Game Theory

The Special Issue “Game Theory” of the journal Mathematics provides a collection of papers that represent modern trends in mathematical game theory and its applications. The works address the problem of constructing and implementation of solution concepts based on classical optimality principles in different classes of games. In the case of non-cooperative behavior of players, the Nash equilibrium as a basic optimality principle is considered in both static and dynamic game settings. In the case of cooperative behavior of players, the situation is more complicated. As is seen from presented papers, the direct use of cooperative optimality principles in dynamic and differential games may bring time or subgame inconsistency of a solution which makes the cooperative schemes unsustainable. The notion of time or subgame consistency is crucial to the success of cooperation in a dynamic framework. In the works devoted to dynamic or differential games, this problem is analyzed and the special regularization procedures proposed to achieve time or subgame consistency of cooperative solutions. Among others, special attention in the presented book is paid to the construction of characteristic functions which determine the power of coalitions in games. The book contains many multi-disciplinary works applied to economic and environmental applications in a coherent manner

Process Based Management and the Central Role of Dialogical Collective Activity in Organizational Learning. The Case of Work Safety in the Building Industry

The notion of “process”, which describes the cooperation of heterogeneous practices and competences for a given output, has gained a major position in managerial practices for the last twenty years. This paper presents three ideas about organizational dynamics and processes and tests their applicability in the case of work safety improvement in a building company. The first idea is that the success of the process notion shows the central role of “conjoint” (as opposed to “common”) collective activity in organizational learning. Conjoint collective activity is dialogical (“acts speak”) and mediated by the utilization of semiotic systems (languages and technical and managerial tools). The second idea is that organizational learning is neither based on the actors’ individual subjectivity nor on the technological and objective artefacts engaged in the processes, but rather on the reflexive understanding and ongoing redesign of processes by the process actors themselves, in the frame of a reflexive inquiry, a “collective activity about collective activity” which is triggered and kept in motion by axiological judgments (process evaluation). The third idea is that the possibilities to configure processes in a given organization are multiple. The reflexive inquiry enacts a specific social, spatial and time configuration of the process, its “chronotope” in Bakhtin’s vocabulary, which plays a major role in the way actors can make sense of their collective activity and transform it. A longitudinal case study about work safety on the building yards shows that it is difficult to “control out” risk at work once designs have been established, in the frame of the “project execution” process, but it is easier to “design out” risk, when the actors of the process collectively design and redesign their collective activity, from the very first phases of a building project to the end. Therefore a major way to improve safety consists in extending the chronotope of the collective activity under consideration, overcoming the traditional separation between “design / planning” and “execution”. The conclusion summarizes the main theoretical, epistemological and practical issues involved in this research about conjoint collective activity.Business Process; Chronotope; Collective Activity; Collective Sense Making; Dialogism; Inquiry; Process-based Management; Safety Management

Archaeology and art

Archaeologists have approached the study of art from several directions, drawing their inspiration variously from evolutionary biology, anthropology, and art history.We examine the strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches and demonstrate the unique opportunities open to archaeology in the study of art, from its origins to the recent past

Personal reference and politeness strategies in French and Spanish: a corpus-based approach

The aim of this thesis is to examine personal pronominal reference in two lang1;5ges, French and Spanish, from an interactional perspective. Brown and Levinson's (1978, 1987) 'Politeness theory' seeks to provide an explanation for much of the mismatch between what is 'said' and what Is 'implicated' in spoken discourse. One area of speech where this mismatch is particularly evident is that of personal reference where extralinguistic information is paramount in its use and interpretation. While previous approaches to this area have sought to assign one interpretation to a given pronominal use, this study seeks to show how speakers and hearers can exploit a multiplicity of potential values in the interest of faceprotection. Based on 5 qualitative methodology derived from the field of linguistic pragmatics applied to a corpus of naturally-oc:urring data of speech situations where there is threat to the face of speakers and hearers, this study will argue that the contextual factors of power and status as well as a knowledge of linguistic politeness itself are of crucial :mportance in the use and interpretation of persmal reference

