scholarly journals Group Fairness for the Allocation of Indivisible Goods

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 1853-1860 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Conitzer ◽  
Rupert Freeman ◽  
Nisarg Shah ◽  
Jennifer Wortman Vaughan
Keyword(s):  
Local Search ◽  
Polynomial Time ◽  
Fair Division ◽  
Indivisible Goods ◽  
Local Optima ◽  
Pseudo Polynomial Time

We consider the problem of fairly dividing a collection of indivisible goods among a set of players. Much of the existing literature on fair division focuses on notions of individual fairness. For instance, envy-freeness requires that no player prefer the set of goods allocated to another player to her own allocation. We observe that an algorithm satisfying such individual fairness notions can still treat groups of players unfairly, with one group desiring the goods allocated to another. Our main contribution is a notion of group fairness, which implies most existing notions of individual fairness. Group fairness (like individual fairness) cannot be satisfied exactly with indivisible goods. Thus, we introduce two “up to one good” style relaxations. We show that, somewhat surprisingly, certain local optima of the Nash welfare function satisfy both relaxations and can be computed in pseudo-polynomial time by local search. Our experiments reveal faster computation and stronger fairness guarantees in practice.

scholarly journals On the Proximity of Markets with Integral Equilibria

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 1748-1755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siddharth Barman ◽  
Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy
Keyword(s):  
Polynomial Time ◽  
Fair Division ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Indivisible Goods ◽  
Polynomial Time Algorithms ◽  
Fairness And Efficiency ◽  
Pareto Efficient ◽  
Efficient Allocations ◽  
Strong Existence ◽  
Strongly Polynomial

We study Fisher markets that admit equilibria wherein each good is integrally assigned to some agent. While strong existence and computational guarantees are known for equilibria of Fisher markets with additive valuations (Eisenberg and Gale 1959; Orlin 2010), such equilibria, in general, assign goods fractionally to agents. Hence, Fisher markets are not directly applicable in the context of indivisible goods. In this work we show that one can always bypass this hurdle and, up to a bounded change in agents’ budgets, obtain markets that admit an integral equilibrium. We refer to such markets as pure markets and show that, for any given Fisher market (with additive valuations), one can efficiently compute a “near-by,” pure market with an accompanying integral equilibrium.Our work on pure markets leads to novel algorithmic results for fair division of indivisible goods. Prior work in discrete fair division has shown that, under additive valuations, there always exist allocations that simultaneously achieve the seemingly incompatible properties of fairness and efficiency (Caragiannis et al. 2016); here fairness refers to envyfreeness up to one good (EF1) and efficiency corresponds to Pareto efficiency. However, polynomial-time algorithms are not known for finding such allocations. Considering relaxations of proportionality and EF1, respectively, as our notions of fairness, we show that fair and Pareto efficient allocations can be computed in strongly polynomial time.

scholarly journals Multiple Birds with One Stone: Beating 1/2 for EFX and GMMS via Envy Cycle Elimination

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (02) ◽  
pp. 1790-1797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios Amanatidis ◽  
Evangelos Markakis ◽  
Apostolos Ntokos
Keyword(s):  
Polynomial Time ◽  
Golden Ratio ◽  
Simple Algorithm ◽  
Fair Division ◽  
Existence Results ◽  
Indivisible Goods ◽  
Approximation Factor ◽  
General Existence ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Fine Tune

Several relaxations of envy-freeness, tailored to fair division in settings with indivisible goods, have been introduced within the last decade. Due to the lack of general existence results for most of these concepts, great attention has been paid to establishing approximation guarantees. In this work, we propose a simple algorithm that is universally fair in the sense that it returns allocations that have good approximation guarantees with respect to four such fairness notions at once. In particular, this is the first algorithm achieving a (φ−1)-approximation of envy-freeness up to any good (EFX) and a 2/φ+2 -approximation of groupwise maximin share fairness (GMMS), where φ is the golden ratio. The best known approximation factor, in polynomial time, for either one of these fairness notions prior to this work was 1/2. Moreover, the returned allocation achieves envy-freeness up to one good (EF1) and a 2/3-approximation of pairwise maximin share fairness (PMMS). While EFX is our primary focus, we also exhibit how to fine-tune our algorithm and improve further the guarantees for GMMS or PMMS.Finally, we show that GMMS—and thus PMMS and EFX—allocations always exist when the number of goods does not exceed the number of agents by more than two.

