Design and pricing of maintenance service contract based on Nash non-cooperative game approach

Nowadays manufacturers are facing fierce challenge.Apart from the products,providing customers with multiple maintenance options in the service contract becomes more popular,since it can help to improve customer satisfaction,and ultimately promote sales and maximize profit for the manufacturer.By considering the combinations of corrective maintenance and preventive maintenance,totally three types of maintenance service contracts are designed.Moreover,attractive incentive and penalty mechanisms are adopted in the contracts.On this basis,Nash non-cooperative game is applied to analyze the revenue for both the manufacturer and customers,and so as to optimize the pricing mechanism of maintenance service contract and achieve a win-win situation.Numerical experiments are conducted.The results show that by taking into account the incentive and penalty mechanisms,the revenue can be improved for both the customers and manufacturer.Moreover,with the increase of repair rate and improvement factor in the preventive maintenance,the revenue will increase gradually for both the parties.

Non-Cooperative Game of Coordinated Scheduling of Parallel Machine Production and Transportation in Shared Manufacturing

Given the challenges of manufacturing resource sharing and competition in the modern manufacturing industry,the coordinated scheduling problem of parallel machine production and transportation is investigated.The problem takes into account the coordination of production and transportation before production as well as the disparities in machine spatial position and performance.A non-cooperative game model is established,considering the competition and self-interest behavior of jobs from different customers for machine resources.The job from different customers is mapped to the players in the game model,the corresponding optional processing machine and location are mapped to the strategy set,and the makespan of the job is mapped to the payoff.Then the solution of the scheduling model is transformed into the Nash equilibrium of the non-cooperative game model.A Nash equilibrium solution algorithm based on the genetic algorithm(NEGA)is designed,and the effective solution of approximate Nash equilibrium for the game model is realized.The fitness function,single-point crossover operator,and mutation operator are derived from the non-cooperative game model’s characteristics and the definition of Nash equilibrium.Rules are also designed to avoid the generation of invalid offspring chromosomes.The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through numerical experiments of various sizes.Compared with other algorithms such as heuristic algorithms(FCFS,SPT,and LPT),the simulated annealing algorithm(SA),and the particle swarm optimization algorithm(PSO),experimental results show that the proposed NE-GA algorithm has obvious performance advantages.

Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading Method of Multi-Virtual Power Plants Based on Non-Cooperative Game

The current electricity market fails to consider the energy consumption characteristics of transaction subjects such as virtual power plants.Besides,the game relationship between transaction subjects needs to be further explored.This paper proposes a Peer-to-Peer energy trading method for multi-virtual power plants based on a non-cooperative game.Firstly,a coordinated control model of public buildings is incorporated into the scheduling framework of the virtual power plant,considering the energy consumption characteristics of users.Secondly,the utility functions of multiple virtual power plants are analyzed,and a non-cooperative game model is established to explore the game relationship between electricity sellers in the Peer-to-Peer transaction process.Finally,the influence of user energy consumption characteristics on the virtual power plant operation and the Peer-to-Peer transaction process is analyzed by case studies.Furthermore,the effect of different parameters on the Nash equilibrium point is explored,and the influence factors of Peer-to-Peer transactions between virtual power plants are summarized.According to the obtained results,compared with the central air conditioning set as constant temperature control strategy,the flexible control strategy proposed in this paper improves the market power of each VPP and the overall revenue of the VPPs.In addition,the upper limit of the service quotation of the market operator have a great impact on the transaction mode of VPPs.When the service quotation decreases gradually,the P2P transaction between VPPs is more likely to occur.

