Almost Budget Balanced Mechanisms with Scalar Bids For Allocation of a Divisible Good

This paper is about allocation of an infinitely divisible good to several rational and strategic agents. The allocation is done by a social planner who has limited information because the agents' valuation functions are taken to be private information known only to the respective agents. We allow only a scalar signal, called a bid, from each agent to the social planner. Yang and Hajek [Jour. on Selected Areas in Comm., 2007] as well as Johari and Tsitsiklis [Jour. of Oper. Res., 2009] proposed a scalar strategy Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (SSVCG) mechanism with efficient Nash equilibria. We consider a setting where the social planner desires minimal budget surplus. Example situations include fair sharing of Internet resources and auctioning of certain public goods where revenue maximization is not a consideration. Under the SSVCG framework, we propose a mechanism that is efficient and comes close to budget balance by returning much of the payments back to the agents in the form of rebates. We identify a design criterion for {\em almost budget balance}, impose feasibility and voluntary participation constraints, simplify the constraints, and arrive at a convex optimization problem to identify the parameters of the rebate functions. The convex optimization problem has a linear objective function and a continuum of linear constraints. We propose a solution method that involves a finite number of constraints, and identify the number of samples sufficient for a good approximation.Comment: Accepted for publication in the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR

Multiple Description Vector Quantization with Lattice Codebooks: Design and Analysis

The problem of designing a multiple description vector quantizer with lattice codebook Lambda is considered. A general solution is given to a labeling problem which plays a crucial role in the design of such quantizers. Numerical performance results are obtained for quantizers based on the lattices A_2 and Z^i, i=1,2,4,8, that make use of this labeling algorithm. The high-rate squared-error distortions for this family of L-dimensional vector quantizers are then analyzed for a memoryless source with probability density function p and differential entropy h(p) < infty. For any a in (0,1) and rate pair (R,R), it is shown that the two-channel distortion d_0 and the channel 1 (or channel 2) distortions d_s satisfy lim_{R -> infty} d_0 2^(2R(1+a)) = (1/4) G(Lambda) 2^{2h(p)} and lim_{R -> infty} d_s 2^(2R(1-a)) = G(S_L) 2^2h(p), where G(Lambda) is the normalized second moment of a Voronoi cell of the lattice Lambda and G(S_L) is the normalized second moment of a sphere in L dimensions.Comment: 46 pages, 14 figure

Exploring the high-pressure materials genome

A thorough in situ characterization of materials at extreme conditions is challenging, and computational tools such as crystal structural search methods in combination with ab initio calculations are widely used to guide experiments by predicting the composition, structure, and properties of high-pressure compounds. However, such techniques are usually computationally expensive and not suitable for large-scale combinatorial exploration. On the other hand, data-driven computational approaches using large materials databases are useful for the analysis of energetics and stability of hundreds of thousands of compounds, but their utility for materials discovery is largely limited to idealized conditions of zero temperature and pressure. Here, we present a novel framework combining the two computational approaches, using a simple linear approximation to the enthalpy of a compound in conjunction with ambient-conditions data currently available in high-throughput databases of calculated materials properties. We demonstrate its utility by explaining the occurrence of phases in nature that are not ground states at ambient conditions and estimating the pressures at which such ambient-metastable phases become thermodynamically accessible, as well as guiding the exploration of ambient-immiscible binary systems via sophisticated structural search methods to discover new stable high-pressure phases.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Lessons Learned from Comparing the Application of Constitutional Law and Anti-Discrimination Law to African Americans in the U.S. and Dalits in India in the Context of Higher Education

In this Article the authors will compare the development of constitutional law and federal anti-discrimination law in the context of higher education of African-Americans in the U.S. and Dalits in India. Both groups suffer from oppression and discrimination based upon a hereditary trait and related to their integration into mainstream society; neither group is completely isolated from the majority population responsible for the discrimination; and African-Americans and Dalits approximate similar percentages of their country\u27s population. Based upon the 2000 census, African-Americans constitute 12.7% of the American populations, and, according to the 1991 Census Report of India, Dalits make up 16.5% of the Indian population. Yet, although African-Americans have been victims of hereditary racial oppression in the U.S. for almost 400 years, Dalits have suffered oppression for 3,500 years and counting

Citations analysis of LIS theses submitted to Kuvempu University and University of Mysore

A Citation analysis on 8289 citations cited in 59 LIS doctoral theses submitted to Kuvempu University (15 theses) and University of Mysore (44 theses) has been carried out to know the citation pattern. The data was collected using Shodhganga e-theses database. The study found that a total of 6883 journal citations were cited in 59 theses. The journal ‘Scientometrics’ has been cited 651 times and stands first in the rank list of journals. Annals of Library and Information Studies which is an Indian LIS journal stands in the third position in the rank list with 130 citations. The Bradford’s law of scattering is not applicable for this study. The rank list of country-wise journals showed that journals published from USA have highly cited followed by journals published from UK and India

Lessons Learned from Comparing the Application of Constitutional Law and Anti-Discrimination Law to African Americans in the U.S. and Dalits in India in the Context of Higher Education

In this Article the authors will compare the development of constitutional law and federal anti-discrimination law in the context of higher education of African-Americans in the U.S. and Dalits in India. Both groups suffer from oppression and discrimination based upon a hereditary trait and related to their integration into mainstream society; neither group is completely isolated from the majority population responsible for the discrimination; and African-Americans and Dalits approximate similar percentages of their country\u27s population. Based upon the 2000 census, African-Americans constitute 12.7% of the American populations, and, according to the 1991 Census Report of India, Dalits make up 16.5% of the Indian population. Yet, although African-Americans have been victims of hereditary racial oppression in the U.S. for almost 400 years, Dalits have suffered oppression for 3,500 years and counting