Chapter 4 — Acyclic Preference Networks

The goal of this chapter is to present a contribution that I hold particularly dear, namely the preference networks model. I proposed this model in order to better understand the dynamics of collaborations between peers who act independently according to their own preferences.

This chapter is structured in four parts: I first give a brief overview of stable marriage theory, from which the preference networks model originates. I then introduce the main foundations: the formalism used, the great theorem of acyclic preferences, which is the backbone of the theory, and finally a taxonomy of these acyclic preferences. The third part is devoted to a detailed study of the self-stabilization properties revealed by the great theorem, while the last part is devoted to the methods for describing the stable configuration of an acyclic preference network.