Robertson–Webb query model

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigation Jump to search

In computer science, the Robertson–Webb (RW) query model is a model of computation

used by algorithms for the problem of fair cake-cutting. In this problem, there is a resource
called a "cake", and several agents with different value measures on the cake. The goal is to
divide the cake among the agents such that each agent will consider his/her piece as "fair" by
his/her personal value measure. Since the agents' valuations can be very complex, they cannot
- in general - be given as inputs to a fair division algorithm. The RW model specifies two
kinds of queries that a fair division algorithm may ask the agents: Eval and Cut. Informally,
an Eval query asks an agent to specify his/her value to a given piece of the cake, and a Cut
query (also called a Mark query) asks an agent to specify a piece of cake with a given value.

Despite the simplicity of the model, many classic cake-cutting algorithms can be described
only by these two queries. On the other hand, there are fair cake-cutting problems that
provably cannot be solved in the RW model using finitely many queries.

The Eval and Cut queries were first described in the book of Jack M. Robertson and William
A. Webb.[1] The name "Robertson–Webb model" was coined and formalized by Woeginger
and Sgall.[2]

Contents
 1 Definitions
 2 Example
 3 Results
 4 Variants
o 4.1 Left-mark and right-mark
o 4.2 Two-dimensional cakes
 5 Alternative models
o 5.1 Direct revelation model
o 5.2 Moving-knife model
o 5.3 Simultaneous queries model
 6 See also
 7 References

Definitions
The standard RW model assumes that the cake is an interval, usually the interval [0,1]. There
are n agents, and each agent i has a value measure vi on the cake. The algorithm does not
know vi, but can access it using two kinds of queries:
  An eval query: given two real numbers x and y, Evali(x,y) asks agent i to report the
value of the interval [x,y], i.e., vi ([x,y]).
 A mark query (also called a cut query): given two real numbers x and r, Marki(x,r)
asks agent i to report some value y such that vi([x,y]) = r.

Example
The classic Divide and choose algorithm, for cutting a cake between two children, can be
done using four queries.

 Ask Alice an Eval(0,1) query; let V1 be the answer (this is Alice's value of the entire
cake).
 Ask Alice a Mark(0, V1 / 2) query; let x1 be the answer (this is Alice's mark which
yields two pieces equal in her eyes).
 Ask George an Eval(0, x1) and an Eval(x1, 1) queries.
 If the former value is larger, give (0,x1) to George and (x1,1) to Alice; else, give (0,x1)
to Alice and (x1,1) to George.

Results
Besides divide-and-choose, many cake-cutting algorithms can be performed using RW
queries whose number is polynomial in n (the number of agents). For example: Last
diminisher can be done by O(n2) RW queries and Even–Paz protocol can be done by O(n log
n) RW queries. In parallel, there are many hardness results, proving that certain fair division
problems require many RW queries to complete. Some such hardness results are shown
below.

Proportional cake-cutting requires Ω(n log n) RW queries when either

 the pieces must be connected,[2] or

 the protocol is deterministic,[3] or
 the precision of cutting the cake is finite.[3]
 The only protocol which uses O(n) RW queries is a randomized protocol, which can
return disconnected pieces, and the allocation might be only fractionally-proportional.

Proportional cake-cutting with different entitlements requires at least Ω(n log(D)) RW

queries, where D is the common denominator of the entitlements (in particular, it cannot be
found using a bounded number of queries if the entitlements are irrational). There is an
algorithm that uses O(n log(D)) RW queries for rational entitlements, and a finite algorithm
for irrational entitlements.[4]

Envy-free cake-cutting requires

 Ω(n2) RW queries when the pieces may be disconnected,[5]

 Infintiely many queries when the pieces must be connected and there are at least 3
agents.[6] In other words, there is no algorithm that always finds an envy-free
allocation among 3 or more agents using finitely-many RW queries.
  For any ε > 0, an ε-envy-free connected cake-cutting requires at least Ω(log ε−1)
queries. For 3 agents, an O(log ε−1) protocol exists. For 4 or more agents, the best
known protocol requires O(n ε−1), which shows an exponential gap in the query
complexity.[7]

Equitable cake-cutting cannot be done using finitely-many RW queries even for 2 agents.[8]
Moreover, for any ε > 0:

