170,600 research outputs found
La politique / Aristote ; traduction de Champagne ; revue et corrigée par M. Hoefer. L'économique / Aristote ; traduction nouvelle de M. Hoefer. Lettre à Alexandre sur le monde / Aristote ; traduction de Batteux...
No full text[Politique (français)]Comprend : L'économique / Aristote ; traduction nouvelle de M. Hoefer ; Lettre à Alexandre sur le monde / Aristote ; traduction de BatteuxContient une table des matièresAvec mode text
Editorial
No full textIn the editorial we present the main aims and the cultural framework of the new journal, by insisting on the importance of a deep interaction between science and philosophy
On Stackelberg Pricing with Computationally Bounded Customers
No full textIn Stackelberg pricing a leader sets prices for items to maximize revenue from a follower purchasing a feasible subset of items. We consider computationally bounded followers who cannot optimize exactly over the range of all feasible subsets, but who apply publicly known algorithms to determine the items to purchase. This corresponds to general multidimensional pricing when customers cannot optimize their valuation functions efficiently but still aim to act rationally to the best of their ability. We consider two versions of this novel type of pricing problem. In the MIn-KNAPSACK variant items are weighted objects and the follower seeks to purchase a min-cost selection of objects of some bounded weight. When he uses a greedy 2-approximation algorithm, we provide a polynomial-time (2+ε) -approximation algorithm for the leader's revenue maximization problem based on so-called near-uniform price assignments. We also prove the problem to be strongly NP-hard. In the SET-COVER variant items are subsets of some ground set which the follower seeks to cover. When he uses a standard primal-dual approach, we prove that exact revenue maximization is possible in polynomial time when elements have frequency 2 (VERTEX-COVER variant). This stands in sharp contrast to APX-hardness for the problem with elements of frequency 3. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, 201
On Stackelberg Pricing with Computationally Bounded Consumers
No full textIn a Stackelberg pricing game a leader aims to set prices on a subset of a given collection of items, such as to maximize her revenue from a follower purchasing a feasible subset of the items. We focus on the case of computationally bounded followers who cannot optimize exactly over the range of all feasible subsets, but apply some publicly known algorithm to determine the set of items to purchase. This corresponds to general multi-dimensional pricing assuming that consumers cannot optimize over the full domain of their valuation functions but still aim to act rationally to the best of their ability.
We consider two versions of this novel type of Stackelberg pricing games. Assuming that items are weighted objects and the follower seeks to purchase a min-cost selection of objects of some minimum weight (the Min-Knapsack problem) and uses a simple greedy 2-approximate algorithm, we show how an extension of the known single-price algorithm can be used to derive a polynomial-time (2 + ε)-approximation algorithm for the leader’s revenue maximization problem based on so-called near-uniform price assignments. We also prove the problem to be strongly NP-hard.
Considering the case that items are subsets of some ground set which the follower seeks to cover (the Set-Cover problem) via a standard primal-dual approach, we prove that near-uniform price assignments fail to yield a good approximation guarantee. However, in the special case of elements with frequency 2 (the Vertex-Cover problem) it turns out that exact revenue maximization can be done in polynomial-time. This stands in sharp contrast to the fact that revenue maximization becomes APX-hard already for elements with frequency 3
The Third Way on Objective Probability: A Skeptic's Guide to Objective Chance
No full textThe goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a new interpretation or theory of objective chance, one that lets us be sure such chances exist and shows how they can play the roles we traditionally grant them. The subtitle obviously emulates the title of Lewis seminal 1980 paper A Subjectivist s Guide to Objective Chance while indicating an important difference in perspective. The view developed below shares two major tenets with Lewis last (1994) account of objective chance: (1) The Principal Principle tells us most of what we know about objective chance; (2) Objective chances are not primitive modal facts, propensities, or powers, but rather facts entailed by the overall pattern of events and processes in the actual world. But it differs from Lewis’ account in most other respects. Another subtitle I considered was A Humean Guide ... But while the account of chance below is compatible with any stripe of Humeanism (Lewis , Hume s, and others ), it presupposes no general Humean philosophy. Only a skeptical attitude about probability itself is presupposed (as in point (2) above); what we should say about causality, laws, modality and so on is left a separate question. Still, I will label the account to be developed “Humean objective chance”
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Mitomycin C in highly myopic eyes - Author reply
No full textOphthalmology. 2005 Feb;112(2):208-18; discussion 219.
Mitomycin C modulation of corneal wound healing after photorefractive keratectomy in highly myopic eyes.
Gambato C, Ghirlando A, Moretto E, Busato F, Midena E.
SourceRefractive Surgery Service and Antimetabolite Therapy Research Unit, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Abstract
PURPOSE: To evaluate the role of topical mitomycin C in corneal wound healing (CWH) after photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) in highly myopic eyes.
DESIGN: Prospective, double-masked, randomized clinical trial.
PARTICIPANTS: Seventy-two eyes of 36 patients affected by high (>7 diopters) myopia.
METHODS: In each patient, one eye was randomly assigned to PRK with intraoperative topical 0.02% mitomycin C application, and the fellow eye was treated with a placebo. Postoperatively, mitomycin C-treated eyes received artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months), whereas the fellow eye was treated with fluorometholone sodium 2% and artificial tears (3 times daily, tapered in 3 months).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), contrast sensitivity, manifest refraction, and biomicroscopy. Contrast sensitivity was determined using the Pelli-Robson chart. Corneal confocal microscopy documented CWH.
RESULTS: Mean follow-up was 18 months (range, 12-36). No side effects or toxic effects were documented. At 12-month follow-up examination, UCVAs (logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution) were 0.4+/-0.48 and 0.5+/-0.53 (P = .03) in mitomycin C-treated eyes and corticosteroid-treated eyes, respectively. At 1 year, corneal haze developed in 20% of corticosteroid-treated eyes, versus 0% of mitomycin C-treated eyes. At 12, 24, and 36 months, corneal confocal microscopy showed activated keratocytes and extracellular matrix significantly more evident in untreated eyes (Ps = 0.004, 0.024, and 0.046, respectively).
CONCLUSION: Topical intraoperative application of 0.02% mitomycin C can reduce haze formation in highly myopic eyes undergoing PRK.
Comment in
Ophthalmology. 2006 Feb;113(2):357; author reply 357-8
Humean Effective Strategies
No full textIn a now-classic paper, Nancy Cartwright argued that the Humean conception of causation as mere regular co-occurrence is too weak to make sense of our everyday and scientific practices. Specifically she claimed that in order to understand our reasoning about, and uses of, effective strategies, we need a metaphysically stronger notion of causation and causal laws than Humeanism allows. Cartwright’s arguments were formulated in the framework of probabilistic causation, and it is precisely in the domain of (objective) probabilities that I am interested in defending a form of Humeanism. In this paper I will unpack some examples of effective strategies and discuss how well they fit the framework of causal laws and criteria such as CC from Cartwright’s and others’ works on probabilistic causality. As part of this discussion, I will also consider the concept or concepts of objective probability presupposed in these works. I will argue that Cartwright’s notion of a nomological machine, or a mechanism as defined by Stuart Glennan, is better suited for making sense of effective strategies, and therefore that a metaphysically primitive notion of causal law (or singular causation, or capacity, as Cartwright argues in (1989)) is not – here, at least – needed. These conclusions, as well as the concept of objective probabilities I defend, are largely in harmony with claims Cartwright defends in The Dappled World. My discussion aims, thus, to bring out into the open how far Cartwright’s current views are from a radically anti-Humean, causal-fundamentalist picture
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