Plenary Speakers
Saturday, 16 April 2011, 9:30am-10:30am
Title: Some Challenges in the Application of Game Theory
Prof. Nimrod Megiddo
IBM Research, Almaden, USA
Biography:
Nimrod Megiddo is a research scientist at IBM Almaden Research Center. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Mathematics, all from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He has held numerous academic positions including as a Professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Tel Aviv University, and visiting positions at UIUC, Stanford University, Northwestern University, MSRI, Berkeley, CMU, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He has published over 100 papers in well known journals in the areas of game theory, mathematical programming and machine learning, and has won numerous awards including the Lanchester Prize from INFORMS in 1992, the Pat Goldberg Memorial Best paper award in 2003 and 2005, IBM Outstanding Innovation Awards in 1992, 1995 and 2004. He is a Fellow of INFORMS and has served as an editor of numerous journals including Math. of Operations Research, Discrete Optimization, J. of the ACM, Games and Economic Behavior and SIAM J. on Discrete Mathematics. He also holds 46 patents.
Abstract:
The challenges discussed in this talk stem from the difficulty of forming preferences over material outcomes of interactions where the decisions of players give rise to various feelings and emotions. Other challenges are related the complexity of reasoning.
Sunday, 17 April 2011, 11:15am-12:15pm
Title: Game Dynamics and Equilibria
Prof. Sergiu Hart
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Biography:
Sergiu Hart is the Kusiel-Vorreuter University Professor, Professor of Mathematics, and Professor of Economics, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His previous academic appointments were at Stanford University, Tel Aviv University, and Harvard University. From 1991 to 1998 Sergiu Hart was the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Rationality, a world-leading multidisciplinary research center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; he is currently the Chair of its Academic Committee.
Sergiu Hart was elected Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1985, and Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2006. In 1998 he received the Rothschild Prize. He was selected to deliver the Cowles Lecture at Yale University in 2000, the Walras-Bowley Lecture of the Econometric Society in 2003, and the Harris Lecture at Harvard University in 2009. Sergiu Hart has served as the President of the Israel Mathematical Union in 2005-2006, and as President of the Game Theory Society in 2008-2010.
The main area of research of Sergiu Hart is game theory and economic theory, with additional contributions in mathematics, computer science, probability and statistics.
Abstract:
An overview of a body of work on dynamical systems in multi-player environments. On the one hand, the natural informational restriction that each participant does not know the payoff functions of the other participants -- "uncoupledness" -- severely limits the possibilities to converge to Nash equilibria. On the other hand, there are simple adaptive heuristics -- such as "regret matching" -- that lead in the long run to correlated equilibria, a concept that embodies full rationality. Connections to behavioral economics, neurobiological studies, and engineering, are also mentioned.
Monday, 18 April 2011, 2:00pm-3:00pm
Title: Incentive Dynamics of Interdependent Network Security
Prof. John Chuang
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Biography:
John Chuang is a Professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. His research interests are in economics of network architectures, economics of information security, incentives for peer-to-peer systems, and ICT for development. The Chuang Sirbu Scaling Law is named for his work on scaling properties of multicast trees.
He received his Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and graduated summa cum laude in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
Prof. Chuang is co-founder of BoxBabble, an ingredient-based search tool serving consumers with food allergies and sensitivities. He designed the registerfile and the chip logo for the MIPS R10000 microprocessor, now in the collection of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute.
Abstract:
This talk will explore the incentive dynamics of interdependent network security, covering strategic tradeoffs between protection-based and insurance-based risk mitigation alternatives, the role of experts and intermediaries, and the scalability of game models for Internet-scale security threats.