An Axiomatic Theory of Fairness

Speaker:	Dr. Mung Chiang
		Electrical Engineering Department
		Princeton University

Title:		"An Axiomatic Theory of Fairness"

Date:		Monday, 7 September 2009

Time:		4:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:		Lecture Theater F (near lifts 25/26), HKUST

Abstract:

We present a set of five axioms for fairness measures in resource
allocation. A family of fairness measures satisfying the axioms is
constructed. Well-known notions including index-based fairness and
alpha-fairness are shown to be special cases, and properties of fairness
measures satisfying the axioms are proven, including Schur-concavity.
Among the engineering implications is an interpretation of "larger
$\alpha$ is more fair". We also construct an alternative set of four
axioms to capture efficiency objectives and feasibility constraints.


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Biography:

Mung Chiang is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, and an
Affiliated Faculty of Applied and Computational Mathematics and of
Computer Science, at Princeton University. He received the B.S. (Honors)
in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1999, 2000, and 2003,
respectively, and was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University
2003-2008. His research areas include optimization, distributed control,
and stochastic analysis of communication networks, with applications to
the Internet, wireless networks, broadband access networks, and content
distribution.

His awards include Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and
Engineers 2008 from the White House, Young Investigator Award 2007 from
ONR, TR35 Young Innovator Award 2007 from Technology Review, Young
Researcher Award Runner-up 2004-2007 from Mathematical Programming
Society, CAREER Award 2005 from NSF, as well as Frontiers of Engineering
Symposium participant 2008 from NAE and SEAS Teaching Commendation 2007
from Princeton University. He was a Princeton University Howard B. Wentz
Junior Faculty and a Hertz Foundation Fellow. His paper awards include ISI
citation Fast Breaking Paper in Computer Science, IEEE INFOCOM Best Paper
Finalist, and IEEE GLOBECOM Best Student Paper. His guest and associate
editorial services include IEEE/ACM Trans. Netw., IEEE Trans. Inform.
Theory, IEEE J. Sel. Area Comm., IEEE Trans. Comm., IEEE Trans. Wireless
Comm., and J. Optimization and Engineering. He has filed 16 patents and
co-chaired 38th Conference on Information Sciences and Systems.