Coordinated Scheduling of Two-Agent Production and Transportation Based on Non-Cooperative Game

A two-agent production and transportation coordinated scheduling problem in a single-machine environment is suggested to compete for one machine from different downstream production links or various consumers.The jobs of two agents compete for the processing position on a machine,and after the pro-cessed,they compete for the transport position on a transport vehicle to be trans-ported to two agents.The two agents have different objective functions.The objective function of the first agent is the sum of the makespan and the total trans-portation time,whereas the objective function of the second agent is the sum of the total completion time and the total transportation time.Given the competition between two agents for machine resources and transportation resources,a non-cooperative game model with agents as game players is established.The job pro-cessing position and transportation position corresponding to the two agents are mapped as strategies,and the corresponding objective function is the utility func-tion.To solve the game model,an approximate Nash equilibrium solution algo-rithm based on an improved genetic algorithm(NE-IGA)is proposed.The genetic operation based on processing sequence and transportation sequence,as well as the fitness function based on Nash equilibrium definition,are designed based on the features of the two-agent production and transportation coordination scheduling problem.The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through numerical experiments of various sizes.When compared to heuristic rules such as the Longest Processing Time first(LPT)and the Shortest Processing Time first(SPT),the objective function values of the two agents are reduced by 4.3%and 2.6% on average.

QoS awared power and admission controls based on non-cooperative game theory in wireless networks

In order to better accommodate heterogeneous quality of service (QoS) in wireless networks, an algorithm called QoS-aware power and admission controls (QAPAC) is proposed. The system is modeled as a non-cooperative game where the users adjust their transmit powers to maximize the utility, thus restraining the interferences. By using adaptive utility functions and tunable pricing parameters according to QoS levels, this algorithm can well meet different QoS requirements and improve system capacity compared with those that ignore the QoS differences.

An Optimized Resource Scheduling Strategy for Hadoop Speculative Execution Based on Non-cooperative Game Schemes

Hadoop is a well-known parallel computing system for distributed computing and large-scale data processes.“Straggling”tasks,however,have a serious impact on task allocation and scheduling in a Hadoop system.Speculative Execution(SE)is an efficient method of processing“Straggling”Tasks by monitoring real-time running status of tasks and then selectively backing up“Stragglers”in another node to increase the chance to complete the entire mission early.Present speculative execution strategies meet challenges on misjudgement of“Straggling”tasks and improper selection of backup nodes,which leads to inefficient implementation of speculative executive processes.This paper has proposed an Optimized Resource Scheduling strategy for Speculative Execution(ORSE)by introducing non-cooperative game schemes.The ORSE transforms the resource scheduling of backup tasks into a multi-party non-cooperative game problem,where the tasks are regarded as game participants,whilst total task execution time of the entire cluster as the utility function.In that case,the most benefit strategy can be implemented in each computing node when the game reaches a Nash equilibrium point,i.e.,the final resource scheduling scheme to be obtained.The strategy has been implemented in Hadoop-2.x.Experimental results depict that the ORSE can maintain the efficiency of speculative executive processes and improve fault-tolerant and computation performance under the circumstances of Normal Load,Busy Load and Busy Load with Skewed Data.

Excess Benefit Allocation in Shared Savings Based on Non-cooperative Game Theory

Energy saving income distribution mode is of great significance to the energy industry.With the continuous application of new technologies,the problem of excess energy saving income distribution has become one of the obstacles to the appreciation of energy performance.At present,the distribution of risk and income is mainly based on the contribution of risk and income,which has some limitations.The benefit distribution of energy saving negotiation between energy saving service companies and clients can be regarded as a bargaining process where an effective range satisfying both parties can be obtained.This provides a new perspective in solving the problem of excess energy saving income distribution in energy management contract projects.

Fuzzy Nash equilibrium of fuzzy n-person non-cooperative game

The fuzzy non-cooperative game with fuzzy payoff function is studied. Based on fuzzy set theory with game theory, the fuzzy Nash equilibrium of fuzzy non-cooperative games is proposed. Most of researchers rank fuzzy number by its center of gravity or by the real number with its maximal membership. By reducing fuzzy number into a real number, we lose much fuzzy information that should be kept during the operations between fuzzy numbers. The fuzzy quantities or alternatives are ordered directly by Yuan＇s binary fuzzy ordering relation. In doing so, the existence of fuzzy Nash equilibrium for fuzzy non-cooperative games is shown based on the utility function and the crisp Nash theorem. Finally, an illustrative example in traffic flow patterns of equilibrium is given in order to show the detailed calculation process of fuzzy Nash equilibrium.

