The Theory Of Search Games And Rendezvous

Search Theory is one of the original disciplines within the field of Operations Research. It deals with the problem faced by a Searcher who wishes to minimize the time required to find a hidden object, or “target. ” The Searcher chooses a path in the “search space” and finds the target when he is sufficiently close to it. Traditionally, the target is assumed to have no motives of its own regarding when it is found; it is simply stationary and hidden according to a known distribution (e. g. , oil), or its motion is determined stochastically by known rules (e. g. , a fox in a forest). The problems dealt with in this book assume, on the contrary, that the “target” is an independent player of equal status to the Searcher, who cares about when he is found. We consider two possible motives of the target, and divide the book accordingly. Book I considers the zero-sum game that results when the target (here called the Hider) does not want to be found. Such problems have been called Search Games (with the “ze- sum” qualifier understood). Book II considers the opposite motive of the target, namely, that he wants to be found. In this case the Searcher and the Hider can be thought of as a team of agents (simply called Player I and Player II) with identical aims, and the coordination problem they jointly face is called the Rendezvous Search Problem.

Search Theory is one of the original disciplines within the field of Operations Research. It deals with the problem faced by a Searcher who wishes to minimize the time required to find a hidden object, or “target. ” The Searcher chooses a path in the “search space” and finds the target when he is sufficiently close to it. Traditionally, the target is assumed to have no motives of its own regarding when it is found; it is simply stationary and hidden according to a known distribution (e. g. , oil), or its motion is determined stochastically by known rules (e. g. , a fox in a forest). The problems dealt with in this book assume, on the contrary, that the “target” is an independent player of equal status to the Searcher, who cares about when he is found. We consider two possible motives of the target, and divide the book accordingly. Book I considers the zero-sum game that results when the target (here called the Hider) does not want to be found. Such problems have been called Search Games (with the “ze- sum” qualifier understood). Book II considers the opposite motive of the target, namely, that he wants to be found. In this case the Searcher and the Hider can be thought of as a team of agents (simply called Player I and Player II) with identical aims, and the coordination problem they jointly face is called the Rendezvous Search Problem.

Search games and rendezvous problems have received growing attention in computer science within the past few years. Rendezvous problems emerge naturally, for instance, to optimize performance and convergence of mobile robots. This gives a new algorithmic point of view to the theory. Furthermore, modern topics such as the spreading of gossip or disease in social networks have lead to new challenging problems in search and rendezvous. Search Theory: A Game Theoretic Perspective introduces the first integrated approach to Search and Rendezvous from the perspectives of biologists, computer scientists and mathematicians. This contributed volume covers a wide range of topics including rendezvous problems and solutions, rendezvous on graphs, search games on biology, mobility in governed social networks, search and security, and more. Most chapters also include case studies or a survey, in addition to a chapter on the future direction of Search and Rendezvous research. This book targets researchers and practitioners working in computer science, mathematics and biology as a reference book. Advanced level students focused on these fields will also find this book valuable as a secondary text book or reference.

This book presents the proceedings of the 32nd Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, held in Merin, Czech Republic. The 45 revised full papers, presented together with 10 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 157 submissions. The papers were organized in four topical tracks on computer science foundations, wireless, mobile, ad hoc and sensor networks, database technologies, and semantic Web technologies.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 35th Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, SOFSEM 2009, held in Špindleruv Mlýn, Czech Republic, in January 2009. The 49 revised full papers, presented together with 9 invited contributions, were carefully reviewed and selected from 132 submissions. SOFSEM 2009 was organized around the following four tracks: Foundations of Computer Science; Theory and Practice of Software Services; Game Theoretic Aspects of E-commerce; and Techniques and Tools for Formal Verification.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science held in Pec pod Sněžkou, Czech Republic, during January 24-29, 2015. The book features 8 invited talks and 42 regular papers which were carefully reviewed and selected from 101 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections named: foundations of computer science; software and Web engineering; data, information, and knowledge engineering; and cryptography, security, and verification.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, SOFSEM 2017, held in Limerick, Ireland, in January 2017. The 34 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 41 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: foundations in computer science; semantics, specification and compositionality; theory of mobile and distributed systems; verification and automated system analysis; petri nets, games and relaxed data structures; graph theory and scheduling algorithms; quantum and matrix algorithms; planar and molecular graphs; coloring and vertex covers; algorithms for strings and formal languages; data, information and knowledge engineering; and software engineering: methods, tools, applications.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 15th Annual International Sym- sium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2004), held in Hong Kong, 20–22 December, 2004. In the past, it has been held in Tokyo (1990), Taipei (1991), Nagoya (1992), Hong Kong (1993), Beijing (1994), Cairns (1995), Osaka (1996), Singapore (1997), Taejon (1998), Chennai (1999), Taipei (2000), Christchurch (2001), Vancouver (2002), and Kyoto (2003). ISAAC is an annual international symposium that covers a wide range of topics,namelyalgorithmsandcomputation.Themainpurposeofthesymposium is to provide a forum for researchers working in the active research community of algorithms and the theory of computation to present and exchange new ideas. In response to our call for papers we received 226 submissions. The task of selectingthepapersinthisvolumewasdonebyourprogramcommitteeandother referees. After a thorough review process the committee selected 76 papers, the decisions being based on originality and relevance to the ?eld of algorithms and computation. We hope all accepted papers will eventually appear in scienti?c journals in a more polished form. Two special issues, one of Algorithmica and one of the International Journal of Computational Geometry and Applications, with selected papers from ISAAC 2004 are in preparation. Thebeststudentpaperawardwillbegivenfor“Geometricoptimizationpr- lems over sliding windows” by Bashir S. Sadjad and Timothy M. Chan from the University of Waterloo. Two eminent invited speakers, Prof. Erik D. Demaine, MIT, and Prof. David M. Mount, University of Maryland, also contributed to this volume.