CAREER: Foundations of Network Design: Real-World Networks, Special Topologies, and Game Theory

职业：网络设计基础：现实世界网络、特殊拓扑和博弈论

• 批准号: 1053605
• 负责人: Mohammad Hajiaghayi
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-07-01 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1053605&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Foundations; Network; Design; Real

The Internet has undergone tremendous growth recently, fueled by the emergence of user-generated video, TV- and movie-on-demand services, peer-to-peer file sharing, social networking, and rapid proliferation of smart phones. These new application mixes and the resulting characteristics of network traffic have raised numerous research challenges for practitioners working on various aspects of networks including construction, routing, and staged deployment. As a result, "network design" or more generally "networking," with its many variants, is one of the most active research areas in computer science.Theoretical modeling of networks plays a vital role in understanding computer and communication networks. Examples of such theoretical models that will be addressed further in this project are cost and efficiency optimizations with applications in Fiber Optic Networks, Content Distribution Networks (CDNs), Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), Cellular Networks, and Social Networks. The Principal Investigator will invent and use a variety of techniques in approximation and randomized algorithms, fixed parameter algorithms, algorithmic game theory, and his own Bidimensionality theory, to optimize cost and performance of these strategic networks.As a broader impact, the PI seeks to leverage his network of collaborators to apply these theoretical developments to the design of practical algorithms and mechanisms, to deploy them in real-world settings, and to perform experiments to characterize and explain their behavior and performance. The PI believes that variations of the algorithms designed in this project will be used in real networks, enabling faster networks and cheaper Internet access in practice. This is an especially important goal since the Internet in the U.S. is currently not as fast or cheap as in several other developed or even developing countries.The wealth of attractive open problems in foundations of network design provide, at one extreme, challenging research topics, and at the other extreme, intuitive and accessible problems to inspire students to enter research in computer science, mathematics, and economics. The educational thrust of this project is to actively engage undergraduate and graduate students in study of and research into network design foundations.

近年来，在用户生成视频、电视和电影点播服务、点对点文件共享、社交网络以及智能手机快速普及的推动下，互联网经历了巨大的发展。这些新的应用组合以及由此产生的网络流量特征给从事网络各个方面（包括构建、路由和分阶段部署）工作的从业者提出了许多研究挑战。因此，“网络设计”或更普遍的“网络”及其许多变体，是计算机科学中最活跃的研究领域之一。网络的理论建模在理解计算机和通信网络方面发挥着至关重要的作用。本项目将进一步讨论的此类理论模型的示例包括光纤网络、内容分发网络 (CDN)、虚拟专用网络 (VPN)、蜂窝网络和社交网络中应用的成本和效率优化。首席研究员将发明并使用各种近似和随机算法、固定参数算法、算法博弈论和他自己的二维理论技术，以优化这些战略网络的成本和性能。作为更广泛的影响，PI 寻求利用他的合作者网络，将这些理论发展应用到实际算法和机制的设计中，将它们部署在现实世界的环境中，并进行实验来表征和解释它们的行为和性能。 PI 认为，该项目中设计的算法的变体将用于实际网络中，从而在实践中实现更快的网络和更便宜的互联网访问。这是一个特别重要的目标，因为美国的互联网目前不像其他几个发达国家甚至发展中国家那样快速或便宜。网络设计基础中大量有吸引力的开放问题在一个极端提供了具有挑战性的研究主题，在另一个极端，直观且易于理解的问题可以激励学生进入计算机科学、数学和经济学的研究。该项目的教育主旨是积极吸引本科生和研究生参与网络设计基础的学习和研究。