Non-cooperative game for network access selection in heterogeneous integrated networks

The integration of different heterogeneous access networks is one of the remarkable characteristics of the next generation network,in which users with multi-network interface terminals can independently select access network to obtain the most desired service.A kind of unified quantification model of non-monotone quality of service(QoS) and a model of non-cooperative game between users and networks are proposed for heterogeneous network access selection.An optimal network pricing mechanism could be formulated by using a novel strategy which is used in this non-cooperative game model to balance the interests of both the users and the networks.This access network selection mechanism could select the most suitable network for users,and it also could provide the basis when formulating QoS standards in heterogeneous integrated networks.The simulation results show that this network selection decision-making algorithm can meet the users' demand for different levels service in different scenes and it can also avoid network congestion caused by unbalanced load.

Non-cooperative Game Based Optimal Dispatch Model for Integrated Energy Systems

In order to improve the efficiency of energy utilization,the integrated energy system(IES)has emerged.The IES typically acts as a whole system during operations,the subsystems are separated,and the interests of each system are independent.In this paper,considering the relationship between the various energy systems,non-cooperative game theory is used to establish the optimal dispatch model.The proposed model mainly relies on the relationship between the cooperation and competition among various subsystems to obtain the maximum benefit they can accept.Furthermore,the basic definition is combined with the particle swarm optimization algorithm to solve the problem.The results show that the optimization strategy proposed in this paper can operate safely and reliably,and effectively distribute the benefits of each energy system.

Coverage and capacity optimization in LTE network based on non-cooperative games

expenditures and operational expenditures （OPEX） （CAPEX） for operator, the coverage and capacity optimization （CCO） is one of the key use cases in long term evolution （LTE） self-organization network （SON）. In LTE system, some factors （e.g. load, traffic type, user distribution, uplink power setting, inter-cell interference, etc.） limit the coverage and capacity performance. From the view of single cell, it always pursuits maximize performance of coverage and capacity by optimizing the uplink power setting and intra-cell resource allocation, but it may result in decreasing the performance of its neighbor cells. Therefore, the benefit of every cell conflicts each other. In order to tradeoff the benefit of every cell and maximize the performance of the whole network, this paper proposes a multi-cell uplink power allocation scheme based on non-cooperative games. The scheme aims to make the performance of coverage and capacity balanced by the negotiation of the uplink power parameters among multi-cells. So the performance of every cell can reach the Nash equilibrium, making it feasible to reduce the inter-cell interference by setting an appropriate uplink power parameter. Finally, the simulation result shows the proposed algorithm can effectively enhance the performance of coverage and capacity in LTE network.

Distributed interference suppression scheme for multi-cell uplink OFDMA system based on non-cooperative game

In this paper,a distributed interference suppression scheme is proposed for multi-cell uplink orthogonal frequency division multiple access（OFDMA） system.Firstly,we model resource allocation process as a non-cooperative game.Then we show the concept of Nash equilibrium（NE） and investigate its existence and uniqueness in detail.To enhance the performance of multi-cell OFDMA system,the further improvement process based on NE is given.Several adjustable parameters are set to make the system achieve different tradeoffs between the total capacity and complexity.Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can greatly improve the system performance comparing with conventional scheme.

