientists is a fairly neutral relationship, while ties representing facebook friendships are positive. It seems as though not as much attention is given to negative relationships. Some examples that we might be interested in include […]
To seed or not to seed? The torrenter’s dilemma
Many of us are familiar with “torrenting.” Torrenting in our everyday usage means to download a file (movie, music, games…) from online by using a torrenting application such as utorrent. In a wider sense, torrents can be categorized as “ad hoc networks.” Ad hoc (meaning “for this” in latin) networks are different from the networking […]
MIT’s Media Lab – Changing Places project
MIT’s Changing Places project, part of the Media Lab, ventures to find new strategies for city planners to afford the quickest and most efficient ways of moving people and objects through an urban environment. Changing Places obtains large amounts of data from sources such as censuses to identify walkways and roads which are more crowded […]
Game Theory vs Psychology
Recently in class, we learned about a fundamental concept in game theory known as Nash equilibrium, which essentially refers to when the decisions of the players of a game are such that there is no impetus for anyone to change their strategy because he/she would not be able to benefit. There are many games where […]
Reject Unequal Pay: Payoffs as relative quantities
Links: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/172653.pdf In the video shown above, two monkeys, side by side, are asked to perform the same task. As a reward for completing said task one is given a cucumber and the other a grape. When the first monkey is given a cucumber as a result of completing the task, he eats it, satisfied […]
Game Theory in World War 2
Game Theory is used around us from financial markets to board game strategy. It provides us with the means of quantifying decisions and their outcomes as well as justifying those decisions. Although the game theory that we have looked at so far in class have revolved around harmless hypothetical situations, game theory has been heavily […]
Dividend Signaling: Non-Cooperative Game Theory
In all public companies, the manager of the firm, whether it be the Board of Directors, or a sole CEO of the company must define and determine its dividend policy. There are two methods managers can return value back to their shareholders: by buying back shares or distributing dividends, each with different tax policies and […]
Rock Paper Scissors – How Social Networks Can Affects Mixed Strategies
It’s almost impossible to grow up in the United States without, at some point or another, playing the game “Rock Paper Scissors”. Its simplicity and elegance is matched only by its ubiquity on the playground. This children’s game proves to be a great window into game theory, as a game with no pure Nash equilibrium. […]
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