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  • Oct
    1

    Pure Nash Equilibria in Structured Congestion Games

    Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)

    11:00 AM Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center

    EVENT DETAILS

    Abstract: Congestion games are a class of non-cooperative games that can be used to model resource sharing among selfish players. A prominent solution concept for these games is that of pure Nash equilibrium (PNE), a strategy profile where no player has incentive to unilaterally deviate. In this talk I will address two central questions. The first question is: which structures allow us to design a polynomial-time algorithm for the computation of a PNE? The second question is: which structures can limit the inefficiency of pure Nash equilibria? To answer the first question, I will present a polyhedral approach that can be leveraged to design a strongly polynomial-time algorithm to compute a PNE in symmetric totally unimodular (TU) congestion games, where the players’ strategies are binary vectors inside polyhedra defined by TU constraint matrices. In relation to the second question, I will consider different measures of social cost and quantify equilibria inefficiency through the notion of pure Price of Anarchy (PoA). I will present bounds on the PoA for two main structured congestion games: congestion games defined over series-parallel networks and congestion games defined over paving matroids. This is a joint work with Bainian Hao.

    BIO: Carla Michini is an assistant professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at UW-Madison since Fall 2018. Prior to that, she held postdoctoral positions at UW-Madison and ETH Zürich and she was a visiting researcher at CMU. She obtained her PhD in Operations Research at Sapienza University of Rome. Carla's research is motivated by the practical relevance of combinatorial optimization and integer programming in real-world problems. The core of her research approach consists in identifying and exploiting the polyhedral structure of various combinatorial problems to design efficient algorithms for their solution. Currently, her main goal is to leverage this approach beyond optimization, particularly in game theory and machine learning.

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    TIME Tuesday, October 1, 2024 at 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM

    LOCATION Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center    map it

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    CONTACT Nathan Keiller    nathan.keiller@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)

  • Sep
    8

    Welcome & Breakfast for New McCormick PhD Students

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    9:00 AM LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, September 8, 2025 at 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

    LOCATION LR2 & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Sep
    12

    New Undergraduate Fall 2025 Registration

    University Academic Calendar

    All Day

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Friday, September 12, 2025

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    CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR University Academic Calendar

  • Sep
    15

    Welcome & Luncheon for New Full-time Graduate Students

    McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

    11:00 AM Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, September 15, 2025 at 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

    LOCATION Ryan Auditorium & Tech East Plaza, Technological Institute    map it

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    CONTACT Andi Joppie    andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

  • Sep
    16

    Fall Classes Begin. Change of Registration (Drop/Add) Late registration for returning students begins

    University Academic Calendar

    All Day

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Tuesday, September 16, 2025

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    CONTACT Office of the Registrar    nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR University Academic Calendar