scholarly journals Maximin Share Allocations on Cycles

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Lonc ◽  
Miroslaw Truszczynski
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Polynomial Time ◽  
Complete Graph ◽  
Original Problem ◽  
Fundamental Problem ◽  
Fair Division ◽  
Connected Subgraph ◽  
Indivisible Goods ◽  
Share Value

The problem of fair division of indivisible goods is a fundamental problem of social choice. Recently, the problem was extended to the setting when goods form a graph and the goal is to allocate goods to agents so that each agent's bundle forms a connected subgraph. Researchers proved that, unlike in the original problem (which corresponds to the case of the complete graph in the extended setting), in the case of the goods-graph being a tree, allocations offering each agent a bundle of or exceeding her maximin share value always exist. Moreover, they can be found in polynomial time. We consider here the problem of maximin share allocations of goods on a cycle. Despite the simplicity of the graph, the problem turns out be significantly harder than its tree version. We present cases when maximin share allocations of goods on cycles exist and provide results on allocations guaranteeing each agent a certain portion of her maximin share. We also study algorithms for computing maximin share allocations of goods on cycles.

scholarly journals The Fair Division of Hereditary Set Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Z. Li ◽  
A. Vetta
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Polynomial Time ◽  
Simple Algorithm ◽  
Fair Division ◽  
Set Systems

We consider the fair division of indivisible items using the maximin shares measure. Recent work on the topic has focused on extending results beyond the class of additive valuation functions. In this spirit, we study the case where the items form a hereditary set system. We present a simple algorithm that allocates each agent a bundle of items whose value is at least 0.3666 times the maximin share of the agent. This improves upon the current best known guarantee of 0.2 due to Ghodsi et al. The analysis of the algorithm is almost tight; we present an instance where the algorithm provides a guarantee of at most 0.3738. We also show that the algorithm can be implemented in polynomial time given a valuation oracle for each agent.

scholarly journals Delayed improvement local search

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heber F. Amaral ◽  
Sebastián Urrutia ◽  
Lars M. Hvattum
Keyword(s):  
Local Search ◽  
Heuristic Algorithms ◽  
Travelling Salesman Problem ◽  
Computation Time ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Local Optima ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Max Cut Problem ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Similar Solutions

AbstractLocal search is a fundamental tool in the development of heuristic algorithms. A neighborhood operator takes a current solution and returns a set of similar solutions, denoted as neighbors. In best improvement local search, the best of the neighboring solutions replaces the current solution in each iteration. On the other hand, in first improvement local search, the neighborhood is only explored until any improving solution is found, which then replaces the current solution. In this work we propose a new strategy for local search that attempts to avoid low-quality local optima by selecting in each iteration the improving neighbor that has the fewest possible attributes in common with local optima. To this end, it uses inequalities previously used as optimality cuts in the context of integer linear programming. The novel method, referred to as delayed improvement local search, is implemented and evaluated using the travelling salesman problem with the 2-opt neighborhood and the max-cut problem with the 1-flip neighborhood as test cases. Computational results show that the new strategy, while slower, obtains better local optima compared to the traditional local search strategies. The comparison is favourable to the new strategy in experiments with fixed computation time or with a fixed target.

scholarly journals A Modified Genetic Algorithm with Local Search Strategies and Multi-Crossover Operator for Job Shop Scheduling Problem

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (18) ◽  
pp. 5440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monique Simplicio Viana ◽  
Orides Morandin Junior ◽  
Rodrigo Colnago Contreras
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Local Search ◽  
Job Shop ◽  
Job Shop Scheduling ◽  
Scheduling Problem ◽  
Job Shop Scheduling Problem ◽  
Crossover Operator ◽  
Local Optima ◽  
Shop Scheduling ◽  
Solution Methods

It is not uncommon for today’s problems to fall within the scope of the well-known class of NP-Hard problems. These problems generally do not have an analytical solution, and it is necessary to use meta-heuristics to solve them. The Job Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP) is one of these problems, and for its solution, techniques based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) form the most common approach used in the literature. However, GAs are easily compromised by premature convergence and can be trapped in a local optima. To address these issues, researchers have been developing new methodologies based on local search schemes and improvements to standard mutation and crossover operators. In this work, we propose a new GA within this line of research. In detail, we generalize the concept of a massive local search operator; we improved the use of a local search strategy in the traditional mutation operator; and we developed a new multi-crossover operator. In this way, all operators of the proposed algorithm have local search functionality beyond their original inspirations and characteristics. Our method is evaluated in three different case studies, comprising 58 instances of literature, which prove the effectiveness of our approach compared to traditional JSSP solution methods.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document