Inclusive Cognitive Hierarchy

Cognitive hierarchy theory, a collection of structural models of non-equilibrium thinking, in which players' best responses rely on heterogeneous beliefs on others' strategies including naive behavior, proved powerful in explaining observations from a wide range of games. We introduce an inclusive cognitive hierarchy model, in which players do not rule out the possibility of facing opponents at their own thinking level. Our theoretical results show that inclusiveness is crucial for asymptotic properties of deviations from equilibrium behavior in expansive games. We show that the limiting behaviors are categorized in three distinct types: naive, Savage rational with inconsistent beliefs, and sophisticated. We test the model in a laboratory experiment of collective decision-making. The data suggests that inclusiveness is indispensable with regard to explanatory power of the models of hierarchical thinking.Series: Department of Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Serie

A resurrection of the Condorcet Jury Theorem

This paper analyzes the optimal size of a deliberating committee where (i) there is no conflict of interest among individuals and (ii) information acquisition is costly. The committee members simultaneously decide whether to acquire information, and then make the ex-post efficient decision. The optimal committee size, k*, is shown to be bounded. The main result of this paper is that any arbitrarily large committee aggregates the decentralized information more efficiently than the committee of size k*-2. This result implies that oversized committees generate only small inefficiencies.Voting, information aggregation, costly information

Sampling-based speech parameter generation using moment-matching networks

This paper presents sampling-based speech parameter generation using moment-matching networks for Deep Neural Network (DNN)-based speech synthesis. Although people never produce exactly the same speech even if we try to express the same linguistic and para-linguistic information, typical statistical speech synthesis produces completely the same speech, i.e., there is no inter-utterance variation in synthetic speech. To give synthetic speech natural inter-utterance variation, this paper builds DNN acoustic models that make it possible to randomly sample speech parameters. The DNNs are trained so that they make the moments of generated speech parameters close to those of natural speech parameters. Since the variation of speech parameters is compressed into a low-dimensional simple prior noise vector, our algorithm has lower computation cost than direct sampling of speech parameters. As the first step towards generating synthetic speech that has natural inter-utterance variation, this paper investigates whether or not the proposed sampling-based generation deteriorates synthetic speech quality. In evaluation, we compare speech quality of conventional maximum likelihood-based generation and proposed sampling-based generation. The result demonstrates the proposed generation causes no degradation in speech quality.Comment: Submitted to INTERSPEECH 201

How proper is the dominance-solvable outcome?

We examine the conditions under which iterative elimination of weakly dominated strategies refines the set of proper outcomes of a normal-form game. We say that the proper inclusion holds in terms of outcome if the set of outcomes of all proper equilibria in the reduced game is included in the set of all proper outcomes of the original game. We show by examples that neither dominance solvability nor the transference of decision-maker indifference condition (TDI of Marx and Swinkels [1997]) implies proper inclusion. When both dominance solvablility and the TDI condition are satisfied, a positive result arises: the game has a unique stable outcome. Hence, the proper inclusion is guaranteed

Increased Mortality of Respiratory Diseases, Including Lung Cancer, in the Area with Large Amount of Ashfall from Mount Sakurajima Volcano

Objectives. Mount Sakurajima in Japan is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. This work was conducted to examine the effect of volcanic ash on the chronic respiratory disease mortality in the vicinity of Mt. Sakurajima. Methods. The present work examined the standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) of respiratory diseases during the period 1968–2002 in Sakurajima town and Tarumizu city, where ashfall from the volcano recorded more than 10.000 g/m2/yr on average in the 1980s. Results. The SMR of lung cancer in the Sakurajima-Tarumizu area was 1.61 (95% CI = 1.44–1.78) for men and 1.67 (95% CI = 1.39–1.95) for women while it was nearly equal to one in Kanoya city, which neighbors Tarumizu city but located at the further position from Mt. Sakurajima, and therefore has much smaller amounts of ashfall. Sakurajima-Tarumizu area had elevated SMRs for COPDs and acute respiratory diseases while Kanoya did not. Conclusions. Cristobalite is the most likely cause of the increased deaths from those chronic respiratory diseases since smoking is unlikely to explain the increased mortality of respiratory diseases among women since the proportion of smokers in Japanese women is less than 20%, and SPM levels in the Sakurajima-Tarumizu area were not high. Further studies seem warranted

Comparison of conservative treatment versus transcatheter arterial embolisation for the treatment of spontaneously ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma

Purpose: To elucidate the prognostic factors in the spontaneous rupture of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to determine whether transcatheter arterial embolisation (TAE) is associated with better prognosis compared to conservative treatment. Material and methods: A retrospective multicentre study was conducted involving 71 patients with spontaneous rupture of HCC. A conservative treatment group (Cons T group) included 20 patients, while a transcatheter arterial embolisation group (TAE group) included 51 patients. Results: The median survival time (MST) in the Cons T group was only 16 days and the survival rate was 39% at one month, whereas the MST in the TAE group was 28 days and the one month survival rate was 63%. However, there is no statistically significant difference in the overall survival between Cons T and TAE groups (p = 0.213). Multivariable analysis identified only the presence of distant metastasis as an independent prognostic factor (p = 0.023). A subanalysis including patients without distant metastasis showed that the presence of portal vein tumour thrombosis was a significant prognostic factor (p = 0.015). Conclusions: Distant metastasis appears to be a prognostic factor in spontaneous rupture of HCC. In cases without distant metastasis, portal vein tumour thrombosis could influence the prognosis. Our data failed to prove any benefit of TAE as the primary management

Independent Effects of Temperature, Salinity, Ammonium Concentration and pH on Nitrification Rate of the Ariake Seawater Above Mud Sediment

The Ariake Sea located in the west parts of Kyushu Island is a semi-closed and macro-tidal shallow sea, and has the largest tidal flat in Japan. A large mud tidal flat with a productive ecosystem found along the western shoreline of the sea makes this area ideal as a major production site of nori (Porphyra yezoensis) in Japan. We determined the independent effect of temperature, salinity, ammonium concentration and pH on nitrification rates (NR) in the Ariake seawater above the mud sediment. The NR was determined by measuring accumulation of NO2-N production after adding sodium chlorate, an inhibitor of NO2-N to NO3-N oxidation. NRs were relatively high at 20-35 oC (optimum at 29.5 oC), but the rates were very low at 5, 10, and 40 oC. NRs increased sharply when increasing the salinity from 13 to 20 ppt, but it decreased drastically at salinity levels more than 35 ppt (optimum at 19 ppt). The relationship between ammonium concentration and NR showed a typical kinetic curve of enzymatic reaction with the maximum NR (Vmax) of 0.029 mM N.h-1 at 200 mM NH4-N (the half saturation constant (Ks) = 35 mM NH4-N). High NRs were determined at pH 7.5-8.0 (optimum pH 7.8). This is the first report on the independent effects of temperature, pH, salinity and NH4-N concentration on the NR of seawater, specifically the Ariake seawater