Asymmetric Game Dynamics in Complex Networks against Cascading Failures

Abstract

Information asymmetry is one of the most important dynamic properties of complex networks. It has important significance to explore the effect of information asymmetry on cascading failures for realizing cascading dynamic properties. In this paper, after analyzing the information asymmetry during the load redistribution, asymmetric game theory has been constructed to describe the behavior of game among nodes during the load redistribution. And on the basis of this framework, a new cascading model is proposed in which the network robustness is mostly influenced by initial load of nodes and profit asymmetry ratio. The simulation results show initial load has a positive correlation with the cascading propagation and exists an intermediate value guaranteeing the minimum of the tolerance threshold, while the results of profit asymmetry ratio are on the contrary. These research results effectively demonstrate the value of information asymmetry theory on network security and provides new perspective to investigate the cascading failure dynamics. Keywords-information asymmetry; asymmetric game; prisoner’s dilemma game; cascading failures; complex networks