Characterizations of the Random Order Values by Harsanyi Payoff Vectors

A Harsanyi payoff vector (see Vasil’ev in Optimizacija Vyp 21:30–35, 1978) of a cooperative game with transferable utilities is obtained by some distribution of the Harsanyi dividends of all coalitions among its members. Examples of Harsanyi payoff vectors are the marginal contribution vectors. The random order values (see Weber in The Shapley value, essays in honor of L.S. Shapley, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988) being the convex combinations of the marginal contribution vectors, are therefore elements of the Harsanyi set, which refers to the set of all Harsanyi payoff vectors.The aim of this paper is to provide two characterizations of the set of all sharing systems of the dividends whose associated Harsanyi payoff vectors are random order values. The first characterization yields the extreme points of this set of sharing systems and is based on a combinatorial result recently published (Vasil’ev in Discretnyi Analiz i Issledovaniye Operatsyi 10:17–55, 2003) the second characterization says that a Harsanyi payoff vector is a random order value iff the sharing system is strong monotonic.This work was partly done whilst Valeri Vasil’ev was visiting the Department of Econometrics at the Free University, Amsterdam. Financial support from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in the framework of the Russian-Dutch programme for scientific cooperation, is gratefully acknowledged. The third author would also like to acknowledge partial financial support from the Russian Fund of Basic Research (grants 98-01-00664 and 00-15-98884) and the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Fund (grant 02-02-00189a).     

Inventory control with product returns: The impact of imperfect information

Product returns are characterized by considerable uncertainty on time and quantity. In the literature on inventory management for product return environments best forecasts of future returns are associated with methods that use the most information regarding product return history. In practice, however, data is often scarce and unreliable, while forecasts based on historical data, reliable or not, are never perfect. In this paper we therefore investigate the impact of imperfect information with respect to the return process on inventory management performance. We show that in the case of imperfect information the most informed method does not necessarily lead to best performance. The results have relevant implications regarding investments in product return information systems.     

A polynomial time algorithm for computing the nucleolus for a class of disjunctive games with a permission structure

Recently, applications of cooperative game theory to economic allocation problems have gained popularity. In many such allocation problems there is some hierarchical ordering of the players. In this paper we consider a class of games with a permission structure describing situations in which players in a cooperative TU-game are hierarchically ordered in the sense that there are players that need permission from other players before they are allowed to cooperate. The corresponding restricted game takes account of the limited cooperation possibilities by assigning to every coalition the worth of its largest feasible subset. In this paper we provide a polynomial time algorithm for computing the nucleolus of the restricted games corresponding to a class of games with a permission structure which economic applications include auction games, dual airport games, dual polluted river games and information market games.     

Solid-phase chemiluminescence immunoassay for screening of anabolic agents in application sites in slaughtered cattle

A solid-phase chemiluminescence immunoassay for 19-nortestosterone (NT) is presented; NT-3-carboxymethyloxime/N-(4-aminobutyl)-N-ethylisoluminol serves as the label with an antiserum raised against NT-3-carboxymethyloxime/bovine serum albumin. Some other anabolic compounds (e.g., testosterone and trenbolone) showed substantial cross-reactivity. The assay can be used generally for the detection of anabolic agents in application sites. Because of the high sensitivity (0.1 pg NT/tube at 90% relative binding), only 250 μg of muscle tissue is needed for the assay. Apparent NT contents of 0.4 to 16 000 μg kg^?1 tissue can be measured. With a simplified isolation method, about 40 samples can be screened in a working day.     

Magnetic circular dichroism in lanthanide 4 d-4 f giant resonant photoemission: terbium

Magnetic circular dichroism in lanthanide 4 f photoemission (PE) multiplets was studied across the 4 d-4 f excitation threshold for the example of Tb metal. The combined experimental and theoretical analysis demonstrates that resonant enhancement of the 4 f PE signal and large magnetic contrast in the PE intensity are obtained simultaneously, when the excitation energy is tuned to the absorption-edge maximum for parallel orientation of magnetization and circular-polarization light helicity. Received 23 February 1999     

The unbalance and bounds on the average waiting time for periodic routing to one queue

In this paper we introduce the combinatorial notion of unbalance for a periodic zero-one splitting sequence. Using this unbalance we derive an upper bound for the average expected waiting time of jobs which are routed to one queue according to a periodic zero-one splitting sequence. In the companion paper [16] the upper bound will be extended to the routing to N parallel queues.Acknowledgement.The authors would like to thank Bruno Gaujal for his hospitality during their visits to LORIA, Nancy. During one of the stimulating discussions with him the graph order was found. The authors thank Robert Tijdeman for his helpful comments.