A non-cooperative game-based distributed optimization method for chiller plant control

The heating,ventilation,and air-conditioning(HVAC)systems account for about half of the building energy consumption.The optimization methodology access to optimal control strategies of chiller plant has always been of great concern as it significantly contributes to the energy use of the whole HVAC system.Given that conventional centralized optimization methods relying on a central operator may suffer from dimensionality and a tremendous calculation burden,and show poorer flexibility when solving complex optimization issues,in this paper,a novel distributed optimization approach is presented for chiller plant control.In the proposed distributed control scheme,both trade-offs of coupled subsystems and optimal allocation among devices of the same subsystem are considered by developing a double-layer optimization structure.Non-cooperative game is used to mathematically formulate the interaction between controlled components as well as to divide the initial system-scale nonlinear optimization problem into local-scale ones.To solve these tasks,strategy updating mechanisms(PSO and IPM)are utilized.In this way,the approximate global optimal controlled variables of devices in the chiller plant can be obtained in a distributed and local-knowledge-enabled way without neither global information nor the central workstation.Furthermore,the existence and effectiveness of the proposed distributed scheme were verified by simulation case studies.Simulation results indicate that,by using the proposed distributed optimization scheme,a significant energy saving on a typical summer day can be obtained(1809.47 kW·h).The deviation from the central optimal solution is 3.83%.

Non-Cooperative Differential Game Based Energy Consumption Control for Dynamic Demand Response in Smart Grid

In this paper, we conduct research on the dynamic demand response problem in smart grid to control the energy consumption. The objective of the energy consumption control is constructed based on differential game, as the dynamic of each users’ energy state in smart gird can be described based on a differential equation. Concept of electricity sharing is introduced to achieve load shift of main users from the high price hours to the low price hours. Nash equilibrium is given based on the Hamilton equation and the effectiveness of the proposed model is verified based on the numerical simulation results.

A Non-Cooperative Differential Game-Based Security Model in Fog Computing

Fog computing is a new paradigm providing network services such as computing, storage between the end users and cloud. The distributed and open structure are the characteristics of fog computing, which make it vulnerable and very weak to security threats. In this article, the interaction between vulnerable nodes and malicious nodes in the fog computing is investigated as a non-cooperative differential game. The complex decision making process is reviewed and analyzed. To solve the game, a fictitious play-based algorithm is which the vulnerable node and the malicious nodes reach a feedback Nash equilibrium. We attain optimal strategy of energy consumption with Qo S guarantee for the system, which are conveniently operated and suitable for fog nodes. The system simulation identifies the propagation of malicious nodes. We also determine the effects of various parameters on the optimal strategy. The simulation results support a theoretical foundation to limit malicious nodes in fog computing, which can help fog service providers make the optimal dynamic strategies when different types of nodes dynamically change their strategies.

Resource Allocation for Network Security Risk Assessment：A Non-Cooperative Differential Game Based Approach

In this paper, we propose a non-cooperative differential game theory based resource allocation approach for the network security risk assessment. For the risk assessment, the resource will be used for risk assess, including response cost and response negative cost. The whole assessment process is considered as a differential game for optimal resource control. The proposed scheme can be obtained through the Nash Equilibrium. It is proved that the game theory based algorithm is applicable and the optimal resource level can be achieved based on the proposed algorithm.

Resource Allocation Based on DEA and Non-Cooperative Game

Resource allocation is one of the most important applications of data envelopment analysis(DEA).Usually,the resource to be allocated is directly related to the interests of decision-making units(DMUs),thus the dynamic non-cooperative game is one of the representative behaviours in the allocation process.However,it is rarely considered in the previous DEA-based allocation studies,which may reduce the acceptability of the allocation plan.Therefore,this paper proposes a DEA-based resource allocation method considering the dynamic non-cooperative game behaviours of DMUs.The authors first deduce the efficient allocation set under the framework of variable return to scale(VRS)and build the allocation model subjecting to the allocation set.Then an iteration algorithm based on the concept of the non-cooperative game is provided for generating the optimal allocation plan.Several interesting characteristics of the algorithm are proved,including i)the algorithm is convergent,ii)the optimal allocation plan is a unique Nash equilibrium point,and iii)the optimal allocation plan is unique no matter which positive value the initial allocation takes.Some advantages of the allocation plan have been found.For example,the allocation plan is more balanced,has more incentives and less outliers,compared with other DEA-based allocation plans.Finally,the proposed method is applied to allocate the green credit among the 30 Chinese iron and steel enterprises,and the results highlight the applicability of the allocation method and solution approach.Therefore,the approach can provide decision makers with a useful resource allocation tool from the perspective of dynamic non-cooperative game.

