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Documents authored by Giannakopoulos, Yiannis

Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.72
On the Smoothed Complexity of Combinatorial Local Search

Authors: Yiannis Giannakopoulos, Alexander Grosz, and Themistoklis Melissourgos

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 297, 51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024)

Abstract
We propose a unifying framework for smoothed analysis of combinatorial local optimization problems, and show how a diverse selection of problems within the complexity class PLS can be cast within this model. This abstraction allows us to identify key structural properties, and corresponding parameters, that determine the smoothed running time of local search dynamics. We formalize this via a black-box tool that provides concrete bounds on the expected maximum number of steps needed until local search reaches an exact local optimum. This bound is particularly strong, in the sense that it holds for any starting feasible solution, any choice of pivoting rule, and does not rely on the choice of specific noise distributions that are applied on the input, but it is parameterized by just a global upper bound ϕ on the probability density. The power of this tool can be demonstrated by instantiating it for various PLS-hard problems of interest to derive efficient smoothed running times (as a function of ϕ and the input size). Most notably, we focus on the important local optimization problem of finding pure Nash equilibria in Congestion Games, that has not been studied before from a smoothed analysis perspective. Specifically, we propose novel smoothed analysis models for general and Network Congestion Games, under various representations, including explicit, step-function, and polynomial resource latencies. We study PLS-hard instances of these problems and show that their standard local search algorithms run in polynomial smoothed time. Further applications of our framework to a wide range of additional combinatorial problems can be found in the full version of our paper.
Cite as

Yiannis Giannakopoulos, Alexander Grosz, and Themistoklis Melissourgos. On the Smoothed Complexity of Combinatorial Local Search. In 51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 297, pp. 72:1-72:19, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{giannakopoulos_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.72,
  author =	{Giannakopoulos, Yiannis and Grosz, Alexander and Melissourgos, Themistoklis},
  title =	{{On the Smoothed Complexity of Combinatorial Local Search}},
  booktitle =	{51st International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2024)},
  pages =	{72:1--72:19},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-322-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{297},
  editor =	{Bringmann, Karl and Grohe, Martin and Puppis, Gabriele and Svensson, Ola},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.72},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-202154},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2024.72},
  annote =	{Keywords: Smoothed Analysis, local search, better-response dynamics, PLS-hardness, combinatorial local optimization, congestion games, pure Nash equilibria}
}
Document
Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.32
Existence and Complexity of Approximate Equilibria in Weighted Congestion Games

Authors: George Christodoulou, Martin Gairing, Yiannis Giannakopoulos, Diogo Poças, and Clara Waldmann

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 168, 47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2020)

Abstract
We study the existence of approximate pure Nash equilibria (α-PNE) in weighted atomic congestion games with polynomial cost functions of maximum degree d. Previously it was known that d-approximate equilibria always exist, while nonexistence was established only for small constants, namely for 1.153-PNE. We improve significantly upon this gap, proving that such games in general do not have Θ̃(√d)-approximate PNE, which provides the first super-constant lower bound. Furthermore, we provide a black-box gap-introducing method of combining such nonexistence results with a specific circuit gadget, in order to derive NP-completeness of the decision version of the problem. In particular, deploying this technique we are able to show that deciding whether a weighted congestion game has an Õ(√d)-PNE is NP-complete. Previous hardness results were known only for the special case of exact equilibria and arbitrary cost functions. The circuit gadget is of independent interest and it allows us to also prove hardness for a variety of problems related to the complexity of PNE in congestion games. For example, we demonstrate that the question of existence of α-PNE in which a certain set of players plays a specific strategy profile is NP-hard for any α < 3^(d/2), even for unweighted congestion games. Finally, we study the existence of approximate equilibria in weighted congestion games with general (nondecreasing) costs, as a function of the number of players n. We show that n-PNE always exist, matched by an almost tight nonexistence bound of Θ̃(n) which we can again transform into an NP-completeness proof for the decision problem.
Cite as

George Christodoulou, Martin Gairing, Yiannis Giannakopoulos, Diogo Poças, and Clara Waldmann. Existence and Complexity of Approximate Equilibria in Weighted Congestion Games. In 47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 168, pp. 32:1-32:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

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@InProceedings{christodoulou_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.32,
  author =	{Christodoulou, George and Gairing, Martin and Giannakopoulos, Yiannis and Po\c{c}as, Diogo and Waldmann, Clara},
  title =	{{Existence and Complexity of Approximate Equilibria in Weighted Congestion Games}},
  booktitle =	{47th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2020)},
  pages =	{32:1--32:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-138-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{168},
  editor =	{Czumaj, Artur and Dawar, Anuj and Merelli, Emanuela},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.32},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-124392},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2020.32},
  annote =	{Keywords: Atomic congestion games, existence of equilibria, pure Nash equilibria, approximate equilibria, hardness of equilibria}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.150
The Price of Stability of Weighted Congestion Games

