Atom Formation Rates Behind Shock Waves in Hydrogen and the Effect of Added Oxygen, July 1965 - July 1966

Formation rate of atomic hydrogen behind shock waves in hydrogen-argon mixture

Past trauma and future choices: Differences in discounting in low-income, urban African Americans

AbstractBackgroundExposure to traumatic events is surprisingly common, yet little is known about its effect on decision making beyond the fact that those with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to have substance-abuse problems. We examined the effects of exposure to severe trauma on decision making in low-income, urban African Americans, a group especially likely to have had such traumatic experiences.MethodParticipants completed three decision-making tasks that assessed the subjective value of delayed monetary rewards and payments and of probabilistic rewards. Trauma-exposed cases and controls were propensity-matched on demographic measures, treatment for psychological problems, and substance dependence.ResultsTrauma-exposed cases discounted the value of delayed rewards and delayed payments, but not probabilistic rewards, more steeply than controls. Surprisingly, given previous findings that suggested women are more affected by trauma when female and male participants’ data were analyzed separately, only the male cases showed steeper delay discounting. Compared with nonalcoholic males who were not exposed to trauma, both severe trauma and alcohol-dependence produced significantly steeper discounting of delayed rewards.ConclusionsThe current study shows that exposure to severe trauma selectively affects fundamental decision-making processes. Only males were affected, and effects were observed only on discounting delayed outcomes (i.e. intertemporal choice) and not on discounting probabilistic outcomes (i.e. risky choice). These findings are the first to show significant differences in the effects of trauma on men's and women's decision making, and the selectivity of these effects has potentially important implications for treatment and also provides clues as to underlying mechanisms.</jats:sec

Sequential Posted Price Mechanisms with Correlated Valuations

We study the revenue performance of sequential posted price mechanisms and some natural extensions, for a general setting where the valuations of the buyers are drawn from a correlated distribution. Sequential posted price mechanisms are conceptually simple mechanisms that work by proposing a take-it-or-leave-it offer to each buyer. We apply sequential posted price mechanisms to single-parameter multi-unit settings in which each buyer demands only one item and the mechanism can assign the service to at most k of the buyers. For standard sequential posted price mechanisms, we prove that with the valuation distribution having finite support, no sequential posted price mechanism can extract a constant fraction of the optimal expected revenue, even with unlimited supply. We extend this result to the the case of a continuous valuation distribution when various standard assumptions hold simultaneously. In fact, it turns out that the best fraction of the optimal revenue that is extractable by a sequential posted price mechanism is proportional to ratio of the highest and lowest possible valuation. We prove that for two simple generalizations of these mechanisms, a better revenue performance can be achieved: if the sequential posted price mechanism has for each buyer the option of either proposing an offer or asking the buyer for its valuation, then a Omega(1/max{1,d}) fraction of the optimal revenue can be extracted, where d denotes the degree of dependence of the valuations, ranging from complete independence (d=0) to arbitrary dependence (d=n-1). Moreover, when we generalize the sequential posted price mechanisms further, such that the mechanism has the ability to make a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the i-th buyer that depends on the valuations of all buyers except i's, we prove that a constant fraction (2-sqrt{e})/4~0.088 of the optimal revenue can be always be extracted.Comment: 29 pages, To appear in WINE 201

Truthful Multi-unit Procurements with Budgets

We study procurement games where each seller supplies multiple units of his item, with a cost per unit known only to him. The buyer can purchase any number of units from each seller, values different combinations of the items differently, and has a budget for his total payment. For a special class of procurement games, the {\em bounded knapsack} problem, we show that no universally truthful budget-feasible mechanism can approximate the optimal value of the buyer within $\ln n$, where $n$ is the total number of units of all items available. We then construct a polynomial-time mechanism that gives a $4(1+\ln n)$-approximation for procurement games with {\em concave additive valuations}, which include bounded knapsack as a special case. Our mechanism is thus optimal up to a constant factor. Moreover, for the bounded knapsack problem, given the well-known FPTAS, our results imply there is a provable gap between the optimization domain and the mechanism design domain. Finally, for procurement games with {\em sub-additive valuations}, we construct a universally truthful budget-feasible mechanism that gives an $O(\frac{\log^2 n}{\log \log n})$-approximation in polynomial time with a demand oracle.Comment: To appear at WINE 201

