Y. NARAHARI

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH PROJECTS

• Principal Investigator of the Project: Incentive Compatible Machine Learning for e-Services}. Funded by the Xerox Corporation, Webster, NY, USA, 2010-2012.



Success in online services is based on the fact that offerings can be made more relevant and reliable by using historical data to rank, filter, recommend, and in general learn characteristics of users and products. When these data are held by strategic agents, the classical learning algorithms fail to elicit the data truthfully from the agents. In this project, we look into the problems of this kind and try to provide truthful mechanisms with a guarantee of performance in learning.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: Design of Intelligent Mechanisms and Algorithms for Carbon Economics. Funded by Infosys Technologies, Bangalore (2009-12)



Carbon credits have now become highly valuable instruments of finance in the global market. The carbon credits market is today worth over US$ 100 Billion. The objective of this project is to develop algorithms based on game theory, mechanism design, and machine learning for optimal trading of carbon credits so as to maximize the global efficiency and performance of a company. The project involves designing carbon trading mechanisms, cooperative carbon credit allocation, and carbon credit optimization.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: Algorithmic Mechanism Design for Complex Game Theoretic Problems. Funded by the Office of Naval Research, Washington, DC. (2007-2009)



The objective of this project is to advance mechanism design in several directions, such as optimal auctions, stochastic mechanisms, and robust game theory, in the context of emerging applications such as ad hoc networks and social networks.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: Game Theoretic Approach to Design of Procurement Mechanisms and Networks. Funded by the General Motors R & D Center, Warren, Michigan, USA (2006-2007).



In this project, we use two complementary approaches, based on non-cooperative game theory and cooperative game theory for solving real-world procurement network formation problems.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: Game Theoretic Algorithms for Formation of High Value Supply Chains. Funded by Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore (June 2006-May 2007)



In this project, a combinatorial auction based algorithm was developed for composing web services and a prototype tool was designed for web services composition. The project also resulted in two publications in leading conferences.


• Co-Investigator of the Project: PROMISE-II: Petri Net Based Object Oriented Modelling and Intelligent Simulation Environment for Surveillance, sponsored by Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad, 2006-07



This is the second phase of the DRDL project. In this project, a robust software architecture has been designed for mission control software for the weapon complex, following best practices in software engineering, such as design patterns. Several mission critical software components were developed using architectural and design patterns. The use of patterns simplified the understanding of the voluminous complex software during development. Also, it offered flexibility in the maintenance of the software and management of the project as well. It resulted in easier adaptation of the software for changes requested by the user during the acceptance test. At the end of the project, the result was a collection of reusable components that led to easily reconfigurable mission software.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: E-Commerce and E-Business Optimization Algorithms. Sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, 2002-04.



This was a project under the modernization and removal of obsolescence programme. The funding was used to modernize the E-commerce Lab. The computing requirements of the doctoral and Master's students were supported by this project.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: IDEAS (Intelligent Digital Economy Algorithms) funded by the Intel India Development Centre, Bangalore (2003-2004).



During this project with Intel, many innovative auction algorithms were developed for indirect materials procurement within Intel. The project resulted in 4 technical reports and 2 external publications. An IISc-Intel Internet Resource on E-Commerce and E-Business was also created as part of this project.


• PROMISE-I: Petri Net Based Object Oriented Modelling and Intelligent Simulation Environment for Surveillance, sponsored by Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad, 2003.



We developed a Petri net based simulation environment for analyzing complex naval battlefield scenarios. Such a simulator is extremely useful in carrying out a strategic what-if analysis in battlefield scenarios. The tool can be customized to a variety of realistic battlefield scenarios.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: Design of Six Sigma Supply Chains, funded by the General Motors R & D Center, Warren, Michigan, USA (2002-2004).



The contribution of this project was to propose, conceptualize, formalize, and apply the notion of six sigma supply chains drawing upon the theory of statistical tolerancing and variability reduction principles. This project led to the development of a rigorous methodology for designing complex supply chains. The notion of six sigma supply chains has gained wide acceptance in the research community and in industry circles such as General Motors. The project resulted in 4 collaborative research reports and 4 external publications.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: IMPROVE: Innovative Market for Procurement from Vendors, funded by the General Motors R & D Center, Warren, Michigan, USA (2002-2004).



We developed several innovative algorithms for e-procurement within GM and also designed a software architecture for implementing such auctions. The software architecture has provided a baseline for implementing an e-procurement tool within GM. The project resulted in 4 collaborative research reports and 2 external publications. The project inspired the development of an e-procurement tool within GM which received the prestigious Charles L. McCuen Award for Outstanding Innovation, for the year 2006 at General Motors R & D, Warren, MI, USA.


• Principal Investigator of the project PROMISE: Private Procurement Marketplace for Intel's E-Business, sponsored by Intel India Development Centre, Bangalore, 2001.



We developed a multi-attribute, combinatorial auction algorithm for indirect materials procurement and also designed the software architecture for implementing the algorithm in practical, real-world auctions. The proof-of-concept implementation was later enhanced by Intel for use within Intel\/}.


• Principal Investigator: E-Commerce Business to Business Portal for Chemicals, sponsored by EbizChem Limited, Ahmedabad, 2000.



This was our first foray into an e-commerce collaborative project. Ebizchem is a forward looking chemicals company based in Ahmedabad and was interested in setting up a web portal and buyer-seller exchange for chemicals trading. We designed a three tier software architecture for the portal and devised simple algorithms for selling, procurement, and two sided trading. We also did load testing of this website after it was implemented and deployed.


• Principal Investigator of the Project: Design and Analysis of Competitive Manufacturing Systems, funded by the Ministry of HRD, New Delhi (1998-2000).


• Co-Investigator of the Project: Modelling, Analysis, and Control of Discrete Event Systems, funded jointly by the Department of Science and Technology and the Office of Naval Research, USA (1994-1996).


• Co-Investigator of the Project: Simulation Tools for Flexible Manufacturing Systems, funded by the Department of Electronics (1990-1991).


• Principal Investigator of the Project: Fault-Tolerant Manufacturing Systems, funded by the Department of Science and Technology (1991-1994).