A decision-theoretic approach to reliable message delivery

We argue that the tools of decision theory need to be taken more seriously in the specification and analysis of systems. We illustrate this by considering a simple problem involving reliable communication, showing how considerations of utility and probability can be used to decide when it is worth sending heartbeat messages and, if they are sent, how often they should be sent.Comment: This is the full version of a paper that appears in the Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Distributed Computing, 1998, pp. 89-1

Great Expectations. Part II: Generalized Expected Utility as a Universal Decision Rule

Many different rules for decision making have been introduced in the literature. We show that a notion of generalized expected utility proposed in Part I of this paper is a universal decision rule, in the sense that it can represent essentially all other decision rules.Comment: Preliminary version appears in Proc. 18th International Joint Conference on AI (IJCAI), 2003, pp. 297-30

Great Expectations. Part I: On the Customizability of Generalized Expected Utility

We propose a generalization of expected utility that we call generalized EU (GEU), where a decision maker's beliefs are represented by plausibility measures, and the decision maker's tastes are represented by general (i.e.,not necessarily real-valued) utility functions. We show that every agent, ``rational'' or not, can be modeled as a GEU maximizer. We then show that we can customize GEU by selectively imposing just the constraints we want. In particular, we show how each of Savage's postulates corresponds to constraints on GEU.Comment: Preliminary version appears in Proc. 18th International Joint Conference on AI (IJCAI), 2003, pp. 291-29

Great Expectations. Part I: On the Customizability of Generalized Expected Utility

Many different rules for decision making have been introduced in the literature. We present a single framework in which to study and compare these rules. This is done by defining expected utility with respect to general expectation structures, where a decision maker's beliefs are represented by plausibility measures and the decision maker's tastes are represented by general (i.e., not necessarily real-valued) utility functions. We call the resulting notion of expected utility generalized EU (GEU) and show that we can represent arbitrary preference relations on acts using GEU. We then show that each of Savage's postulates corresponds to an axiom on GEU. Thus, GEU can be customized to capture postulates of interest.

Views of healthcare professionals to linkage of routinely collected healthcare data : a systematic review

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Measurement of teicoplanin by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry:development of a novel method

Teicoplanin is an antibiotic used for the treatment of endocarditis, osteomyelitis, septic arthritis and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Teicoplanin is emerging as a suitable alternative antibiotic to vancomycin, where their trough serum levels are monitored by immunoassay routinely. This is the first report detailing the development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for measuring teicoplanin in patients' serum

On the NP-Completeness of Finding an Optimal Strategy in Games with Common Payoffs

Given a finite game with common payoffs (i.e. the players have completely common interests), we show that the problem of determining whether there exists a joint strategy where each player nets at least k is NP-complete.common payoff games, NP-completeness