Dear all, the DFG Research Unit ADYN invites you to their next online seminar session on Zoom: *Monday, June 2nd, 17:00 CEST*. Link: https://rwth.zoom-x.de/j/68837156442?pwd=H4OW7bUYYAMXSPiqvxXuEMuTTmk7VY.1 Meeting-ID: 688 3715 6442 Kenncode: 593098 The following talks will be given: (1) "The Offended Voter Model" by Marco Seiler (Goethe University Frankfurt) (2) "Designing Exploration Contracts" by Conrad Schecker (Goethe University Frankfurt) Abstracts: (1) In this talk we discuss a variant of the voter model on a coevolving network in which interactions of two individuals with differing opinions only lead to an agreement on one of these opinions with a fixed probability q. Otherwise, with probability 1-q, both individuals become offended in the sense that they never interact again, i.e. the corresponding edge is removed from the underlying network.  Eventually, these dynamics reach an absorbing state at which there is only one opinion present in each connected component of the network. If globally both opinions are present at absorption we speak of "segregation", otherwise of "consensus'". We show that segregation and a weaker form of consensus both occur with positive probability for every q ∈ (0,1) and that the segregation probability tends to 1 as q → 0. Furthermore, we establish that, if q → 1 fast enough, with high probability the population reaches consensus while the underlying network is still densely connected.  We briefly discuss results from simulations to assess the obtained results and to discuss further research directions. This talk is based on joint work with Raphael Eichhorn and Felix Hermann. (2) We propose a new model for contract design with sequential decision making where a principal delegates a search task to an agent. The agent sequentially explores n boxes, suffers an exploration cost for each inspected box, and selects the content (the "prize") of one inspected box as outcome. Agent and principal each obtain a value from the selected prize. To influence the search, the principal designs a contract with a non-negative payment to the agent for each potential prize. Her goal is to maximize her value minus payment. This natural contract scenario shares close relations to the classic Pandora's Box problem. We show how to compute optimal linear contracts in polynomial time. Moreover, we obtain efficient algorithms for optimal general contracts in several cases: When the agent has no individual value for prizes, when each box has only one prize with non-zero value for principal and agent, or for i.i.d. boxes with a single prize with positive value for the principal. This is joint work with Martin Hoefer and Kevin Schewior For more information on ADYN and the seminar series, visit our website using the link https://adyn.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/ . Best, Tim