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W. G. Pritchard Lab Seminar: 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM, 106 McAllister Bldg

	              **Monday October 9, 2006**
	
Models of search and file acquisition in peer-to-peer systems

George Kesidis

Department of Electrical Engineering
Penn State University


Abstract:

In this talk, I will give an overview of emerging peer-to-peer networking 
systems, some of which involve tessellations of addressing systems that 
reside on the surface of spheres. We will focus on incentive systems and 
give a probabilistic "consistency" result for a proposed reputation system 
(a kind of consensus system). We will then consider models of swarms / 
torrents (social networks) which are used for the purposes of 
dissemination of data-objects or services. Markovian models and their 
deterministic limits will be described for both search (for a swarm) and 
dissemination (within a swarm), where for the latter the models are of the 
epidemiological / coagulation variety. For a special case, we will use 
these models to study the performance of swapping and file-segmentation, 
i.e. "rule-based" incentives used to promote cooperation within the swarm. 
Finally, I will give a summary of my other research efforts in sensor 
networking and network security that include related stochastic 
mathematical techniques.

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