On Some Myths about Sequenced Common-valued Auctions

Equilibria are constructed for classes of game models of sequenced second-price auctions having identical common-valued objects. In some of these the equilibrium price falls on average, and in others the seller loses on average by committing to announce publicly something that he knows. Both of these possibilities are surprisesPublicad

Optimizing information in the herd : guinea pigs, profits, and welfare

Herding arises when an agent's private information is swamped by public information in what M. O. Jackson and E. Kalai (1997, Games Econ. Behavior21, 102–134) call a recurring game. The agent will fail to reveal his own information and will follow the actions of his predecessor and, as a result, useful information is lost, which might have highlighted a better choice for later decision-makers. This paper evaluates the strategy of forcing a subset of agents to make their decision early from the perspective of a social planner, and a firm with a valuable or valueless product. Promotional activity by firms can be explained as an attempt to overcome the herd externality and maximize sales

The scholarship assignment problem

There are n graduate students and n faculty members. Each student will be assigned a scholarship by the joint faculty. The socially optimal outcome is that the best student should get the most prestigious scholarship, the second-best student should get the second most prestigious scholarship, and so on. The socially optimal outcome is common knowledge among all faculty members. Each professor wants one particular student to get the most prestigious scholarship and wants the remaining scholarships to be assigned according to the socially optimal outcome. We consider the problem of finding a mechanism such that in equilibrium, all scholarships are assigned according to the socially optimal outcome.Publicad

Reputation and perfection in repeated common interest games

We consider a wide class of repeated common interest games perturbed with one-sided incomplete information: one player (the informed player) might be a commitment type playing the Pareto dominant action. As discounting, which is assumed to be symmetric, and the prior probability of the commitment type go to zero, it is shown that the informed player can be held close to her minmax payoff even when perfection is imposed on the equilibrium

Extensibility and limitations of FDDI

Recently two standards for Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) and Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB), have emerged as the primary competitors for the MAN arena. Great interest exists in building higher speed networks which support large numbers of node and greater distance, and it is not clear what types of protocols are needed for this type of environment. There is some question as to whether or not these MAN standards can be extended to such environments. The extensibility of FDDI to the Gbps range and a long distance environment is investigated. Specification parameters which affect performance are shown and a measure is provided for predicting utilization of FDDI. A comparison of FDDI at 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps is presented. Some specific problems with FDDI are addressed and modifications which improve the viability of FDDI in such high speed networks are investigated

Diadromous Fish Investigations, 2016: Anadromous Alosid Restoration and Evaluation

Eight fishways on six New Hampshire (NH) coastal rivers were operated during the spring of 2016 to facilitate the passage of river herring (Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus and Blueback Herring Alosa aestivalis), American Shad Alosa sapidissima, and other diadromous fish over dams. Estimated numbers of river herring using all coastal river fish ladders in 2016 increased by approximately 40.5% from 2015. Alewives dominated returns to the Cocheco, Exeter, and Lamprey rivers while the Oyster River had a slightly higher percentage of Blueback Herring returning. The Oyster River continues to have low return numbers and exhibits signs that habitat problems are inhibiting restoration efforts. The Winnicut River fishway is ineffective at passing river herring and an investigation to determine a solution is ongoing. In the absence of restoration efforts, no American Shad returned to NH fishways in 2016. In an effort to enhance local spawning stocks, thousands of river F-61-RI-1_16_AR Page 2 herring were transferred from the Cocheco and Lamprey rivers to the Merrimack River drainage to assist in anadromous fish restoration efforts. In 2016, 2,250 river herring were stocked in impoundments or lakes within the Great Bay Estuary drainage. The NH Fish and Game Department has continued to work with state and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations on various cooperative diadromous fish passage projects on coastal NH rivers

Performance of gigabit FDDI

Great interest exists in developing high speed protocols which will be able to support data rates at gigabit speeds. Hardware currently exists which can experimentally transmit at data rates exceeding a gigabit per second, but it is not clear as to what types of protocols will provide the best performance. One possibility is to examine current protocols and their extensibility to these speeds. Scaling of Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) to gigabit speeds is studied. More specifically, delay statistics are included to provide insight as to which parameters (network length, packet length or number of nodes) have the greatest effect on performance

Game of Thrones: imagined world combines romantic and grotesque visions of Middle Ages

OU historian Richard Marsden examines how longstanding assumptions about the Middle Ages have shaped the world presented in HBO's Gamer of Throne