28 March: fyi -- phd funding, Cork

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Position: PhD studentship; fully funded for three years.
Location: Constraint Computation Centre, University College
Cork, Ireland
Area: Advanced Electronic Auctions for B2B Commerce,
Optimisation
Contact: Barry O'Sullivan - b.osullivan@cs.ucc.ie

Research Topic: This project involves the study of combinatorial
auctions in which multiple distinguishable items are sold. In contrast
to standard single unit auctions, in a combinatorial auctions bidders
bid on preferred combinations of items, thus enabling the expression
of complementarities. For example, a take-off slot in Cork airport and
a landing slot in Heathrow 1 hour apart complement each other because
this is the precise flight time between the two cities and their
combined value is much greater than that of two slots 90 minutes
apart. Bidders can describe their preferences in a more expressive
manner so that they can be awarded combinations of items that result
in greater economic efficiency over single-item auctions.

Combinatorial auctions present difficulties in terms of
preference elicitation, how the bidder describes their preferences
concisely, and winner determination. The bid-taker must choose the
combination of bids that maximises revenue and this requires a
sophisticated algorithmic solution, given that potentially thousands
of bids may be submitted.

This project aims to develop a combinatorial auction solution for the
multi-billion euro procurement sector so that suppliers can inform
purchasers of those combinations of items that cause cost reductions
for suppliers, thus enabling a win-win situation for bidders and the
bid-taker.

_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Barry O'Sullivan | http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~osullb
4C, Computer Science Department, University College Cork, Ireland

Index of March 2007 | Index of year: 2007 | Full index