Dr. Vicki Allan 2016

Etextiles “Stitch” Grant NSF sponsored (2 years), $1,200,000 Teach public school teachers how to mix coding with crafting with science. Connect LEDs to Arduino Teach about basic circuitry LED’s program to go off/on, blink, fade. Play music using buzzers Pressure sensors, accelerometer, temperature sensor

Why? Introduce coding Stitch circuits – short circuits Learn better when build it. Situated learning. Data gathering/scaling. Teachers learn – so they can teach students

Projects Paper Circuits Blinking bracelet Temperature sensing lunchbox Pressure sensing backpack Slouching t-shirt.

Need a job? Stitch is looking to hire CS types to help with professional development for teachers and gathering of data (data base). Contact Colby Tofel-Grehl, Teacher Education and Leadership (TEAL) colby.tg@usu.edu

App Camp NSF Funding (3 years) $800,000 with ITLS (Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences) Middle school students High school mentors Teach how to write cell phone apps using App Inventor. Drag and drop. Study how to introduce coding to young women Why is their such a gender gap in CS?

Research Questions? What is role of all girl (or mixed) environment on self-efficacy? What is role of all female (or mixed) mentors? What is role of showing video clips of successful young professionals? What is the effect on the mentors of being seen as an expert? What creativity is shown when start with same basic instructions?

Smart Cities Direct traffic in different ways, so group benefits. Change direction of lanes, speed limits, stop light times – to move traffic better. Users need to visit a series of locations, but time to travel a link changes over the course of the day. How to find the best sequence of locations to visit?

Multiagent systems – program computer agents to act for people Multiagent systems – program computer agents to act for people. If two heads are better than one, how about 2000?

Monetary Auction Object for sale: a one dollar bill Rules Highest bidder gets it Highest bidder and the second highest bidder pay their bids New bids must beat old bids by 5¢. Bidding starts at 5¢. What would your strategy be?

Give Away Bag of candy to give away Put your name and vote on piece of paper. If everyone in the class says “share”, the candy is split equally. If only one person says “I want it”, he/she gets the candy to himself. If more than one person says “I want it”, I keep the candy.

Regret? Seeing how everyone else played, do you wish you would have played differently? If you could have talked to others before (collusion), what would you have said? Would it change anything?

The point? You are competing against others who are as smart as you are. If there is a “weakness” that someone can exploit to their benefit, someone will find it. You don’t have a central planner who is making the decision. Decisions happen in parallel.

Social Choice Suppose: Trying to decide which special topics class to offer. Committee of three people to make decision Have narrowed it down to four classes. Each person has a different ranking for the candidates. How do we make a decision? Termed a social choice function

Suppose we have only three voters Individual Preferences Joe ranks c > d > b > a Sam ranks a > c > d > b Sally ranks b > a > c > d What classes should be taught?

Runoff - Binary Protocol Joe ranks c > d > b > a Sam ranks a > c > d > b Sally ranks b > a > c > d One idea – consider candidates pairwise winner (c, (winner (a, winner(b,d))) Who should be hired?

Runoff - Binary Protocol One voter ranks c > d > b > a One voter ranks a > c > d > b One voter ranks b > a > c > d winner (c, (winner (a, winner(b,d)))=a winner (d, (winner (b, winner(c,a)))=d winner (c, (winner (b, winner(a,d)))=c winner (b, (winner (a, winner(c,d)))=b surprisingly, order of pairing yields different winner!

Borda protocol assigns an alternative |O| points for the highest preference, |O|-1 points for the second, and so on The counts are summed across the voters and the alternative with the highest count becomes the social choice 18

Is this a good way? Borda Paradox a > b > c >d b > c > d >a c > d > a > b a > b > c > d b > c > d> a c > d > a >b a > b >c >d a=18, b=19, c=20, d=13 Is this a good way? Clear loser

Borda Paradox – remove loser (d), Now: winner changes a > b > c b > c >a c > a > b b > c > a a >b >c a=15,b=14, c=13 a > b > c >d b > c > d >a c > d > a > b a > b > c > d b > c > d> a a > b >c > d a=18, b=19, c=20,d=13 When loser is removed, third choice becomes winner!

Issues with Borda favorite betrayal. How can anyone report different preference to gain advantage? B wins in this example, but the middle player can change the winner to something he likes better. How?

Who wins using Borda protocol? (if highest is first choice) 2 points 1 points 0 points a=11, b=12, c = 7

Inserted clone Now who wins? 3 points 2 points 1 points a=16, b=14, c=9 0 points

Other issues with Borda less expressive voter strategy Example: 3 candidates each with strong supporters. Many non-entities that no one really cared about. the strategic votes are: A > nonentities > B > C (cast by about 1/3 of the voters) B > nonentities > C > A (cast by about 1/3 of the voters) C > nonentities > A > B (cast by about 1/3 of the voters) ---------------------------------------------------------------- A,B, and C each get an average score of N/3. Non-entities score about N/2. So a non-entity always wins and the 3 good candidates always are ranked below average.

Conclusion Finding the best mechanism for social choice is not easy

Coalition Formation Overview Tasks: Various skills required by team members Agents form coalitions Agent types - Differing policies regarding which coalition to join How do policies interact?

Multi-Agent Coalitions “A coalition is a set of agents that work together to achieve a mutually beneficial goal” (Klusch and Shehory, 1996) Reasons agent would join Coalition Cannot complete task alone Complete task more quickly

Optimization Problem Not want a centralized solution Communication Privacy Situation changing Self-interested

Looking for partners for field trip Looking for partners for field trip. Arc labels represent goodness of pairing according to agents. What partnerships form?

Scenario 1 – Bargain Buy (supply-demand) Store “Bargain Buy” advertises a great price 300 people show up 5 in stock Everyone sees the advertised price, but it just isn’t possible for all to achieve it

Scenario 2 – selecting a spouse (agency) Bob knows all the characteristics of the perfect wife Bob seeks out such a wife Why would the perfect woman want Bob?

Scenario 3 – hiring a new PhD (strategy) Universities ranked 1,2,3 Students ranked a,b,c Dilemma for second tier university offer to “a” student likely rejected But rejection is delayed - see other options “b” students are gone as they got tired of waiting

Scenario 4 (trust) What if one person talks a good story, but his claims of skills are really inflated? He isn’t capable of performing. the task.

Scenario 5 The coalition is completed and rewards are earned. How are they fairly divided among agents with various contributions? If organizer is greedy, why wouldn’t others replace him with a cheaper agent?

Scenario 6 You consult with local traffic to find a good route home from work But so does everyone else