In a system in which noncooperative agents share a common resource, we propose the ratio between the worst possible Nash equilibrium and the social optimum as a measure of the effectiveness of the system. Deriving upper and lower bounds for this ratio in a model in which several agents share a very simple network leads to some interesting mathematics, results, and open problems.

A new algorithm for computing contact forces between solid objects with friction is presented. The algorithm allows a mix of contact points with static and dynamic friction. In contrast to previous approaches, the problem of computing contact forces is not transformed into an optimization problem. Because of this, the need for sophisticated optimization software packages is eliminated. For both systems with and without friction, the algorithm has proven to be considerably faster, simpler, and more reliable than previous approaches to the problem. In particular, implementation of the algorithm by nonspecialists in numerical programming is quite feasible.

The Path solver is an implementation of a stabilized Newton method for the solution of the Mixed Complementarity Problem. The stabilization scheme employs a path-generation procedure which is used to construct a piecewise-linear path from the current point to the Newton point; a step length acceptance criterion and a non-monotone pathsearch are then used to choose the next iterate. The algorithm is shown to be globally convergent under assumptions which generalize those required to obtain similar results in the smooth case. Several implementation issues are discussed, and extensive computational results obtained from problems commonly found in the literature are given.

We prove that the problem of finding a Nash equilibrium in a two-player game is PPAD-complete. 1

Recent improvements in the capabilities of complementarity solvers have led to an increased interest in using the complementarity problem framework to address practical problems arising in mathematical programming, economics, engineering, and the sciences. As a result, increasingly more difficult problems are being proposed that exceed the capabilities of even the best algorithms currently available. There is, therefore, an immediate need to improve the capabilities of complementarity solvers. This thesis addresses this need in two significant ways. First, the thesis proposes and develops a proximal perturbation strategy that enhances the robustness of Newton-based complementarity solvers. This strategy enables algorithms to reliably find solutions even for problems whose natural merit functions have strict local minima that are not solutions. Based upon this strategy, three new algorithms are proposed for solving nonlinear mixed complementarity problems that represent a significant improvement in robustness over previous algorithms. These algorithms have local Q-quadratic convergence behavior, yet depend only on a pseudo-monotonicity assumption to achieve global convergence from arbitrary starting points. Using the MCPLIB and GAMSLIB test libraries, we perform extensive computational tests that demonstrate the effectiveness of these algorithms on realistic problems. Second, the thesis extends some previously existing algorithms to solve more general problem classes. Specifically, the NE/SQP method of Pang & Gabriel (1993), the semismooth equations approach of De Luca, Facchinei & Kanz...

Several new interfaces have recently been developed requiring PATH to solve a mixed complementarity problem. To overcome the necessity of maintaining a different version of PATH for each interface, the code was reorganized using object-oriented design techniques. At the same time, robustness issues were considered and enhancements made to the algorithm. In this paper, we document the external interfaces to the PATH code and describe some of the new utilities using PATH. We then discuss the enhancements made and compare the results obtained from PATH 2.9 to the new version. 1 Introduction The PATH solver [12] for mixed complementarity problems (MCPs) was introduced in 1995 and has since become the standard against which new MCP solvers are compared. However, the main user group for PATH continues to be economists using the MPSGE preprocessor [36]. While developing the new PATH implementation, we had two goals: to make the solver accessible to a broad audience and to improve the effecti...

Finite termination, at point satisfying the minimum principle necessary optimality condition, is established for a stepless (no line search) successive linearization algorithm (SLA) for minimizing a nondifferentiable concave function on a polyhedral set. The SLA is then applied to the general linear complementarity problem (LCP), formulated as minimizing a piecewiselinear concave error function on the usual polyhedral feasible region defining the LCP. When the feasible region is nonempty, the concave error function always has a global minimum at a vertex, and the minimum is zero if and only if the LCP is solvable. The SLA terminates at a solution or stationary point of the problem in a finite number of steps. A special case of the proposed algorithm [8] solved without failure 80 consecutive cases of the LCP formulation of the knapsack feasibilty problem, ranging in size between 10 and 3000. 1 Introduction We consider the classical linear complementarity problem (LCP) [4, 12, 5] 0 x ?...

We consider the problem of approximating the global minimum of a general quadratic program (QP) with n variables subject to m ellipsoidal constraints. For m = 1, we rigorously show that an ffl-minimizer, where error ffl 2 (0; 1), can be obtained in polynomial time, meaning that the number of arithmetic operations is a polynomial in n, m, and log(1=ffl). For m 2, we present a polynomial-time (1 \Gamma 1 m 2 )-approximation algorithm as well as a semidefinite programming relaxation for this problem. In addition, we present approximation algorithms for solving QP under the box constraints and the assignment polytope constraints. Key words. Quadratic programming, global minimizer, polynomial-time approximation algorithm The work of the first author was supported by the Australian Research Council; the second author was supported in part by the Department of Management Sciences of the University of Iowa where he performed this research during a research leave, and by the Natural Scien...

this paper is to present mathematical ideas and

A new class of continuation methods is presented which, in particular, solve linear complementarity problems with copositive-plus and L -matrices. Let a# b 2 R be nonnegativevectors. Weembed the complementarity problem with a continuously differentiable mapping f : R in an artificial system of F (x# y)=(a#ib) and (x# y) 0 # () where F : R is defined by F (x# y)=(x 1 y 1 # ...#x n y n # y ; f(x)) and 0 and i 0 are parameters. A pair (x# y) is a solution of the complementarity problem if and only if it solves ()for = 0 and i = 0. A general idea of continuation methods founded on the system () is as follows.