On the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuations

We consider incentive compatible mechanisms for a domain that is very close to the domain of scheduling n unrelated machines: the single exception is that the valuation of just one machine is submodular. For the scheduling problem with such cost functions, we give a lower bound of Ω(√n) on the appro...

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المؤلفون الرئيسيون: Christodoulou, G, Koutsoupias, E, Kovács, A
التنسيق: Journal article
اللغة:English
منشور في: Association for Computing Machinery 2020
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author Christodoulou, G
Koutsoupias, E
Kovács, A
author_facet Christodoulou, G
Koutsoupias, E
Kovács, A
author_sort Christodoulou, G
collection OXFORD
description We consider incentive compatible mechanisms for a domain that is very close to the domain of scheduling n unrelated machines: the single exception is that the valuation of just one machine is submodular. For the scheduling problem with such cost functions, we give a lower bound of Ω(√n) on the approximation ratio of incentive compatible deterministic mechanisms. This is a strong information-theoretic impossibility result on the approximation ratio of mechanisms that provides strong evidence for the Nisan-Ronen conjecture. This is the first non-constant lower bound that assumes no restriction on the mechanism side; in contrast, all previous general results hold for only special classes of mechanisms such as local, strongly monotone, and anonymous mechanisms. Our approach is based on a novel multi-player characterization of appropriately selected instances that allows us to focus on particular type of algorithms, linear mechanisms, and it is a potential stepping stone towards the full resolution of the conjecture.
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spelling oxford-uuid:bf9bab61-a102-4786-bb98-da16db3da1962022-03-27T05:48:39ZOn the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuationsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:bf9bab61-a102-4786-bb98-da16db3da196EnglishSymplectic ElementsAssociation for Computing Machinery2020Christodoulou, GKoutsoupias, EKovács, AWe consider incentive compatible mechanisms for a domain that is very close to the domain of scheduling n unrelated machines: the single exception is that the valuation of just one machine is submodular. For the scheduling problem with such cost functions, we give a lower bound of Ω(√n) on the approximation ratio of incentive compatible deterministic mechanisms. This is a strong information-theoretic impossibility result on the approximation ratio of mechanisms that provides strong evidence for the Nisan-Ronen conjecture. This is the first non-constant lower bound that assumes no restriction on the mechanism side; in contrast, all previous general results hold for only special classes of mechanisms such as local, strongly monotone, and anonymous mechanisms. Our approach is based on a novel multi-player characterization of appropriately selected instances that allows us to focus on particular type of algorithms, linear mechanisms, and it is a potential stepping stone towards the full resolution of the conjecture.
spellingShingle Christodoulou, G
Koutsoupias, E
Kovács, A
On the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuations
title On the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuations
title_full On the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuations
title_fullStr On the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuations
title_full_unstemmed On the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuations
title_short On the Nisan-Ronen conjecture for submodular valuations
title_sort on the nisan ronen conjecture for submodular valuations
work_keys_str_mv AT christodouloug onthenisanronenconjectureforsubmodularvaluations
AT koutsoupiase onthenisanronenconjectureforsubmodularvaluations
AT kovacsa onthenisanronenconjectureforsubmodularvaluations