Notes and writing.https://vmattoo.dev/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/basic-soln-concepts-complexity-two-player-eqm/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/basic-soln-concepts-complexity-two-player-eqm/Motivation: why a computer scientist cares about equilibria Game theory models situations in which multiple participants interact or affect each other's outcomes . The Internet is such a situation at enormous scale: thousands of ISPs routin…Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/cascading-behavior-in-networks/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/cascading-behavior-in-networks/Stub. Networked coordination games as a model of social contagion, more general contagion models, finding influential sets of nodes (influence maximization), and empirical studies of online cascades. (AGT ch. 24)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/combinatorial-auctions-and-approximation-mechanisms/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/combinatorial-auctions-and-approximation-mechanisms/Stub. Combinatorial auction design (single-minded bidders, Walrasian equilibrium, bidding languages, iterative/ascending auctions, communication complexity) and computationally efficient approximation mechanisms for single- and multi-dimensional domains. (AGT ch. 11-12)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/computational-evolutionary-game-theory/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/computational-evolutionary-game-theory/Stub. Evolutionarily stable strategies and the complexity of computing them, evolutionary dynamics applied to selfish routing, and evolutionary game theory played over graphs. (AGT ch. 29)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/computing-market-equilibria/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/computing-market-equilibria/Stub. Combinatorial primal-dual algorithms and convex-programming approaches to Fisher and Arrow-Debreu market equilibria; the Eisenberg-Gale program, tight sets, balanced flows, WGS exchange economies. (AGT ch. 5-6)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/cost-sharing/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/cost-sharing/Stub. Cooperative cost-sharing games, the core, group-strategyproof cross-monotonic cost-sharing schemes, the primal-dual schema for constructing them, their limitations, and the Shapley value / Nash bargaining solution. (AGT ch. 15)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/cryptography-and-game-theory/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/cryptography-and-game-theory/Stub. Contrasting secure multiparty computation with game-theoretic solution concepts, and the two-way influence between crypto and game theory (rational secret sharing, etc.). (AGT ch. 8)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/distributed-algorithmic-mechanism-design/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/distributed-algorithmic-mechanism-design/Stub. Mechanism design where the mechanism itself must run as a distributed algorithm over a network with strategic nodes, with interdomain (BGP) routing as the driving example. (AGT ch. 14)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/graphical-games/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/graphical-games/Stub. Representing games compactly via an interaction graph; computing Nash equilibria on tree graphical games; connections to correlated equilibria and graphical exchange economies. (AGT ch. 7)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/incentives-and-information-security/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/incentives-and-information-security/Stub. Misaligned incentives as a root cause of security failures, informational asymmetries (lemons markets for security), the economics of censorship resistance, and how network topology shapes security economics. (AGT ch. 25)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/incentives-in-p2p-systems/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/incentives-in-p2p-systems/Stub. The p2p file-sharing game and free-riding, reputation, barter-based systems like BitTorrent's tit-for-tat, currency-based systems, and hidden actions (moral hazard) in p2p systems. (AGT ch. 23)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/incentives-pricing-communication-networks/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/incentives-pricing-communication-networks/Stub. Competitive (large-network) models and game-theoretic pricing/resource-allocation models for communication networks, plus alternative pricing and incentive schemes. (AGT ch. 22)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/inefficiency-of-equilibria-introduction/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/inefficiency-of-equilibria-introduction/Stub. Opens Part III: the price-of-anarchy framework for quantifying how much selfish behavior degrades social welfare, with the canonical network examples (Pigou, Braess) and inefficiency as a mechanism-design metric. (AGT ch. 17)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/introduction-to-mechanism-design/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/introduction-to-mechanism-design/Stub. Social choice functions, mechanisms with and without money, dominant-strategy implementation, revelation principle, Gibbard-Satterthwaite and Myerson-Satterthwaite-style characterizations, Bayesian-Nash implementation. (AGT ch. 9)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/learning-and-regret-minimization/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/learning-and-regret-minimization/External, internal and swap regret; greedy, randomized greedy, RWM and Polynomial Weights; the minimax theorem from regret; convergence to correlated equilibrium; the external-to-swap reduction; the bandit reduction; and Wardrop routingSat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/mechanism-design-without-money/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/mechanism-design-without-money/Stub. Strategyproof mechanisms when transfers aren't allowed: single-peaked preferences over policies, the house allocation problem, and stable matching. (AGT ch. 10)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/network-formation-games/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/network-formation-games/Stub. Games where players build a network rather than route on a fixed one: local connection games, global connection games as potential games, and facility location, all analyzed via potential functions. (AGT ch. 19)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/online-mechanisms/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/online-mechanisms/Stub. Mechanism design in dynamic environments where agents and information arrive over time: single-valued online domains and Bayesian implementation online. (AGT ch. 16)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/prediction-markets/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/prediction-markets/Stub. What prediction markets are, combinatorial prediction markets, automated market makers, and using markets as a distributed computation device. (AGT ch. 26)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/price-of-anarchy-resource-allocation/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/price-of-anarchy-resource-allocation/Stub. Designing