Resource allocation takes place in various kinds of real-world complexsystems, such as the traffic systems, social services institutions ororganizations, or even the ecosystems. The fundamental principle underlyingcomplex resource-allocation dynamics is Boolean interactions associated withminority games, as resources are generally limited and agents tend to choosethe least used resource based on available information. A common but harmfuldynamical behavior in resource-allocation systems is herding, where there aretime intervals during which a large majority of the agents compete for a fewresources, leaving many other resources unused. Ac- companying the herdbehavior is thus strong fluctuations with time in the number of resources beingused. In this paper, we articulate and establish that an intuitive controlstrategy, namely pinning control, is effective at harnessing the herdingdynamics. In particular, by fixing the choices of resources for a few agentswhile leaving majority of the agents free, herding can be eliminatedcompletely. Our investigation is systematic in that we consider random andtargeted pinning and a variety of network topologies, and we carry out acomprehensive analysis in the framework of mean-field theory to understand theworking of control. The basic philosophy is then that, when a few agents waivetheir freedom to choose resources by receiving sufficient incentives, majorityof the agents benefit in that they will make fair, efficient, and effective useof the available resources. Our work represents a basic and general frameworkto address the fundamental issue of fluctuations in complex dynamical systemswith significant applications to social, economical and political systems.
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