Related papers: Population Protocols for Exact Plurality Consensus…
We consider the problem of finding a compromise between the opinions of a group of individuals on a number of mutually independent, binary topics. In this paper, we quantify the loss in representativeness that results from requiring the…
We propose and study a stochastic binary opinion model where agents in a group are considered to hold an opinion of 0 or 1 at each moment. An agent in the group updates his/her opinion based on the group's opinion configuration and his/her…
We use the exact finite sample likelihood and statistical decision theory to answer questions of ``why?'' and ``what should you have done?'' using data from randomized experiments and a utility function that prioritizes safety over…
We consider a population, partitioned into a set of communities, and study the problem of identifying the largest community within the population via sequential, random sampling of individuals. There are multiple sampling domains, referred…
The problem addressed concerns the determination of the average number of successive attempts of guessing a word of a certain length consisting of letters with given probabilities of occurrence. Both first- and second-order approximations…
In this paper, we consider lightweight decentralised algorithms for achieving consensus in distributed systems. Each member of a distributed group has a private value from a fixed set consisting of, say, two elements, and the goal is for…
A seminal result by Lamport shows that at least $\max\{2e+f+1,2f+1\}$ processes are required to implement partially synchronous consensus that tolerates $f$ process failures and can furthermore decide in two message delays under $e$…
Two pure orthogonal quantum states can be perfectly distinguished by sequential local action of multiple pairs of parties. However, this process typically leads to the complete dissolution of entanglement in the states being discriminated.…
Typical voting rules do not work well in settings with many candidates. If there are just several hundred candidates, then even a simple task such as choosing a top candidate becomes impractical. Motivated by the hope of developing group…
The wisdom of crowds is an umbrella term for phenomena suggesting that the collective judgment or decision of a large group can be more accurate than the individual judgments or decisions of the group members. A well-known example…
In this paper, we develop an exact method for the determination of the minimum sample size for estimating the proportion of a finite population with prescribed margin of error and confidence level. By characterizing the behavior of the…
In this paper, the leader election problem in the population protocol model is considered. A leader election protocol with logarithmic stabilization time is given. Given a rough knowledge m of the population size n such that m >= \log_2 n…
We study a model of a population making a binary decision based on information spreading within the population, which is fully connected or covering a square grid. We assume that a fraction of the population wants to make the choice of the…
In this paper we explore fundamental problems in randomized communication complexity such as computing Set Intersection on sets of size $k$ and Equality Testing between vectors of length $k$. Sa\u{g}lam and Tardos and Brody et al. showed…
The Condorcet Jury Theorem or the Miracle of Aggregation are frequently invoked to ensure the competence of some aggregate decision-making processes. In this article we explore an estimation of the prior probability of the thesis predicted…
The purpose of a consensus protocol is to keep a distributed network of nodes "in sync," even in the presence of an unpredictable communication network and adversarial behavior by some of the participating nodes. In the permissionless…
We consider the problem of multi-choice majority voting in a network of $n$ agents where each agent initially selects a choice from a set of $K$ possible choices. The agents try to infer the choice in majority merely by performing local…
We present three voting protocols with unconditional privacy and correctness, without assuming any bound on the number of corrupt participants. All protocols have polynomial complexity and require private channels and a simultaneous…
Paired estimation of change in parameters of interest over a population plays a central role in several application domains including those in the social sciences, epidemiology, medicine and biology. In these domains, the size of the…
The population protocol model describes collections of distributed agents that interact in pairs to solve a common task. We consider a dynamic variant of this prominent model, where we assume that an adversary may change the population size…