SLACERL: A self-organizing protocol for coordination in peer-to-peer networks

A simple protocol, SLACER (selfish link-based adaptation for a cooperation excluding rewiring) has been developed that produces incentives for coordination and cooperation and self-organizes connected cooperative and robust networks. When executed in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network's nodes, SLACER self-organizes the network into robust artificial social network (ASN) with small-world characteristics and high cooperation. SLACER has been applied to P2P coordination problems which require the formation of clusters of specialized nodes that coordinate their different skills to improve network level performance. The protocol follows a link-based incentive approach where nodes make and break links in the network to minimize the effects of other nodes.