1,338 research outputs found
Algorithmic Bayesian Persuasion
Persuasion, defined as the act of exploiting an informational advantage in
order to effect the decisions of others, is ubiquitous. Indeed, persuasive
communication has been estimated to account for almost a third of all economic
activity in the US. This paper examines persuasion through a computational
lens, focusing on what is perhaps the most basic and fundamental model in this
space: the celebrated Bayesian persuasion model of Kamenica and Gentzkow. Here
there are two players, a sender and a receiver. The receiver must take one of a
number of actions with a-priori unknown payoff, and the sender has access to
additional information regarding the payoffs. The sender can commit to
revealing a noisy signal regarding the realization of the payoffs of various
actions, and would like to do so as to maximize her own payoff assuming a
perfectly rational receiver.
We examine the sender's optimization task in three of the most natural input
models for this problem, and essentially pin down its computational complexity
in each. When the payoff distributions of the different actions are i.i.d. and
given explicitly, we exhibit a polynomial-time (exact) algorithm, and a
"simple" -approximation algorithm. Our optimal scheme for the i.i.d.
setting involves an analogy to auction theory, and makes use of Border's
characterization of the space of reduced-forms for single-item auctions. When
action payoffs are independent but non-identical with marginal distributions
given explicitly, we show that it is #P-hard to compute the optimal expected
sender utility. Finally, we consider a general (possibly correlated) joint
distribution of action payoffs presented by a black box sampling oracle, and
exhibit a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) with a bi-criteria
guarantee. We show that this result is the best possible in the black-box model
for information-theoretic reasons
Anharmonicities of giant dipole excitations
The role of anharmonic effects on the excitation of the double giant dipole
resonance is investigated in a simple macroscopic model.Perturbation theory is
used to find energies and wave functions of the anharmonic ascillator.The cross
sections for the electromagnetic excitation of the one- and two-phonon giant
dipole resonances in energetic heavy-ion collisions are then evaluated through
a semiclassical coupled-channel calculation.It is argued that the variations of
the strength of the anharmonic potential should be combined with appropriate
changes in the oscillator frequency,in order to keep the giant dipole resonance
energy consistent with the experimental value.When this is taken into
account,the effects of anharmonicities on the double giant dipole resonance
excitation probabilities are small and cannot account for the well-known
discrepancy between theory and experiment
Proof-theoretic Analysis of Rationality for Strategic Games with Arbitrary Strategy Sets
In the context of strategic games, we provide an axiomatic proof of the
statement Common knowledge of rationality implies that the players will choose
only strategies that survive the iterated elimination of strictly dominated
strategies. Rationality here means playing only strategies one believes to be
best responses. This involves looking at two formal languages. One is
first-order, and is used to formalise optimality conditions, like avoiding
strictly dominated strategies, or playing a best response. The other is a modal
fixpoint language with expressions for optimality, rationality and belief.
Fixpoints are used to form expressions for common belief and for iterated
elimination of non-optimal strategies.Comment: 16 pages, Proc. 11th International Workshop on Computational Logic in
Multi-Agent Systems (CLIMA XI). To appea
Efficiency determination of resistive plate chambers for fast quasi-monoenergetic neutrons
Composite detectors made of stainless steel converters and multigap resistive
plate chambers have been irradiated with quasi-monoenergetic neutrons with a
peak energy of 175MeV. The neutron detection efficiency has been determined
using two different methods. The data are in agreement with the output of Monte
Carlo simulations. The simulations are then extended to study the response of a
hypothetical array made of these detectors to energetic neutrons from a
radioactive ion beam experiment.Comment: Submitted to Eur.Phys.J. A; upgraded version correcting some typos
and updating ref.
Incompatible sets of gradients and metastability
We give a mathematical analysis of a concept of metastability induced by
incompatibility. The physical setting is a single parent phase, just about to
undergo transformation to a product phase of lower energy density. Under
certain conditions of incompatibility of the energy wells of this energy
density, we show that the parent phase is metastable in a strong sense, namely
it is a local minimizer of the free energy in an neighbourhood of its
deformation. The reason behind this result is that, due to the incompatibility
of the energy wells, a small nucleus of the product phase is necessarily
accompanied by a stressed transition layer whose energetic cost exceeds the
energy lowering capacity of the nucleus. We define and characterize
incompatible sets of matrices, in terms of which the transition layer estimate
at the heart of the proof of metastability is expressed. Finally we discuss
connections with experiment and place this concept of metastability in the
wider context of recent theoretical and experimental research on metastability
and hysteresis.Comment: Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, to appea
Soft Dipole Modes in Neutron-rich Ni-isotopes in QRRPA
The soft dipole modes in neutron rich even-even Ni-isotopes are investigated
in the quasiparticle relativistic random phase approximation. We study the
evolution of strengths distribution, centroid energies of dipole excitation in
low-lying and normal GDR regions with the increase of the neutron excess. It is
found in the present study that the centroid energies of the soft dipole
strengths strongly depend on the thickness of neutron skin along with the
neutron rich even-even Ni-isotopes.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
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