The position value for union stable systems

In this paper, we study the position value for games in which partial cooperation exist, that is based on a union stable coalition system. The concept of basis is introduced for these systems, allowing for a definition of the position value. Moreover, an axiomatic characterization of the position value is provided for a specific class of union stable systems. Conditions under which convexity is inherited from the underlying game to the conference game, and the position value is a core vector of the restricted game are provided.     

Deposit games with reinvestment

In a deposit game coalitions are formed by players combining their capital. The proceeds of their investments then have to be divided among those players. The current model extends earlier work on capital deposits by allowing reinvestment of returns. Two specific subclasses of deposit games are introduced. These subclasses provide insight in two extreme cases. It is seen that each term dependent deposit game possesses a core element. Capital dependent deposit games are also shown to have a core element and even a population monotonic allocation scheme if the revenue function exhibits increasing returns to scale. Furthermore, it is shown that all superadditive games are deposit games if one allows for debt.     

On a New Class of Parallel Sequencing Situations and Related Games

This paper considers a special class of sequencing situations with two parallel machines in which each agent has precisely two jobs to be processed, one on each machine. The costs of an agent depend linearly on the final completion time of his jobs. We describe a procedure that provides an optimal processing order of the jobs for some particular classes. Furthermore, we study cooperative games arising from these sequencing situations. Our main result will be on the balancedness of these games.     

A note on NTU convexity

For cooperative games with transferable utility, convexity has turned out to be an important and widely applicable concept. Convexity can be defined in a number of ways, each having its own specific attractions. Basically, these definitions fall into two categories, namely those based on a supermodular interpretation and those based on a marginalistic interpretation. For games with nontransferable utility, however, the literature mainly focuses on two kinds of convexity, ordinal and cardinal convexity, which both extend the supermodular interpretation. In this paper, we analyse three types of convexity for NTU games that generalise the marginalistic interpretation of convexity. Received: December 2000     

Drop out monotonic rules for sequencing situations

This note introduces a new monotonicity property for sequencing situations. A sequencing rule is called drop out monotonic if no player will be worse off whenever one of the players decides to drop out of the queue before processing starts. This intuitively appealing property turns out to be very strong: we show that there is at most one rule satisfying both stability and drop out monotonicity. For the standard model of linear cost functions, the existence of this rule is established.     

Fall back proper equilibrium

Proper equilibrium plays a prominent role in the literature on non-cooperative games. The underlying thought experiment in which the players play a passive role is, however, unsatisfying, as it gives no justification for its fundamental idea that severe mistakes are made with a significantly smaller probability than innocuous ones. In this paper, we introduce a more active role for the players, leading to the refinement of fall back proper equilibrium.     

Decomposition of network communication games

Using network control structures, this paper introduces a general class of network communication games and studies their decomposition into unanimity games. We obtain a relation between the dividends in any network communication game and its underlying transferable utility game, which depends on the structure of the communication network. Moreover, we introduce a new class of network control values which contains both the Myerson value and the position value. The decomposition results are used to explicitly express these values in terms of dividends.     

Collaborative study to improve the quality control of trace element determinations in polymers. Part 2. Certification of polyethylene reference materials (CRMs 680 and 681) for As, Br, Cd, Cl, Cr, Hg, Pb, and S content

Two polymer (polyethylene) reference materials have been produced in support of EC Directive 94/62/EC on plastic packaging and packaging material. The paper describes the preparation of the materials, the analytical work performed to characterize their homogeneity and stability, and the certification of the materials for a range of elements. The technical and statistical evaluation of the results are also summarized.