Easterner, Volume 32, No. 25 (misprint), May 7, 1981

This issue of the Easterner contains articles about a tuition hike passed by the Washington state legislature, a campus talk on foreign policy by Henry Steele Commager, Law Day debate, the growth of the ROTC program, a fashion show put on by the home economics club COLHECON, the Chicano Studies program, women\u27s basketball recruiting, and the tennis, baseball, and track seasons.https://dc.ewu.edu/student_newspapers/2066/thumbnail.jp

The role of social capital to access rural credit : a case study at Dinh Cu and Van Quat Dong village in coastal area of Thua Thien Hue province

As a poverty reduction strategy, credit access has played an important role in supporting the peasants to improve their production and living standard. However, the level of access to credit differs among various regions and it has been affected by many factors. This thesis examines the relation between social capital factor and capacity for obtaining the credit sources of local people in coastal area of Thua Thien Hue province in Vietnam. It analyzes the role of social capital to access different credit sources as well as explores the effect of network types horizontally and vertically on obtaining the credit from Bank, "hui" groups and moneylenders. Through exploring the influence of social capital on credit access, this research aims to contribute to the debates on social capital and its effect on economic outcomes. The study applies a qualitative approach based on focus group discussion and in-depth interviews. The theoretical underpinnings for the research is drawn from perspectives of scholars about social capital, the context of Vietnamese rural society and the effect of social capital to obtaining the credits. The findings indicate that social capital affects the credit access from the bank through group lending which is assessed by participating in popular organizations. Neighbor network, which is exposed by generalized trust, reputation, balanced reciprocity, and mutual aid activity, facilitates to establish "hui" group in order to obtain rotating credit. On the other hand, vertical relation, which is exposed by trust, generalized reciprocity, and reputation, supports to receive the loans from moneylenders. The study concludes that, the social capital, which is addressed by horizontal and vertical network, is a sine qua non for obtaining credit from both formal and informal credit sources. Simultaneously, the thesis suggests that in order to improve the capacity for accessing credit of local people in rural area, the mechanism of VBSP loans delivery should be expanded to other type of popular organizations instead of focusing on women- and farmer unions. We need to encourage local people to participate in popular organizations to enhance the opportunity of obtaining the credit from VBSP. It is important to integrate "hui" activity into popular organizations’ programs in order to expand this type of credit

Confucian ritual and solidarity: physicality, meaning, and connection in classical Confucianism

Consensus scholarship notes that the ethics described in the Confucian textual corpus focuses its attention primarily on concrete relationships, specific roles, and reciprocal duties. This has occasioned concern about whether Confucian ethics can offer adequate moral guidelines for interactions between people who have enjoyed no prior contact. In response, this dissertation suggests that early Confucianism does guide interactions with strangers, but that this guidance is to be found less in its ethical concepts or moral precepts than in its embodied ritual practices. To substantiate this claim, I carefully apply theories drawn from the fields of cognitive science, cognitive philosophy, American pragmatism, and ritual theory to several early Confucian texts: the Analects, Mencius, Xunzi, and the ritual manuals of the Liji and the Yili. From pragmatism and cognitive philosophy, I assemble lenses of conceptual and pre-conceptual meaning and use them to examine the effects of ritual practice on the creation of group boundaries and the generation of solidarity. In so doing, I reveal that the solidarity generated by embodied practice and physical co-presence shapes the boundaries and structure of early Confucian groups as much as concepts or shared values. I further outline the neural and psychological processes by which the physicality of Confucian ritual practice creates pre-conceptual solidarity, then highlight the ways that solidarity is framed and given a meaningful direction by the varied Confucian exemplars. Ultimately, I demonstrate that mutual engagement in ritual practice allows strangers to bond quickly, without the benefit of prior relationship or shared proposition. This, I argue, is the heart of the Confucian treatment of strangers. Ritual practice simultaneously creates a relationship between new contacts and energizes that relationship with strong, pre-conceptually-generated solidarity. This dissertation also analyzes a number of related topics, including the relationship between ritual practice and group boundaries and the influence of the body upon concepts and categorization. In its broadest goals, this study offers insight into the rich character of early Confucian physicality, suggests novel guidelines for the analysis of contemporary Confucianism, and reflects possible ways in which solidarity might be formed between members of groups with different value orientations