simple, scalable (no full-VCG) resource-allocation mechanisms with bounded price of anarchy, via the proportional allocation mechanism and a characterization theorem, contrasted with the VCG approach. (AGT ch. 21)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/profit-maximization-mechanism-design/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/profit-maximization-mechanism-design/Stub. Revenue/profit-maximizing mechanism design: Bayesian optimal auctions (Myerson), prior-free approximation and optimal mechanisms, and frugality of procurement mechanisms. (AGT ch. 13)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/reputation-systems/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/reputation-systems/Stub. Why reputation systems matter, effects of reputations on behavior, whitewashing (identity-reset attacks), eliciting effort and honest feedback, and reputation based on transitive trust. (AGT ch. 27)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/routing-games/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/routing-games/Stub. Selfish routing models, existence/uniqueness of equilibrium flows via potential functions, the price of anarchy of selfish routing (including for nonlinear latencies), and mechanisms for reducing it (e.g. tolls, Braess-edge removal). (AGT ch. 18)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/selfish-load-balancing/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/selfish-load-balancing/Stub. Price of anarchy for scheduling jobs on selfish machines: pure and mixed equilibria on identical and uniformly related machines. (AGT ch. 20)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/sponsored-search-auctions/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/sponsored-search-auctions/Stub. Existing sponsored-search mechanisms (GSP vs. VCG), a static equilibrium model of ad-slot auctions, and dynamic aspects (budgets, repeated play). (AGT ch. 28)Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/maximum-entropy-principle/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/maximum-entropy-principle/The maximum entropy distribution under moment constraints, worked examples, the anomalous ε-achievable case, spectrum estimation, and Burg's maximum entropy theoremFri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/information-theory-statistics/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/information-theory-statistics/The method of types, universal source coding, Sanov's theorem and large deviations, the conditional limit theorem, hypothesis testing, Chernoff–Stein and Chernoff information, and Fisher informationThu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/rate-distortion-theory/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/rate-distortion-theory/Lossy compression — quantization, the rate distortion function for binary and Gaussian sources, reverse water-filling, the converse and achievability proofs, and the Blahut–Arimoto algorithmWed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/gaussian-channel/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/gaussian-channel/Capacity of the additive white Gaussian noise channel, sphere packing, bandlimited channels and the Shannon–Hartley formula, water-filling over parallel and colored channels, and how little feedback buysTue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/differential-entropy/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/differential-entropy/Entropy of continuous random variables, the continuous AEP and volume of the typical set, the quantization relation, the Gaussian as maximum-entropy distribution, and the estimation counterpart to FanoMon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/channel-capacity/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/channel-capacity/The information capacity of a discrete memoryless channel, worked examples, jointly typical sequences, Shannon's second theorem and its converse, Hamming codes, feedback, and source–channel separationSun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/entropy-rates/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/entropy-rates/Stationarity, Markov chains, the entropy rate and its two definitions, random walks on graphs, the second law, and functions of Markov chainsSat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/asymptotic-equipartition-property/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/asymptotic-equipartition-property/The information-theoretic law of large numbers, the typical set, the source code it yields, and its optimality among high-probability setsFri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/information-inequalities/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/information-inequalities/Jensen's Inequality, Log Sum Inequality, Data Processing Inequality and Sufficient Statistics, and Fano's InequalityThu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/feature-tour/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/feature-tour/Every formatting feature available for notes on this site, in one place.Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/cover2006-elements/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/cover2006-elements/My annotations of the book "Elements of Information Theory" (Cover & Thomas).Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/data-compression/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/data-compression/Kraft inequality, Huffman codes, and Shannon-Fano-Elias coding bounds.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/entropy-mutual-information/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/entropy-mutual-information/Fundamental definitions, Relationships between them, and Chain rulesTue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/kolmogorov-complexity/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/kolmogorov-complexity/Incompressible sequences, Occam's Razor, and the Minimum Description Length principle.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/network-information-theory/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/network-information-theory/Multiple-access channels, Slepian-Wolf encoding, and broadcast/relay channels.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/portfolio-theory-gambling/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/portfolio-theory-gambling/Side information, log-optimal portfolios, Kelly criterion, and universal portfolios.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/universal-source-coding/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/universal-source-coding/Arithmetic coding, Lempel-Ziv algorithms, and optimality proofs.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/algorithmic-game-theory/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/algorithmic-game-theory/My annotations of the book "Algorithmic game theory"Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/multiagent-systems/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/multiagent-systems/My annotations of the book "Multiagent Systems"Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/optimization-for-data-analysis/https://vmattoo.dev/notes/lit/optimization-for-data-analysis/My annotations of the book "Optimization for data analysis"Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT