1,415 research outputs found
Core-competitive Auctions
One of the major drawbacks of the celebrated VCG auction is its low (or zero)
revenue even when the agents have high value for the goods and a {\em
competitive} outcome could have generated a significant revenue. A competitive
outcome is one for which it is impossible for the seller and a subset of buyers
to `block' the auction by defecting and negotiating an outcome with higher
payoffs for themselves. This corresponds to the well-known concept of {\em
core} in cooperative game theory.
In particular, VCG revenue is known to be not competitive when the goods
being sold have complementarities. A bottleneck here is an impossibility result
showing that there is no auction that simultaneously achieves competitive
prices (a core outcome) and incentive-compatibility.
In this paper we try to overcome the above impossibility result by asking the
following natural question: is it possible to design an incentive-compatible
auction whose revenue is comparable (even if less) to a competitive outcome?
Towards this, we define a notion of {\em core-competitive} auctions. We say
that an incentive-compatible auction is -core-competitive if its
revenue is at least fraction of the minimum revenue of a
core-outcome. We study the Text-and-Image setting. In this setting, there is an
ad slot which can be filled with either a single image ad or text ads. We
design an core-competitive randomized auction and an
competitive deterministic auction for the Text-and-Image
setting. We also show that both factors are tight
Recent finding and new technologies in nephrolithiasis: a review of the recent literature
This review summarizes recent literature on advances regarding renal and ureteral
calculi, with particular focus in areas of recent advances in the overall field
of urolithiasis. Clinical management in everyday practice requires a complete
understanding of the issues regarding metabolic evaluation and subgrouping of
stone-forming patients, diagnostic procedures, effective treatment regime in
acute stone colic, medical expulsive therapy, and active stone removal. In this
review we focus on new perspectives in managing nephrolitihiasis and discuss
recentadvances, including medical expulsive therapy, new technologies, and
refinements of classical therapy such as shock wave lithotripsy, give a
fundamental modification of nephrolithiasis management. Overall, this field
appears to be the most promising, capable of new developments in ureterorenoscopy
and percutaneous approaches. Further improvements are expected from
robotic-assisted procedures, such as flexible robotics in ureterorenoscopy
Current state of laparoscopic and robotic surgery
Minimally invasive surgical innovation has exploded in recent times. Currently, conventional laparoscopy is most widely adopted as the costs are relatively low. However, robotics and single port surgery are leading a revolution in surgery for wealthy health-care systems. We explore the historical and contemporary areas of this evolution
Adversarial contract design for private data commercialization
The proliferation of data collection and machine learning techniques has
created an opportunity for commercialization of private data by data
aggregators. In this paper, we study this data monetization problem using a
contract-theoretic approach. Our proposed adversarial contract design framework
accounts for the heterogeneity in honest buyers' demands for data, as well as
the presence of adversarial buyers who may purchase data to compromise its
privacy. We propose the notion of Price of Adversary (PoAdv) to quantify the
effects of adversarial users on the data seller's revenue, and provide bounds
on the PoAdv for various classes of adversary utility. We also provide a fast
approximate technique to compute contracts in the presence of adversaries
Childhood risk factors for lifetime bulimic or compulsive eating by age 30 years in a British national birth cohort.
OBJECTIVE: To examine whether previously identified childhood risk factors for bulimia or compulsive eating (BCE) predict self-reported lifetime BCE by age 30 years in a prospective birth cohort. METHOD: Using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study at birth, 5, and 10 years, associations between 22 putative childhood risk factors and self-reported lifetime BCE at 30 years were examined, adjusting for sex and socioeconomic status. RESULTS: Only female sex (odds ratio (OR): 9.2; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.9-43.7; p = 0.005), low self-esteem (OR:2.9; 95%CI: 1.1-7.5; p = 0.03) and high maternal education (OR:5.4; 95%CI: 2.0-14.8; p = 0.001) were significantly associated with higher risk of BCE, whereas high SES at 10 years was significantly protective (OR:0.2; 95%CI: 0.1-0.8; p = 0.022) of BCE in fully adjusted multivariable logistic regression analysis. DISCUSSION: Our findings do not support a strong role for childhood weight status and eating behaviours in the development of bulimia and compulsive eating pathology, rather suggesting a focus on self esteem may have greater relative importance. Findings in relation to maternal education and SES need further exploration
Cosmetics for acne: indications and recommendations for an evidence-based approach.