 A connected ε-equitable cake-cutting requires at least Ω(log ε−1) queries.[7] For 2

agents, an O(log ε−1) protocol exists.[9] For 3 or more agents, the best known protocol
requires O(n (log n + log ε−1)) queries.[10]
 Even without connectivity, ε-equitable cake-cutting requires at least Ω(log ε−1 / log
log ε−1 ) RW queries.[8]

Exact cake-cutting (also known as perfect cake-cutting) cannot be done using finitely-
many RW queries even for 2 agents. Moreover, for any ε > 0:

 An ε-perfect cake-cutting with the minimum possible number of cuts requires at least
Ω(log ε−1) queries. For 2 agents, an O(log ε−1) protocol exists.[7] For 3 or more agents,
the best known protocol requires O(n3 ε−1) queries.[11]

Maximin share cake-cutting, when the pieces must be separated by a positive distance,
cannot be done using finitely-many RW queries. Moreover, even for a single agent, there is
no algorithm that computes the agent's maximin-share using finitely-many RW queries.
However:[12]

 For any ε > 0, it is possible to compute a value between the MMS and the MMS-ε
using O(n log ε−1) RW queries.
 When the cake is circular (i.e., in fair pie-cutting), it is possible to compute a value
between the MMS and the MMS-ε using O(n ε−1) RW queries. It is open whether O(n
log ε−1) RW queries suffice.

Average-proportional cake-cutting (i.e., an allocation between n families, such that for

each family, the average value is at least 1/n of the total) cannot be computed using finitely-
many RW queries, even when there are 2 families with 2 members in each family. The proof
is by reduction from equitable cake-cutting.[13]

Variants
Left-mark and right-mark

When the value measure of an agent is not strictly positive (i.e., there are parts that the agent
values at 0), a mark query can, in principle, return infinitely many values. For example, if an
agent values [0,0.9] at 1 and [0.9,1] at 0, then the query Mark(0,1) can return any value
between 0.9 and 1. Some algorithms require a more specific value:

 The left-mark query, LeftMark(x,r), returns the leftmost (smallest) y such that vi ([x,y])
= r;
  The right-mark query, RightMark(x,r), returns the rightmost (largest) y such that vi
([x,y]) = r;

If only one of these two variants is given (in addition to the Eval query), the other variant
cannot be computed in finite time.[10]

Two-dimensional cakes

The RW query model has been generalized to two-dimensional cakes[14] and multi-
dimensional cakes.[15]

Alternative models
There are many cake-cutting algorithms that do not use the RW model. They usually use one
of the following models.

Direct revelation model

Algorithms for restricted classes of valuations, such as piecewise-linear, piecewise-constant

or piecewise-uniform, which can be given explicitly as input to the algorithm. Some such
algorithms were developed for truthful cake-cutting.

Moving-knife model

In this model, there are knives moving continuously along the cake (see moving-knife
procedures). This model is related to the RW model as follows: any moving-knife procedure
with a fixed number of agents and a fixed number of knives can be simulated using O(log ε−1)
RW queries.[7]

Simultaneous queries model

In this model, agents simultaneously send discretizations of their preferences. A

discretization is a sequence of cut-points, and the values of pieces between these cut-points
(for example: a protocol for two agents might require each agent to report a sequence of three
cut-points (0,x,1) where the values of (0,x) and (x,1) are 1/2). These reports are used to
compute a fair allocation. The complexity of an algorithm in this model is defined as the
maximum number of intervals in a required discretization (so the complexity of the above
protocol is 2).

One advantage of this model over the RW model is that it enables to elicit preferences in
parallel. This allows to compute a proportional cake-cutting in time O(n) by simultaneously
asking each agent for a discretization with n intervals (of equal value). In contrast, in the RW
model there is an O(n log n) lower bound. On the other hand, in the simultaneous model, it is
impossible to compute an envy-free cake-cutting using a finite discretization for 3 or more
agents; but for every e>0, there exists a simultaneous protocol with complexity O(n/e2), that
attains an e-approximate envy-free division.[16]

See also
  Demand oracle (and value oracle) - a similar query model in a setting with indivisible
objects.

References
1.

