An Astonishing Sixty Years: The Legacy of Hiroshima

Nobel Prize Lecture, December 8, 2005Game Theory; Conflict; Cooperation

Reciprocal Measures for Arms Stabilization

Economic

An Agent-Based Simulation API for Speculative PDES Runtime Environments

Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation (ABMS) is an effective paradigm to model systems exhibiting complex interactions, also with the goal of studying the emergent behavior of these systems. While ABMS has been effectively used in many disciplines, many successful models are still run only sequentially. Relying on simple and easy-to-use languages such as NetLogo limits the possibility to benefit from more effective runtime paradigms, such as speculative Parallel Discrete Event Simulation (PDES). In this paper, we discuss a semantically-rich API allowing to implement Agent-Based Models in a simple and effective way. We also describe the critical points which should be taken into account to implement this API in a speculative PDES environment, to scale up simulations on distributed massively-parallel clusters. We present an experimental assessment showing how our proposal allows to implement complicated interactions with a reduced complexity, while delivering a non-negligible performance increase

Rendezvous of Heterogeneous Mobile Agents in Edge-weighted Networks

We introduce a variant of the deterministic rendezvous problem for a pair of heterogeneous agents operating in an undirected graph, which differ in the time they require to traverse particular edges of the graph. Each agent knows the complete topology of the graph and the initial positions of both agents. The agent also knows its own traversal times for all of the edges of the graph, but is unaware of the corresponding traversal times for the other agent. The goal of the agents is to meet on an edge or a node of the graph. In this scenario, we study the time required by the agents to meet, compared to the meeting time $T_{OPT}$ in the offline scenario in which the agents have complete knowledge about each others speed characteristics. When no additional assumptions are made, we show that rendezvous in our model can be achieved after time $O(n T_{OPT})$ in a $n$-node graph, and that such time is essentially in some cases the best possible. However, we prove that the rendezvous time can be reduced to $\Theta (T_{OPT})$ when the agents are allowed to exchange $\Theta(n)$ bits of information at the start of the rendezvous process. We then show that under some natural assumption about the traversal times of edges, the hardness of the heterogeneous rendezvous problem can be substantially decreased, both in terms of time required for rendezvous without communication, and the communication complexity of achieving rendezvous in time $\Theta (T_{OPT})$

Diasporas and secessionist conflicts : the mobilization of the Armenian, Albanian and Chechen diasporas

This article examines the impact of diasporas on secessionist conflicts, focusing on the Albanian, Armenian and Chechen diasporas and the conflicts in Kosovo, Karabakh and Chechnya during the 1990s. How do diasporas radicalize these conflicts? I argue that despite differences in diaspora communal characteristics and the types of the secessionist conflicts, a common pattern of mobilization develops. Large-scale diasporic support for secessionism emerges only after independence is proclaimed by the local elites. From that point onwards diasporas become engaged in a conflict spiral, and transnational coalitions are formed between local secessionist and diaspora groups. Depending on the organizational strength of the local strategic centre and the diasporic institutions, these coalitions endure or dissipate. Diasporas exert radicalization influences on the conflict spiral on two specific junctures – when grave violations of human rights occur in the homeland and when local moderate elites start losing credibility that they can achieve the secessionist goal

An evaluation of the FDA's analysis of the costs and benefits of the graphic warning label regulation

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 gave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products and authorised it to assert jurisdiction over other tobacco products. As with other Federal agencies, FDA is required to assess the costs and benefits of its significant regulatory actions. To date, FDA has issued economic impact analyses of one proposed and one final rule requiring graphic warning labels (GWLs) on cigarette packaging and, most recently, of a proposed rule that would assert FDA’s authority over tobacco products other than cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. Given the controversy over the FDA's approach to assessing net economic benefits in its proposed and final rules on GWLs and the importance of having economic impact analyses prepared in accordance with sound economic analysis, a group of prominent economists met in early 2014 to review that approach and, where indicated, to offer suggestions for an improved analysis. We concluded that the analysis of the impact of GWLs on smoking substantially underestimated the benefits and overestimated the costs, leading the FDA to substantially underestimate the net benefits of the GWLs. We hope that the FDA will find our evaluation useful in subsequent analyses, not only of GWLs but also of other regulations regarding tobacco products. Most of what we discuss applies to all instances of evaluating the costs and benefits of tobacco product regulation and, we believe, should be considered in FDA's future analyses of proposed rules.Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Grant 71484

The Promise of Prediction Markets

Prediction markets are markets for contracts that yield payments based on the outcome of an uncertain future event, such as a presidential election. Using these markets as forecasting tools could substantially improve decision making in the private and public sectors. We argue that U.S. regulators should lower barriers to the creation and design of prediction markets by creating a safe harbor for certain types of small stakes markets. We believe our proposed change has the potential to stimulate innovation in the design and use of prediction markets throughout the economy, and in the process to provide information that will benefit the private sector and government alike.Technology and Industry

Role of livestock in human nutrition and health for poverty reduction in developing countries

Livestock keeping is critical for many of the poor in the developing world, often contributing to multiple livelihood objectives and offering pathways out of poverty. Livestock keeping also affects an indispensable asset of the poor, their human capital, through its impact on their own nutrition and health. This paper outlines the linkages between livestock keeping and the physical well-being of the poor, and examines a number of commonly held beliefs that misrepresent livestock development issues related to these linkages. These beliefs limit the scope of intervention programs to promote livestock and limit their potential contribution to poverty reduction. Recognition of the complexity of the role livestock play in household decision-making and of the opportunities foregone due to these misconceptions can enhance the ability of livestock to contribute to human well-being in the developing world

Simulating complex social behaviour with the genetic action tree kernel

The concept of genetic action trees combines action trees with genetic algorithms. In this paper, we create a multi-agent simulation on the base of this concept and provide the interested reader with a software package to apply genetic action trees in a multi-agent simulation to simulate complex social behaviour. An example model is introduced to conduct a feasibility study with the described method. We find that our library can be used to simulate the behaviour of agents in a complex setting and observe a convergence to a global optimum in spite of the absence of stable states