Authors: George Christodoulou, Martin Gairing, Yiannis Giannakopoulos, and Paul G. Spirakis

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 107, 45th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2018)

Abstract
We give exponential lower bounds on the Price of Stability (PoS) of weighted congestion games with polynomial cost functions. In particular, for any positive integer d we construct rather simple games with cost functions of degree at most d which have a PoS of at least Omega(Phi_d)^{d+1}, where Phi_d ~ d/ln d is the unique positive root of equation x^{d+1}=(x+1)^d. This essentially closes the huge gap between Theta(d) and Phi_d^{d+1} and asymptotically matches the Price of Anarchy upper bound. We further show that the PoS remains exponential even for singleton games. More generally, we also provide a lower bound of Omega((1+1/alpha)^d/d) on the PoS of alpha-approximate Nash equilibria, even for singleton games. All our lower bounds extend to network congestion games, and hold for mixed and correlated equilibria as well. On the positive side, we give a general upper bound on the PoS of alpha-approximate Nash equilibria, which is sensitive to the range W of the player weights and the approximation parameter alpha. We do this by explicitly constructing a novel approximate potential function, based on Faulhaber's formula, that generalizes Rosenthal's potential in a continuous, analytic way. From the general theorem, we deduce two interesting corollaries. First, we derive the existence of an approximate pure Nash equilibrium with PoS at most (d+3)/2; the equilibrium's approximation parameter ranges from Theta(1) to d+1 in a smooth way with respect to W. Secondly, we show that for unweighted congestion games, the PoS of alpha-approximate Nash equilibria is at most (d+1)/alpha.
Cite as

George Christodoulou, Martin Gairing, Yiannis Giannakopoulos, and Paul G. Spirakis. The Price of Stability of Weighted Congestion Games. In 45th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 107, pp. 150:1-150:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018)

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@InProceedings{christodoulou_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.150,
  author =	{Christodoulou, George and Gairing, Martin and Giannakopoulos, Yiannis and Spirakis, Paul G.},
  title =	{{The Price of Stability of Weighted Congestion Games}},
  booktitle =	{45th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2018)},
  pages =	{150:1--150:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-076-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2018},
  volume =	{107},
  editor =	{Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Kaklamanis, Christos and Marx, D\'{a}niel and Sannella, Donald},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.150},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-91541},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2018.150},
  annote =	{Keywords: Congestion games, price of stability, Nash equilibrium, approximate equilibrium, potential games}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.47
Online Market Intermediation

Authors: Yiannis Giannakopoulos, Elias Koutsoupias, and Philip Lazos

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 80, 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)

Abstract
We study a dynamic market setting where an intermediary interacts with an unknown large sequence of agents that can be either sellers or buyers: their identities, as well as the sequence length n, are decided in an adversarial, online way. Each agent is interested in trading a single item, and all items in the market are identical. The intermediary has some prior, incomplete knowledge of the agents' values for the items: all seller values are independently drawn from the same distribution F_S, and all buyer values from F_B. The two distributions may differ, and we make common regularity assumptions, namely that F_B is MHR and F_S is log-concave. We focus on online, posted-price mechanisms, and analyse two objectives: that of maximizing the intermediary's profit and that of maximizing the social welfare, under a competitive analysis benchmark. First, on the negative side, for general agent sequences we prove tight competitive ratios of Theta(\sqrt(n)) and Theta(\ln n), respectively for the two objectives. On the other hand, under the extra assumption that the intermediary knows some bound \alpha on the ratio between the number of sellers and buyers, we design asymptotically optimal online mechanisms with competitive ratios of 1+o(1) and 4, respectively. Additionally, we study the model where the number of items that can be stored in stock throughout the execution is bounded, in which case the competitive ratio for the profit is improved to O(ln n).
Cite as

Yiannis Giannakopoulos, Elias Koutsoupias, and Philip Lazos. Online Market Intermediation. In 44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 80, pp. 47:1-47:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)

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@InProceedings{giannakopoulos_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.47,
  author =	{Giannakopoulos, Yiannis and Koutsoupias, Elias and Lazos, Philip},
  title =	{{Online Market Intermediation}},
  booktitle =	{44th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2017)},
  pages =	{47:1--47:14},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-041-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{80},
  editor =	{Chatzigiannakis, Ioannis and Indyk, Piotr and Kuhn, Fabian and Muscholl, Anca},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.47},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-74815},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2017.47},
  annote =	{Keywords: optimal auctions, bilateral trade, sequential auctions, online algorithms, competitive analysis}
}
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