Title:
Axiomatic and Economic Design of Algorithm Competitions
Speaker:
Karl Lieberherr,
College of Computer and Information Science, Northeastern University, Boston, USA.
Abstract
Algorithm competitions are economic systems to push
the state-of-the-art of solving a computational problem.
TopCoder and similar platforms are prominent examples.
Our new competition design is desirable from two viewpoints.
(1) We minimize the effort on the competition administration
by distributing the work of evaluation among participants
while avoiding unfair evaluation.
(2) We minimize collusion so that the strong participants
cannot be outnumbered by colluding participants.
Our design is axiomatic in that we formulate
axioms (including a collusion-resistant axiom)
for ranking functions and prove a representation
theorem. It shows that all ranking functions satisfying
the axioms must have an elegant property useful for
collusion-resistant mechanism design.
Our design approach introduces a new class of games,
called side-choosing games, a generalization of
semantic games, a well-studied area in logic.
In addition to algorithm competitions, our system and
its theoretical foundation is also
useful to pushing the state-of-the-art in formal sciences
and in education in formal sciences. Indeed, the system was
developed in the context of education (Algorithms and Software Development Courses) to facilitate fair
peer grading and focused communication among students.
Short Bio of Speaker:
Karl Lieberherr
is a Professor in the College of Computer and
Information Science at Northeastern University.
He has contributed to
Algorithms (P-optimal Algorithms, Clause Learning for Satisfiability)
and
Modular Software Design (Law of Demeter and several systems
for Adaptive Programming, a kind of Aspect-Oriented Programming).
His latest interest is in systems and their foundations for
Human Computation for complex tasks, e.g., algorithm development.
Date, Time and Place
June 30, 2014, ?, ?
Host
Prof. Dr. Dirk Riehle