SGER: Adapative Competition and Emergent Control

社会和生物系统受到不同层次的设计和控制。特别是，系统可能受到集中的层次控制（自顶向下），或者从代理的动态中固有地发出控制，这些代理的行动总体上构成了所考虑的系统（自底向上）。在许多这样的系统中，代理人将寻求以使他们处于少数地位的方式行事。通过这样做，代理通常可以优化其获取资源的能力。例子包括金融市场上的交易者，将创新产品推向市场的公司，以及在互联网上寻找最不拥挤路线的信息包。在这样的系统中，对系统的良好控制，以系统范围内资源的有效利用来衡量，有时可以通过代理人行动的紧急协调来实现，而不需要任何自上而下的集中控制。探索性研究小额赠款（SGER）为研究一类简单模型提供资金，这些模型包含了这些动态的关键，并且在这些模型中，良好的系统范围控制的出现是显而易见的。研究将试图阐明控制的确切性质，以及其出现的必要和充分条件。这项研究成功的后果是深远的。在理论层面上，这项工作可以阐明一些统一的基本动力学，这些动力学是社会和生物科学中广泛的复杂适应系统的基础。在更实际的情况下，了解所观察到的紧急控制的性质可以在许多领域取得重要进展。最直接的影响是对互联网流量的控制。通过更直接地利用互联网的分布式、异构特性，有可能大大改善信息流。同样，这对车辆交通控制也有影响。另一个潜在的应用领域是金融市场。在简单模型中观察到的紧急控制主要取决于提供给代理的信息量。当代理使用适量的信息来做出选择时，可以获得最佳控制。这表明，有可能对金融市场实施监管，使交易员使用的有效信息量接近良好应急控制的最优值。这些只是本研究可以阐明的各种问题的几个例子。

Social and biological systems are subject to design and control at various levels. In particular, systems may be subject to centralized hierarchical control (top-down), or to control emanating inherently from the dynamics of agents whose actions in the aggregate constitute the system under consideration (bottom-up). In many such systems, agents will seek to act in ways that place them in a minority position. By doing so, agents can often optimize their ability to obtain resources. Examples include traders in a financial market, firms bringing innovative products to market, and packets of information seeking the least congested route on the internet. In such systems, good control of the system, as measured by a effective system-wideutilization of resources, can be sometimes be effected by an emergent coordination of agents' actions, without any top-down centralized control. This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) provides funding to study a class of simple models that contain the crux of these dynamics, and in which the emergence of good system-wide control is evident. The research will seek to elucidate the precise nature of the control, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for its appearance. The consequences of success in this research are far-ranging. At the theoretical level, this work can elucidate some of the unifying fundamental dynamics that undelie a wide range of complex adaptive systems in the social and biological sciences. In more practical terms, understanding the nature of the observed emegent control can lead to important advances in a number of areas. Most immediately, there are strong implications for the control of internet traffic. By exploiting more directly the distributed, heterogeneous nature of the internet, it may be possible to improve information flow considerably. Similarly, there are implications for vehicular traffic control. Another area of potential application is the financial markets. The emegent control observed in simple models depends crucially on the amount of information presented to the agents. Best control is obtained when the agents use a moderate amount of information to make their choices. This suggeststhat it may be possible to put in place regulations for financial markets so that the effective amount of information used by traders is near the optimal value for good emergent control. These are only a few examples of the kinds of problems that can be illuminated by this research.