Budget Feasible Mechanisms for Experimental Design

In the classical experimental design setting, an experimenter E has access to a population of $n$ potential experiment subjects $i\in \{1,...,n\}$, each associated with a vector of features $x_i\in R^d$. Conducting an experiment with subject $i$ reveals an unknown value $y_i\in R$ to E. E typically assumes some hypothetical relationship between $x_i$'s and $y_i$'s, e.g., $y_i \approx \beta x_i$, and estimates $\beta$ from experiments, e.g., through linear regression. As a proxy for various practical constraints, E may select only a subset of subjects on which to conduct the experiment. We initiate the study of budgeted mechanisms for experimental design. In this setting, E has a budget $B$. Each subject $i$ declares an associated cost $c_i >0$ to be part of the experiment, and must be paid at least her cost. In particular, the Experimental Design Problem (EDP) is to find a set $S$ of subjects for the experiment that maximizes V(S) = \log\det(I_d+\sum_{i\in S}x_i\T{x_i}) under the constraint $\sum_{i\in S}c_i\leq B$; our objective function corresponds to the information gain in parameter $\beta$ that is learned through linear regression methods, and is related to the so-called $D$-optimality criterion. Further, the subjects are strategic and may lie about their costs. We present a deterministic, polynomial time, budget feasible mechanism scheme, that is approximately truthful and yields a constant factor approximation to EDP. In particular, for any small $\delta > 0$ and $\epsilon > 0$, we can construct a (12.98, $\epsilon$)-approximate mechanism that is $\delta$-truthful and runs in polynomial time in both $n$ and $\log\log\frac{B}{\epsilon\delta}$. We also establish that no truthful, budget-feasible algorithms is possible within a factor 2 approximation, and show how to generalize our approach to a wide class of learning problems, beyond linear regression

Evolutionarily Stable Strategies in Quantum Games

Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS) in classical game theory is a refinement of Nash equilibrium concept. We investigate the consequences when a small group of mutants using quantum strategies try to invade a classical ESS in a population engaged in symmetric bimatrix game of Prisoner's Dilemma. Secondly we show that in an asymmetric quantum game between two players an ESS pair can be made to appear or disappear by resorting to entangled or unentangled initial states used to play the game even when the strategy pair remains a Nash equilibrium in both forms of the game.Comment: RevTex,contents extended to include asymmetric games,no figur

Optimal Design of Robust Combinatorial Mechanisms for Substitutable Goods

In this paper we consider multidimensional mechanism design problem for selling discrete substitutable items to a group of buyers. Previous work on this problem mostly focus on stochastic description of valuations used by the seller. However, in certain applications, no prior information regarding buyers' preferences is known. To address this issue, we consider uncertain valuations and formulate the problem in a robust optimization framework: the objective is to minimize the maximum regret. For a special case of revenue-maximizing pricing problem we present a solution method based on mixed-integer linear programming formulation

Micro-evaporators for kinetic exploration of phase diagrams

We use pervaporation-based microfluidic devices to concentrate species in aqueous solutions with spatial and temporal control of the process. Using experiments and modelling, we quantitatively describe the advection-diffusion behavior of the concentration field of various solutions (electrolytes, colloids, etc) and demonstrate the potential of these devices as universal tools for the kinetic exploration of the phases and textures that form upon concentration

The basic approval voting game

We survey results about Approval Voting obtained within the standard framework of game theory. Restricting the set of strategies to undominated and sincere ballots does not help to predict Approval Voting outcomes, which is also the case under strategic equilibrium concepts such as Nash equilibrium and its usual refinements. Strong Nash equilibrium in general does not exist but predicts the election of a Condorcet winner when one exists

Quantum Games and Quantum Strategies

We investigate the quantization of non-zero sum games. For the particular case of the Prisoners' Dilemma we show that this game ceases to pose a dilemma if quantum strategies are allowed for. We also construct a particular quantum strategy which always gives reward if played against any classical strategy.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, typographic sign error in the definition of the operator J correcte