 Robertson, Jack; Webb, William (1998). Cake-Cutting Algorithms: Be Fair If You Can.
Natick, Massachusetts: A. K. Peters. ISBN 978-1-56881-076-8. LCCN 97041258.
OL 2730675W.
  Gerhard J. Woeginger and Jiri Sgall (2007). "On the complexity of cake cutting".
Discrete Optimization. 4 (2): 213–220. doi:10.1016/j.disopt.2006.07.003.
  Edmonds, Jeff (2006). Cake cutting really is not a piece of cake. Proceedings of the
Seventeenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithm - SODA '06. pp. 271–
278. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.412.7166. doi:10.1145/1109557.1109588. ISBN 978-0898716054.,
Edmonds, Jeff (2011). "Cake cutting really is not a piece of cake". ACM Transactions on
Algorithms. 7 (4): 1–12. CiteSeerX  10.1.1.146.1536. doi:10.1145/2000807.2000819.
S2CID 2440968.
  Cseh, Ágnes; Fleiner, Tamás (2020-06-01). "The Complexity of Cake Cutting with
Unequal Shares". ACM Transactions on Algorithms. 16 (3): 29:1–29:21. arXiv:1709.03152.
doi:10.1145/3380742. ISSN 1549-6325. S2CID 218517351.
  Procaccia, Ariel (2009). "Thou Shalt Covet Thy Neighbor's Cake". IJCAI'09
Proceedings of the 21st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence: 239–244.
  Stromquist, Walter (2008). "Envy-free cake divisions cannot be found by finite
protocols" (PDF). Electronic Journal of Combinatorics. 15. doi:10.37236/735.
  Brânzei, Simina; Nisan, Noam (2018-07-13). "The Query Complexity of Cake
Cutting". arXiv:1705.02946 [cs.GT].
  Procaccia, Ariel D.; Wang, Junxing (2017-06-20). "A Lower Bound for Equitable
Cake Cutting". Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Economics and Computation.
EC '17. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 479–495.
doi:10.1145/3033274.3085107. ISBN 978-1-4503-4527-9. S2CID 9834718.
  Cechlárová, Katarína; Pillárová, Eva (2012). "A near equitable 2-person cake
cutting algorithm". Optimization. 61 (11): 1321. doi:10.1080/02331934.2011.563306.
S2CID 120300612.
  Cechlárová, Katarína; Pillárová, Eva (2012-11-01). "On the computability of
equitable divisions". Discrete Optimization. 9 (4): 249–257.
doi:10.1016/j.disopt.2012.08.001. ISSN 1572-5286.
  Brânzei, Simina; Miltersen, Peter Bro (2015-07-25). "A dictatorship theorem for cake
cutting". Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
IJCAI'15. Buenos Aires, Argentina: AAAI Press: 482–488. ISBN 978-1-57735-738-4.
  Elkind, Edith; Segal-Halevi, Erel; Suksompong, Warut (2020-12-11). "Mind the Gap:
Cake Cutting With Separation". arXiv:2012.06682 [cs.GT].
  Segal-Halevi, Erel; Nitzan, Shmuel (2019-12-01). "Fair cake-cutting among
families". Social Choice and Welfare. 53 (4): 709–740. arXiv:1510.03903.
doi:10.1007/s00355-019-01210-9. ISSN 1432-217X. S2CID 1602396.
  Segal-Halevi, Erel; Nitzan, Shmuel; Hassidim, Avinatan; Aumann, Yonatan (2017).
"Fair and square: Cake-cutting in two dimensions". Journal of Mathematical Economics. 70:
1–28. arXiv:1409.4511. doi:10.1016/j.jmateco.2017.01.007. S2CID  1278209.
  Cseh, Ágnes; Fleiner, Tamás (2018), "The Complexity of Cake Cutting with Unequal
Shares", Algorithmic Game Theory, Springer International Publishing, pp. 19–30,
arXiv:1709.03152, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-99660-8_3, ISBN 9783319996592,
S2CID 19245769
 Balkanski, Eric; Brânzei, Simina; Kurokawa, David; Procaccia, Ariel (2014-06-21).
"Simultaneous Cake Cutting". Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
28 (1). ISSN  2374-3468.