Title: Algorithmic mechanism design on cloud computing and facility location

Abstract: Algorithmic mechanism design is now widely studied for various scenarios. In this talk, we discuss two applications: CPU time auction and facility location problem. In CPU time auction, we designed two greedy frameworks which can achieve truthfulness (approximate-truthfulness) from the bidders while at the same time a certain global objective is optimized or nearly optimized. In facility location problem, we introduce weight to the traditional study and prove that those mechanisms that ignore weight are the best we can have. Furthermore, we also propose a new threshold based model where the solution that optimizes the social welfare is incentive compatible.

Bio: Minming Li is currently an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph. D. and B.E. degree in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University in 2006 and 2002 respectively. His research interests include algorithm design and analysis in wireless networks and embedded systems, combinatorial optimization and algorithmic game theory.