AIM:
The aim of this review was to evaluate, by a thorough revision of the literature, the true efficacy of currently available topic and systemic cosmetic acne agents.
METHODS:
The efficacy of currently available cosmetic acne agents has been retrospectively evaluated via thorough revision of the literature on matched electronic databases (PubMed). All retrieved studies, either randomized clinical trials or clinical trials, controlled or uncontrolled were considered.
RESULTS:
Scientific evidence suggests that most cosmetic products for acne may enhance the clinical outcome. Cleansers should be indicated to all acne patients; those containing benzoyl peroxide or azelaic/salicylic acid/triclosan show the best efficacy profile. Sebum-controlling agents containing nicotinamide or zinc acetate may minimize excessive sebum production. Cosmetics with antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory substances such as, respectively, ethyl lactate or phytosphingosine and nicotinamide or resveratrol, may speed acne recovery. Topical corneolytics, including retinaldehyde/glycolic acid or lactic acid, induce a comedolytic effect and may also facilitate skin absorption of topical drugs. Finally, the use of specific moisturizers should be strongly recommended in all acne patients.
CONCLUSION:
Cosmetics, if correctly prescribed, may improve the performance of the therapy, whereas wrong procedures and/or inadequate cosmetics may worsen acne. Cosmetological recommendations may allow clinicians to make informed decisions about the role of various cosmetics and to indentify the appropriate indications and precautions. The choice of the most effective product should take into consideration the ongoing pharmacological therapy and acne type/severity as well
Fundamental Cycles and Graph Embeddings
In this paper we present a new Good Characterization of maximum genus of a
graph which makes a common generalization of the works of Xuong, Liu, and Fu et
al. Based on this, we find a new polynomially bounded algorithm to find the
maximum genus of a graph
Exceptional response to immunotherapy in association with radiotherapy in patient with breast metastasis from urothelial carcinoma: A case report
Most common sites of metastasis of urothelial carcinoma (UC) are lungs, liver, lymph nodes and bone. Pembrolizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody directed against programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1), represents an effective second-line therapy for advanced UC. Radiotherapy has been shown to induce a mechanism of immunogenic cell death (ICD) resulting in immune memory and advantageous systemic effects. We present the first case of breast metastasis (BM) from a UC described in literature who had an exceptional response to second-line therapy with pembrolizumab in association with radiotherapy, showing the efficacy of combining immunotherapy and radiotherapy even in patients with atypical metastatic sites
Private Outsourcing of Polynomial Evaluation and Matrix Multiplication using Multilinear Maps
{\em Verifiable computation} (VC) allows a computationally weak client to
outsource the evaluation of a function on many inputs to a powerful but
untrusted server. The client invests a large amount of off-line computation and
gives an encoding of its function to the server. The server returns both an
evaluation of the function on the client's input and a proof such that the
client can verify the evaluation using substantially less effort than doing the
evaluation on its own. We consider how to privately outsource computations
using {\em privacy preserving} VC schemes whose executions reveal no
information on the client's input or function to the server. We construct VC
schemes with {\em input privacy} for univariate polynomial evaluation and
matrix multiplication and then extend them such that the {\em function privacy}
is also achieved. Our tool is the recently developed {mutilinear maps}. The
proposed VC schemes can be used in outsourcing {private information retrieval
(PIR)}.Comment: 23 pages, A preliminary version appears in the 12th International
Conference on Cryptology and Network Security (CANS 2013
Isolation of Yersinia enterocolitica biotype 1 A
A survey has been carried out for the presence of Yersinia enterocolitioca
in raw meat products.
One hundred and twenty raw beef, chicken and ham samples
were assayed for the presence of Yersinia enterocolitica by
the 4 degrees °C enrichment method after 2 weeks of incubation
using phosphate buffered saline. Yersinia enterocolitica
biotype 1 A non agglutinable (NAG) was isolated from a
sample of beef and identified by Api 20 E System and additional
biochemical tests, Lipase, ?-D-Glucosidase and Pyrazinamidase.
The Author related about pathogenicity of Yersinia
enterocolitica biotype 1 A that may cause symptoms similar
to that caused by virulent biotypes. The presence of Yersinia
enterocolitica in raw meat products represents a health risk
for consumers therefore was suggested to yersiniosis control
and further surveillance studies on epidemiology of such
emerging pathogens
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