CAREER: Networked Game Theory and Mechanism Design

这个职业项目研究社会网络的理论属性。研究的重点有两个方面：首先，建立模型来解释社会网络的形成和演变。特别强调的是社会网络和社会行为（如吸烟或职业选择）的共同进化。接下来，这些模型被用来帮助社会规划者为网络社会建立系统，比如，最大化特定社会规范的传播，或者从社交产品的销售中获得大量收入。所提出的建模技术将经济理论和随机过程与标准图论相结合，以生成既能捕捉社会网络中个人的自我激励兴趣又能捕捉社会互动中固有的随机性的模型。由此引发的社会规划问题通常在计算上难以解决，因此所提出的技术也结合了近似算法和平均情况分析，试图设计实用和高效的系统。所提出的研究的更广泛的影响将是提高对社会网络力量的认识和理解，使在社会网络环境中运行的系统设计更有效和高效。这些进步可以用于通过引导网络演进来创建和促进社交网络平台，促进反吸烟规范或慈善捐款等对社会有益的行为，并通过增加面向社会的产品的收入来帮助刺激经济。PI还将开展几项教育和推广工作，重点关注标准学术机构之外的个人。PI将通过科普文章和科学咖啡馆向高中生和工作的成年人提供服务。此外，该计划还将通过现场的暑期学校向伊朗、西岸和乌干达等发展中国家传播知识，以促进对这些国家未来至关重要的科学和教育。

This CAREER project studies the theoretical properties underlying social networks. The focus of the research is two-fold: first, models are created to explain the formation and evolution of social networks. Particular emphasis is placed on the co-evolution of social networks and social behaviors such as smoking or the choice of profession. Next, these models are leveraged to help social planners build systems for networked societies that, say, maximize the spread of a particular social norm or generate large revenue from the sale of a socially-enabled product. The proposed modeling techniques combine economic theory and stochastic processes with standard graph theory in order to generate models that capture both the self-motivated interests of individuals in social networks as well as the randomness inherent in social interactions. The induced social planning problems are often computationally-intractable, so the proposed techniques also incorporate approximation algorithms and average-case analysis in an attempt to design practical and efficient systems.The broader impact of the proposed research will be to increase awareness and understanding of the power of social networks, enabling more effective and efficient design of systems that operate in the context of social networks. Such advances can be used to create and facilitate social networking platforms by guiding the network evolution, to promote socially-beneficial behaviors such as anti-smoking norms or charitable contributions, and to help stimulate the economy by increasing revenues of socially-oriented products. The PI will also pursue several educational and outreach efforts, focusing on individuals outside standard academic institutions. The PI will reach out to high school students and working adults through popular science articles and Science Cafes. Additionally, the PI will disseminate knowledge to developing nations such as Iran, the West Bank, and Uganda through onsite summer schools in an effort to promote the science and education that are fundamental and essential for those nations' futures.