Equilibrium Strategy of the Pursuit-Evasion Game in Three-Dimensional Space

The pursuit-evasion game models the strategic interaction among players, attracting attention in many realistic scenarios, such as missile guidance, unmanned aerial vehicles, and target defense. Existing studies mainly concentrate on the cooperative pursuit of multiple players in two-dimensional pursuit-evasion games. However, these approaches can hardly be applied to practical situations where players usually move in three-dimensional space with a three-degree-of-freedom control. In this paper,we make the first attempt to investigate the equilibrium strategy of the realistic pursuit-evasion game, in which the pursuer follows a three-degree-of-freedom control, and the evader moves freely. First, we describe the pursuer's three-degree-of-freedom control and the evader's relative coordinate. We then rigorously derive the equilibrium strategy by solving the retrogressive path equation according to the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs(HJBI) method, which divides the pursuit-evasion process into the navigation and acceleration phases. Besides, we analyze the maximum allowable speed for the pursuer to capture the evader successfully and provide the strategy with which the evader can escape when the pursuer's speed exceeds the threshold. We further conduct comparison tests with various unilateral deviations to verify that the proposed strategy forms a Nash equilibrium.

Problematic Use of Video Games in Schools in Northern Benin (2023)

Objective: To study the problematic use of video games among secondary school students in the city of Parakou in 2023. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in the commune of Parakou from December 2022 to July 2023. The study population consisted of students regularly enrolled in public and private secondary schools in the city of Parakou for the 2022-2023 academic year. A two-stage non-proportional stratified sampling technique combined with simple random sampling was adopted. The Problem Video Game Playing (PVP) scale was used to assess problem gambling in the study population, while anxiety and depression were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Results: A total of 1030 students were included. The mean age of the pupils surveyed was 15.06 ± 2.68 years, with extremes of 10 and 28 years. The [13 - 18] age group was the most represented, with a proportion of 59.6% (614) in the general population. Females predominated, at 52.8% (544), with a sex ratio of 0.89. The prevalence of problematic video game use was 24.9%, measured using the Video Game Playing scale. Associated factors were male gender (p = 0.005), pocket money under 10,000 cfa (p = 0.001) and between 20,000 - 90,000 cfa (p = 0.030), addictive family behavior (p < 0.001), monogamous family (p = 0.023), good relationship with father (p = 0.020), organization of video game competitions (p = 0.001) and definite anxiety (p Conclusion: Substance-free addiction is struggling to attract the attention it deserves, as it did in its infancy everywhere else. This study complements existing data and serves as a reminder of the need to focus on this group of addictions, whose problematic use of video games remains the most frequent due to its accessibility and social tolerance. Preventive action combined with curative measures remains the most effective means of combating the problem at national level.

Cooperative Anti-Jamming and Interference Mitigation for UAV Networks: A Local Altruistic Game Approach

To improve the anti-jamming and interference mitigation ability of the UAV-aided communication systems, this paper investigates the channel selection optimization problem in face of both internal mutual interference and external malicious jamming. A cooperative anti-jamming and interference mitigation method based on local altruistic is proposed to optimize UAVs’ channel selection. Specifically, a Stackelberg game is modeled to formulate the confrontation relationship between UAVs and the jammer. A local altruistic game is modeled with each UAV considering the utilities of both itself and other UAVs. A distributed cooperative anti-jamming and interference mitigation algorithm is proposed to obtain the Stackelberg equilibrium. Finally, the convergence of the proposed algorithm and the impact of the transmission power on the system loss value are analyzed, and the anti-jamming performance of the proposed algorithm can be improved by around 64% compared with the existing algorithms.