Multiperson Bargaining and Strategic Complexity

We investigate the effect of introducing costs of complexity in the n‐person unanimity bargaining game. As is well‐known, in this game every individually rational allocation is sustainable as a Nash equilibrium (also as a subgame perfect equilibrium if players are sufficiently patient and if n & 2). Moreover, delays in agreement are also possible in such equilibria. By limiting ourselves to a plausible notion of complexity that captures length of memory, we find that the introduction of complexity costs (lexicographically with the standard payoffs) does not reduce the range of possible allocations but does limit the amount of delay that can occur in any agreement. In particular, we show that in any n‐player game, for any allocation z, an agreement on z at any period t can be sustained as a Nash equilibrium of the game with complexity costs if and only if t≤n. We use the limit on delay result to establish that, in equilibrium, the strategies implement stationary behavior. Finally, we also show that ‘noisy Nash equilibrium’ with complexity costs sustains only the unique stationary subgame perfect equilibrium allocation.     

Model selection using union-intersection principle for non nested models

In this article, we have extended the Vuong’s (1989 Vuong, Q.H. (1989). Likelihood ratio tests for model selection and non-nested hypothesis. Econometrica. 57:307–333.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) model selection test to three models in accordance to union-intersection principle. Using the Kullback–Leibler criterion to measure the closeness of a model to the truth, we propose a simple likelihood ratio-based statistics for testing the null hypothesis that the competing models are equally close to the true data-generating process against the alternative hypothesis that at least one model is closer. We show that the distribution of the test statistic is asymptotically equal to the distribution of the maximum of dependent random variables with bivariate folded standard normal distribution. The density function of the maximum of dependent random variables with elliptically contoured distributions has been obtained by other researchers, but, not for distributions which do not belong to the elliptically contoured distributions family. In this article, the exact distribution of the maximum of dependent random variables with bivariate folded standard normal distribution is calculated as an asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic. The test is directional and is derived successively for the cases where the competing models are non nested and whether three, two, one, or none of them are misspecified.     

English as a medium of instruction and the discursive construction of elite identity

Debates over medium of instruction, as ideological skirmishes, showcase discursive identity construction, reproduction, and contestation by different social groups. Drawing on such debates in letters to the editor and internet‐based newsgroup posts written by Bangladeshi English‐medium (EM) and Bangla‐medium (BM) educated writers, this article examines the construction of elite identity by the EM educated group. It illustrates how this group drew on changing discourses of elitism, language ideologies, and other identity resources to construct self‐identity that emphasized the achievement of qualifications and attributes rather than unearned social privilege, and how the territorially bound elite identity was transformed into deterritorialized cosmopolitan identity in the process. The article contributes to our understanding of the relationship between language, identity, and society by illustrating struggles for identity and status maintenance in education that is increasingly being dominated by English and English as a medium of instruction under the influence of neoliberal globalization. It also suggests how English and national languages may relate to (post)colonialism, nationalism, national identity, and social class in a globalized world.     

Exercise training in thermo-mineral spring water has beneficial effects on hemodynamic and health-related factors in young-older hypertensive women: A randomized control trial

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of an 8-week aerobic training in mineral geothermal water on hemodynamic variables, VO_2max, and body composition in sedentary hypertensive women. Twenty postmenopausal women (58.55 ± 3.28 years) were divided into an exercise group (2 days/week, 30–40 minutes, 60%–75% of HR_max) and control group. Compared to the control group, a signi?cant reduction in systolic blood pressure, heart rate, rate pressure product, body fat percent, and a signi?cant improvement in VO_2max values was found. Aerobic training in thermo-mineral spring water is a safe and effective training modality in the young-older hypertensive population.     

Integration of process planning and production planning and control in cellular manufacturing

Organisations willing to succeed in global competition have to integrate their internal and external processes. This especially includes planning and production control (PPC) processes. Optimised allocation of the production resources and quick response to demand changes result in lower cost and improvement of production performance. Practitioners and researchers have been trying to achieve these goals using production planning techniques. Although the results are significant, it seems necessary to integrate production operations in order to improve the production performance. The goals, information and decisions taken in production planning and control and process planning are often very different and difficult to integrate in Cellular Manufacturing (CM) environments. Designing an efficient PPC system and integrating it with process planning in a cellular environment is of the same importance. The following paper proposes first a comprehensive framework of integrated process planning and production planning and control in CM. Then, with respect to this framework and utilising the domain knowledge in the area of CM systems, an integrated model based on Integrated Definition Modeling Language is developed. The application of the models has been considered as a case study for a production system in electronics and telecommunication sector in a plant in Iran. The validity and completeness of the proposed model is tested by a panel of experts in the areas of production planning and control in CM environments.     

Finding paths with minimum shared edges

Motivated by a security problem in geographic information systems, we study the following graph theoretical problem: given a graph G, two special nodes s and t in G, and a number k, find k paths from s to t in G so as to minimize the number of edges shared among the paths. This is a generalization of the well-known disjoint paths problem. While disjoint paths can be computed efficiently, we show that finding paths with minimum shared edges is NP-hard. Moreover, we show that it is even hard to approximate the minimum number of shared edges within a factor of $2^{\log^{1-\varepsilon}n}$ , for any constant ε>0. On the positive side, we show that there exists a (k?1)-approximation algorithm for the problem, using an adaption of a network flow algorithm. We design some heuristics to improve the quality of the output, and provide empirical results.     

A new four-parameter discrete distribution with bathtub and unimodal failure rate

In this paper, a discrete counterpart of the general class of continuous beta-G distributions is introduced. A discrete analog of the beta generalized exponential distribution of Barreto-Souza et al. [2], as an important special case of the proposed class, is studied. This new distribution contains some previously known discrete distributions as well as two new models. The hazard rate function of the new model can be increasing, decreasing, bathtub-shaped and upside-down bathtub. Some distributional and moment properties of the new distribution as well as its order statistics are discussed. Estimation of the parameters is illustrated using the maximum likelihood method and, finally, the model with a real data set is examined.     

Risk‐Mitigating Policies and Adversarial Behavior: Case of Backlash

A probabilistic game‐theoretic model is developed within both a static and a dynamic framework to capture adversary–defender conflict in the presence of backlash. I find that not accounting for backlash in counteradversary policies may be costly to the target government. But to minimize adversarial backlash requires understanding how backlash emerges and if, and how, adversaries strategize to goad target governments into policies that induce backlash. The dynamic version of the model shows that when backlash occurs with a time lag, an escalation of the conflict is likely to occur.     

Robust Estimation of Parameters in Simple Linear Profiles Using M-Estimators

In many situations, the quality of a process or product may be better characterized and summarized by a relationship between the response variable and one or more explanatory variables. Parameter estimation is the first step in constructing control charts. Outliers may hamper proper classical estimators and lead to incorrect conclusions. To remedy the problem of outliers, robust methods have been developed recently. In this article, a robust method is introduced for estimating the parameters of simple linear profiles. Two weight functions, Huber and Bisquare, are applied in the estimation algorithm. In addition, a method for robust estimation of the error terms variance is proposed. Simulation studies are done to investigate and evaluate the performance of the proposed estimator, as well as the classical one, in the presence and absence of outliers under different scenarios by the means of MSE criterion. The results reveal that the robust estimators proposed in this research perform as well as classical estimators in the absence of outliers and even considerably better when outliers exist. The maximum value of variance estimate in one scenario obtained from classical estimator is 10.9, while this value is 1.66 and 1.27 from proposed robust estimators when its actual value is 1.