52 research outputs found
Flows and Decompositions of Games: Harmonic and Potential Games
In this paper we introduce a novel flow representation for finite games in
strategic form. This representation allows us to develop a canonical direct sum
decomposition of an arbitrary game into three components, which we refer to as
the potential, harmonic and nonstrategic components. We analyze natural classes
of games that are induced by this decomposition, and in particular, focus on
games with no harmonic component and games with no potential component. We show
that the first class corresponds to the well-known potential games. We refer to
the second class of games as harmonic games, and study the structural and
equilibrium properties of this new class of games. Intuitively, the potential
component of a game captures interactions that can equivalently be represented
as a common interest game, while the harmonic part represents the conflicts
between the interests of the players. We make this intuition precise, by
studying the properties of these two classes, and show that indeed they have
quite distinct and remarkable characteristics. For instance, while finite
potential games always have pure Nash equilibria, harmonic games generically
never do. Moreover, we show that the nonstrategic component does not affect the
equilibria of a game, but plays a fundamental role in their efficiency
properties, thus decoupling the location of equilibria and their payoff-related
properties. Exploiting the properties of the decomposition framework, we obtain
explicit expressions for the projections of games onto the subspaces of
potential and harmonic games. This enables an extension of the properties of
potential and harmonic games to "nearby" games. We exemplify this point by
showing that the set of approximate equilibria of an arbitrary game can be
characterized through the equilibria of its projection onto the set of
potential games
Competitive Equilibrium and Trading Networks: A Network Flow Approach
Under full substitutability of preferences, it has been shown that a competitive equilibrium exists in trading networks, and is equivalent (after a restriction to equilibrium trades) to (chain) stable outcomes. In this paper, we formulate the problem of finding an efficient outcome as a generalized submodular flow problem on a suitable network. Equivalence with seemingly weaker notions of stability follows directly from the optimality conditions, in particular the absence of improvement cycles in the flow problem. Our formulation yields strongly polynomial algorithms for finding competitive equilibria in trading networks, and testing (chain) stability
Active packaging of chicken meats with modified atmosphere including oxygen scavengers
The effects of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP-70\% CO2/30\%N-2) and
iron-based oxygen scavengers (OS) with various absorption capacities
(Ageless (R) 100, ss300, and ss500) as an active packaging system on
microbiological and oxidative changes in chicken thigh meats were
evaluated during refrigerated storage (4 degrees C) for 19 d at 3-day
intervals. Total aerobic mesophilic bacteria counts exceeded the
acceptability limit at d 7 in the control group without MAP (AIR), and
at d 19 in MAP and OS containing samples. OS utilization resulted in
around 1.5 and 1.0 log unit reductions in Pseudomonas spp. counts at d 7
and d 10 of storage, respectively, as compared with AIR and MAP groups
(P < 0.05). MAP and OS groups had fewer (P < 0.05) conform counts than
did the AIR group, with an approximately 1.0 log reduction observed at d
10. Although in some cases OS utilization resulted in lower TBARS values
and carbonyl and sulphydryl contents, particularly during later stages
of refrigerated storage as compared to AIR and MAP groups, in general,
these effects were not always apparent. The results of this study
suggested that MAP suppressed microbiological growth and retarded lipid
and protein oxidation in chicken thigh meats, with a 9-day shelf-life
extention with insignificant effects of OS
Nonthermal Processing Technologies for Stabilization and Enhancement of Bioactive Compounds in Foods
The processing of selected foods by nonthermal technologies is gaining relevance in the food industry because, in many cases, the final product keeps the nutritional value and other fresh-like characteristics of the original one. There are several nonthermal technologies including high pressure processing, pulsed electric fields, ultrasound, and cold plasma which are at different stages of development. The impact of a given technology on bioactive compounds is a good indicator to assess changes on the nutritional attributes of a given food product before and after processing. Quite frequently, it is mentioned that nonthermal technologies are very appropriate to process foods minimizing changes in quality attributes. This broad claim only applies for certain processing, packaging and storage conditions, and as expected, on the food product. There are extensive scientific publications on how these processes alter the food products, but the reported results have been attained by a disparity of treatments; therefore, comparisons of these results are difficult and sometimes useless. Nevertheless, the gathered information allows to identify, in many cases, valuable trends on how a process affects the different bioactive compounds of a given food product. At the same time, the available data allows to assert, that in general, nonthermal processing is a very sound alternative to conventional thermal treatments to minimize the impact of processing on bioactive compounds. This review summarizes and analyzes the effects of these processes on relevant bioactive compounds present in selected food products as reported in the scientific literature
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