THE WAIT-AND-SEE OPTION IN ASCENDING PRICE AUCTIONS

Cake-cutting protocols aim at dividing a ``cake'' (i.e., a divisible resource) and assigning the resulting portions to several players in a way that each of the players feels to have received a ``fair'' amount of the cake. An important notion of fairness is envy-freeness: No player wishes to switch the portion of the cake received with another player's portion. Despite intense efforts in the past, it is still an open question whether there is a \emph{finite bounded} envy-free cake-cutting protocol for an arbitrary number of players, and even for four players. We introduce the notion of degree of guaranteed envy-freeness (DGEF) as a measure of how good a cake-cutting protocol can approximate the ideal of envy-freeness while keeping the protocol finite bounded (trading being disregarded). We propose a new finite bounded proportional protocol for any number n \geq 3 of players, and show that this protocol has a DGEF of 1 + \lceil (n^2)/2 \rceil. This is the currently best DGEF among known finite bounded cake-cutting protocols for an arbitrary number of players. We will make the case that improving the DGEF even further is a tough challenge, and determine, for comparison, the DGEF of selected known finite bounded cake-cutting protocols.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figure

A Call to Arms: Revisiting Database Design

Good database design is crucial to obtain a sound, consistent database, and - in turn - good database design methodologies are the best way to achieve the right design. These methodologies are taught to most Computer Science undergraduates, as part of any Introduction to Database class. They can be considered part of the "canon", and indeed, the overall approach to database design has been unchanged for years. Moreover, none of the major database research assessments identify database design as a strategic research direction. Should we conclude that database design is a solved problem? Our thesis is that database design remains a critical unsolved problem. Hence, it should be the subject of more research. Our starting point is the observation that traditional database design is not used in practice - and if it were used it would result in designs that are not well adapted to current environments. In short, database design has failed to keep up with the times. In this paper, we put forth arguments to support our viewpoint, analyze the root causes of this situation and suggest some avenues of research.Comment: Removed spurious column break. Nothing else was change

FABRICATING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT FOR ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS: FRAMING ITEMS FOR THE 'CAR-PER-ET-WELL' SCALE

Organization thrive on people. The epicenter of organizational excellence revolves around to the degree and extent of human involvement at work. To have a committed workforce, ensures satisfication, consummation and fulfillment in the minds of employess. A satisfied worker is a happy worker and of course can prove to be most productive, prolific and industrious in his work and in execution of his responsibilities. With a brief introduction on the concept of employess engagement, the paper through detailed literature survey, outlines various aspects of employee engagement, underlying employee career prospects, the significance of ethical framework and significance of employee well-being in the organizational domain. The objective of the paper is to reach understanding of certain identifiable areas within the field of employee engagement viz.; career, performance, ethics and wellness. These issues are quite pertinent for competitive survival of organizations in the current turbulent business climate. A scale "car-per-et-well" has been developed for item analysis in the present study. The coverage of the study makes an attempt to reach out to teh relevance of employee engagement for organizational accomplishmen

Well Balanced Designs for Data Placement

International audienceThe problem we consider in this article is motivated by data placement, in particular data replication in distributed storage and retrieval systems. We are given a set V of v servers along with b files (data, documents). Each file is replicated on exactly k servers. A placement consists in finding a family of b subsets of V (representing the files) called blocks, each of size k. Each server has some probability to fail and we want to find a placement which minimizes the variance of the number of available files. It was conjectured that there always exists an optimal placement (with variance better than that of any other placement for any value of the probability of failure). We show that the conjecture is true, if there exists a well balanced design, that is a family of blocks, each of size k, such that each j-element subset of V , 1 ≤ j ≤ k, belongs to the same or almost the same number of blocks (difference at most one). The existence of well balanced designs is a difficult problem as it contains as a subproblem the existence of Steiner systems. We completely solve the case k = 2 and give bounds and constructions for k = 3 and some values of v and b

Vanishing corrections on the intermediate scale and implications for unification of forces

In two-step breaking of a class of grand unified theories including SO(10),we prove a theorem showing that the scale $M_I$ where the Pati-Salam gauge symmetry with parity breaks down to the standard gauge group,has vanishing corrections due to all sources emerging from higher scales $\mu >M_I$ such as the one-loop and all higher loop effects,the GUT-threshold,gravitational smearing,and string threshold effects. Implications of such a scale for the unification of gauge couplings with small Majorana neutrino masses are discussed.In string inspired SO(10) we show that $M_I \simeq 5\times 10^{12}$,needed for neutrino masses,with the GUT scale $M_U \simeq M_{str}$ can be realized provided certain particle states in the predicted spectum are light.Comment: 21 pages, Late

