The Economics of Computer Systems, Networks, and Applications

Winter & Spring 2004

Kevin Almeroth & Rich Wolski

Overview

Economics is a key discipline that affects many aspects of Computer Science research. However, like security, most Computer Scientists assume that the economic and incentive mechanisms for computer systems, networks, and applications will be developed by others and can be added after the "real" work is done. The focus of this seminar is to dispel this myth by (1) investigating in what areas economics and incentive systems can have an impact on Computer Science research, and (2) surveying work that already falls into this category.

Students participating in this seminar will be expected to (1) contribute to a "seminar bibliography" list that briefly describes the relevant contributions of a wide range of papers, (2) present a paper from this bibliography, and (3) actively discuss papers being presented. At the beginning of each meeting, about 20 minutes will be devoted to discussing the bibliography and the remainder of the time will be to listening to and discussing the week's paper(s).

At the first meeting, students will be expected to have done a brief survey of existing areas and have identified several papers that relate to the seminar topic.

Course Information

Seminar Schedule for Spring 2004

Date Presenter Reading
Apr 8 Anargyros (Gary) Garyfalos A. Garyfalos and K. Almeroth, "Coupons: Wide-Scale Information Dissemenation for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks"
Apr 15 Ricky Wong
S. Kraus, "Automated Negotiation and Decision Making in Multiagent Environments"
NOTE: TALKS ARE NOW BACK IN CS CONF ROOM
Apr 22 Michael Benny T. Ngan, D. S. Wallach, and P. Druschel, Enforcing Fair Sharing of Peer-to-Peer Resources
Apr 29 Ted Huffmire K. Ranganathan, M. Ripeanu, A. Sarin, I. Foster, "To Share or Not to Share: An Analysis of Incentives to Contribute in Collaborative File Sharing Environments"
May 06 Fred Tu J. Bredin, D. Kotz, and D. Rus, "Utility Driven Mobile-Agent Scheduling"
B. Chun, Y. Fu, and A. Vahdat, "Bootstrapping a Distributed Computational Economy with Peer-to-Peer Bartering"
May 13 Alex Touma A. Odlyzko, "Privacy, economics and price discrimination on the Internet"
May 20 Hussam Mousa D. Turner and K. Ross, "A Lightweight Currency Paradigm for the P2P Resource Market"
May 27 Andrew Mutz "Simulating Commodities Markets for Grid Resources" (in prep) (in prep) (in prep) (in prep) (in prep)
Jun 03 Khaled Harras TBA

Seminar Schedule from Winter 2004

Date Presenter Reading
Jan 15 Srini Jagannathan
S. Jagannathan, K. Almeroth, "Pricing Issues in Delivering E-Content On-Demand"
Jan 22 Todd Bryan
  • R. Wolski, J. Plank, J. Brevik, and T. Bryan, "G-Commerce: Market Formulations Controlling Resource Allocation on the Computational Grid"
  • Jan 29 Razvan Suprovici R. Suprovici and A. Adler, "Billing Infrastructure for Operators of Public Wireless Local Area Networks"
    Feb 05 Dov Zimring
    "The Economics of New Ethernet/IP Access Networks"
    http://www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/index.htm
    Feb 12 Ted Huffmire E. Friedman, D. Parkes, "Pricing WiFi at Starbucks- Issues in Online Mechanism Design"
    Feb 19 Chiranjeeb Buragohain &
    Gayatri Swamynathan
    L. Buttyan, J.-P. Hubaux, "Stimulating Cooperation in Self-Organizing Mobile Ad Hoc Networks"
    K. Lai, M. Feldman, I. Stoica, J. Chuang, "Incentives for Cooperation in Peer-to-Peer Networks"
    Feb 26 Lili Qui Faculty candidate from Microsoft
    Mar 04 Jane Tsai
    J. Hanson, A. Greenwald, and J. Kephart, "Dynamic Pricing By Software Agents"
    Mar 11 Ben Zhao
    Faculty candidate from UCB

    Participants

    Freeloaders

    Bibliography