How does diabetes cause coronary artery disease?

From the cardiologist’s viewpoint, diabetes increases the rate of development of coronary atheroma, increases the risk of a coronary thrombosis, and has a deleterious effect on the outcome of myocardial infarction. In this article the author describes the risk factors associated with diabetes and concentrate on ways which diabetes may accelerate atheroma.peer-reviewe

Distribution-Valued Solution Concepts

Under its conventional positive interpretation, game theory predicts that the mixed strategy pro?le of players in a noncooperative game will satisfy some setvalued solution concept. Relative probabilities of pro?les in that set are unspeci?ed, and all pro?les not satisfying it are implicitly assigned probability zero. However the axioms underlying Bayesian rationality say that we should reason about player behavior using a probability density over all mixed strategy pro?les, not using a subset of all such pro?les. Such a density over pro?les can be viewed as a solution concept that is distribution-valued rather than set-valued. A distribution-valued concept provides a best single prediction for any noncooperative game, i.e., a universal re?nement. In addition, regulators can use a distribution-valued solution concept to make Bayes optimal choices of a mechanism, as required by Savage's axioms. In particular, they can do this in strategic situations where conventional mechanism design cannot provide advice. We illustrate all of this on a Cournot duopoly game.Quantal Response Equilibrium, Bayesian Statistics, Entropic prior, Maximum entropy JEL Codes: C02, C11, C70, C72

A theory of unstructured bargaining using distribution-valued solution concepts

In experiments it is typically found that many joint utility outcomes arise in any given unstructured bargaining game. This suggests using a positive unstructured bargaining concept that maps a bargaining game to a probability distribution over outcomes rather than to a single outcome. We show how to "translate" Nash's bargaining axioms to apply to such distributional bargaining concepts. We then prove that a subset of those axioms forces the distribution over outcomes to be a power-law. Unlike Nash's original result, our result holds even if the feasible set is finite. When the feasible set is convex and comprehensive, the mode of the power law distribution is the Harsanyi bargaining solution, and if we require symmetry it is the Nash bargaining solution. However in general these modes of the joint utility distribution are not Bayes-optimal predictions for the joint uitlity, nor are the bargains corresponding to those outcomes the most likely bargains. We then show how an external regulator can use distributional solution concepts to optimally design an unstructured bargaining scenario. Throughout we demonstrate our analysis in computational experiments involving flight rerouting negotiations in the National Airspace System.JEL Codes:

Analyzing Policy Risk and Accounting for Strategy: Auctions in the National Airspace System

We examine the potential for simple auction mechanisms to efficiently allocate arrival and departure slots during Ground Delay Programs (GDPs). The analysis is conducted using a new approach to predicting strategic behavior called Predictive Game Theory (PGT). The difference between PGT and the familiar Equilibrium Concept Approach (ECA) is that PGT models produce distribution-valued solut tion concepts rather than set-valued ones. The advantages of PGT over ECA in policy analysis and design are that PGT allows for decision-theoretic prediction and policy evaluation. Furthermore, PGT allows for a comprehensive account of risk, including two types of risk, systematic and modeling, that cannot be considered with the ECA. The results show that the second price auction dominates the first price auction in many decision-relevant categories, including higher expected efficiency, lower variance in efficiency, lower probability of significant efficiency loss and higher probability of significant efficiency gain. These findings are despite the fact that there is no a priori reason to expect the second price auction to be more efficient because none of the conventional reasons for preferring second price over first price auctions, i.e. dominant strategy implementability, apply to the GDP slot auction setting.auction, ground delay program, entropy, predictive game theory, strategic risk

How to Use Decision Theory to Choose Among Mechanisms

We extend a recently introduced approach to the positive problem of game theory, Predictive Game Theory (PGT Wolpert (2008). In PGT, modeling a game results in a probability distribution over possible behavior profiles. This contrasts with the conventional approach where modeling a game results in an equilibrium set of possible behavior profiles. We analyze three PGT models. Two of these are based on the well-known quantal response and epsilon equilibrium concepts, while the third is entirely new to the economics literature. We use a Cournot game to demonstrate how to use our extension of PGT, concentrating on model combination, modeler uncertainty, and mechanism design. In particular, we emphasize how PGT allows a modeler to perform prediction and mechanism design in a manner that is fully consistent with decision theory. We do this even in situations where conventional approaches yield multiple equilibria, an ability that is necessary for a fully decision theoretic mechanism design. Where possible, PGT results are compared against equilibrium set analogs.

Game Mining: How to Make Money from those about to Play a Game

It is known that a player in a noncooperative game can benefit by publicly re- stricting their possible moves before start of play. We show that, more generally, a player may benefit by publicly committing to pay an external party an amount that is contingent on the game's outcome. We explore what happens when external parties (who we call game miners) discover this fact and seek to profit from it by entering an outcome-contingent contract with the players. We analyze various bargaining games between miners and players for determining such an outcome- contingent contract. We establish restrictions on the strategic settings in which a game miner can profit, and bounds on the game miner's profit given various structured bargaining games. These bargaining games include playing the players against one another, as well as allowing the players to pay the miner(s) for exclu- sivity and first-mover advantage. We also establish that when all players can enter contracts with miners, to guarantee the existence of equilibria it is necessary to assume that players can randomize over the contracts they make.

Robustness of Trans-European Gas Networks

Here we uncover the load and fault-tolerant backbones of the trans-European gas pipeline network. Combining topological data with information on inter-country flows, we estimate the global load of the network and its tolerance to failures. To do this, we apply two complementary methods generalized from the betweenness centrality and the maximum flow. We find that the gas pipeline network has grown to satisfy a dual-purpose: on one hand, the major pipelines are crossed by a large number of shortest paths thereby increasing the efficiency of the network; on the other hand, a non-operational pipeline causes only a minimal impact on network capacity, implying that the network is error-tolerant. These findings suggest that the trans-European gas pipeline network is robust, i.e., error tolerant to failures of high load links.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures (minor changes