Improved fabrication of zero-mode waveguides for single-molecule detection

Metallic subwavelength apertures can be used in epi-illumination fluorescence to achieve focal volume confinement. Because of the near field components inherent to small metallic structures, observation volumes are formed that are much smaller than the conventional diffraction limited volume attainable by high numerical aperture far field optics ͑circa a femtoliter͒. Observation volumes in the range of 10 −4 fl have been reported previously. Such apertures can be used for single-molecule detection at relatively high concentrations ͑up to 20 M͒ of fluorophores. Here, we present a novel fabrication of metallic subwavelength apertures in the visible range. Using a new electron beam lithography process, uniform arrays of such apertures can be manufactured efficiently in large numbers with diameters in the range of 60-100 nm. The apertures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, focused ion beam cross sections/transmission electron microscopy, and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy measurements, which confirmed their geometry and optical confinement. Process throughput can be further increased using deep ultraviolet photolithography to replace electron beam lithography. This enables the production of aperture arrays in a high volume manufacturing environment

Application of phasor measurement units for monitoring power system dynamic performance

This Working Group is a sequel to a previous working group on Wide Area Monitoring and Control for Transmission Capability Enhancement, which published the Technical Brochure 330 in 2007. Since then the synchrophasor technology has advanced rapidly and many utilities around the world have installed hundreds of PMUs in their networks. In this Technical Brochure, we look at the current state of the technology and the extent to which it has been used in the industry. As the technology has matured, it is also important to understand the communication protocols used in synchrophasor networks and their relevant cyber-security issues. These concerns are briefly discussed in the brochure. The applications of Phasor Measurement Units (PMU) measurements reported here are divided into three categories: (a) applications already installed in utility networks, (b) applications that are well-tested, but not yet installed, and (c) applications that are beneficial to the industry, but not fully developed yet. The most common and mature applications are wide area monitoring, state estimation, and model validation. Out of these three applications, wide area monitoring is well established in the industry. The protection and control applications are emerging as evident from the reported examples. The experience of using remote synchrophasor measurements as feedback control signals is not widely reported by the industry. In parallel to this Working Group, Study Committee B5 had a Working Group on “Wide area protection and control technologies.” The Technical Brochure 664 published by this Working Group in September 2016 reviews synchrophasor technology and discusses the industry experience with wide area protection and control. The North American synchrophasor Initiative (NASPI) is another technical group that has gathered and reported a wide range of PMU experiences of industry and researchers. In summary, the field-tested applications presented in this Technical Brochure are a testimony to the confidence of utilities in the synchrophasor technology. The progress in state estimation techniques indicates that synchrophasor measurements will become a standard part of energy management and security assessment systems in the near future

Lewis revisited : tropical polities competing on the world market 1830-1938

Since the seminal work by W.A. Lewis, exports of primary products have been deemed the main or sole source of growth in tropical countries before the Great Depression. This conventional wisdom, however, relies on very limited evidence. This paper analyses the growth of exports with a constant market share analysis for 84 tropical polities. Exports grew a lot, but less than total trade, while relative prices of tropical products remained roughly constant. We thus tentatively infer that the decline in the tropical shares on world trade reflects an insufficient demand for tropical products. Asia mastered well these headwinds throughout the whole period, while African polities blossomed after World War One. The loser was (South) America, and most notably the Caribbean former slave colonies especially before 1870

Erratum to: Binding Energy and Spin-Orbit Splitting of a Hydrogenic Donor Impurity in AlGaN/GaN Triangle-Shaped Potential Quantum Well

In the framework of effective-mass envelope function theory, including the effect of Rashba spin-orbit coupling, the binding energyEband spin-orbit split energy Г of the ground state of a hydrogenic donor impurity in AlGaN/GaN triangle-shaped potential heterointerface are calculated. We find that with the electric field of the heterojunction increasing, (1) the effective width of quantum well decreases and (2) the binding energy increases monotonously, and in the mean time, (3) the spin-orbit split energy Г decreases drastically. (4) The maximum of Г is 1.22 meV when the electric field of heterointerface is 1 MV/cm

Seropositivity to Herpes Simplex Virus Antibodies and Risk of Alzheimer's Disease: A Population-Based Cohort Study

International audienceBACKGROUND: Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) infection has been proposed as a possible risk factor of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) notably because it is neurotropic, ubiquitous in the general population and able to establish lifelong latency in the host. The fact that HSV was present in elderly subjects with AD suggests that the virus could be a co-factor of the disease. We investigated the risk of developing AD in anti-HSV immunoglobulin G (IgG) positive subjects (indicator of a lifelong infection to HSV) and IgM-positive subjects (indicator of primary infection or reactivation of the virus) in a longitudinal population-based cohort of elderly subjects living in the community. METHODS: Cox proportional hazard models were used to study the risk of developing AD according to the presence or not of anti-HSV IgG and IgM antibodies, assessed in the sera of 512 elderly initially free of dementia followed for 14 years. RESULTS: During the follow-up, 77 incident AD cases were diagnosed. Controlled for age, gender, educational level and Apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) status, IgM-positive subjects showed a significant higher risk of developing AD (HR = 2.55; 95% CI [1.38-4.72]), although no significant increased risk was observed in IgG-positive subjects (HR = 1.67; 95%CI [0.75-3.73]). No modification effect with APOE4 status was found. CONCLUSION: Reactivation of HSV seropositivity is highly correlated with incident AD. HSV chronic infection may therefore be contributive to the progressive brain damage characteristic of AD