Narrow Results

To investigate the cause of Alzheimer’s disease (senile dementia of Alzheimer’s disease type), we examined aluminium (Al) in the brain (hippocampus) of patients with Alzheimer’s disease using heavy ion (5 MeV Si³⁺) microprobe particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) analysis. Heavy ion microprobes (3 MeV Si²⁺) have several times higher sensitivity for Al detection than 2 MeV proton microprobes. We also examined Al in the brain of these patients by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). (1) Al was detected in the cell nuclei isolated from the brain of patients with Alzheimer’s disease using 5 MeV Si³⁺ microprobe PIXE analysis, and EDX analysis. (2) EDX analysis demonstrated high levels of Al in the nucleolus of nerve cells in frozen sections prepared from the brain of these patients. Our results support the theory that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by accumulation of Al in the nuclei of brain cells.

In this note, we give a straightforward and elementary proof of a theorem by Aumann and Maschler stating that in the well-known bankruptcy problem, the so-called CG-consistent solution described by the Talmud represents the nucleolus of the corresponding coalitional game. The proof nicely fits into the hydraulic rationing framework proposed by Kaminski. We point out further interesting properties in connection with this framework.

For a finite player cooperative cost game, we consider two solutions that are based on excesses of coalitions. We define per-capita excess-sum of a player as sum of normalized excesses of coalitions involving this player and view it as a measure of player's dissatisfaction. So, per-capita excess-sum allocation is that imputation that minimizes the maximum per-capita excess-sums of players. We provide a closed form expression for an allocation, which is the per-capita excess-sum allocation if it is also individually rational. We propose a finite step algorithm to compute per-capita excess-sum allocation for a general game. We show that per-capita excess-sum allocation is coalitionally monotonic. Next, we consider excess-sum solution wherein a player views entire coalition's excess as a measure of dissatisfaction. This excess-sum solution also has above properties. In addition, we consider a super set of core and show that excess-sum allocation can be viewed as an imputation that is a certain center of this polyhedron. We introduce a class of cooperative games that can model cost sharing among divisions of a firm when they buy items at volume discounts. We characterize when excess-based allocations coincide with Shapley value, nucleolus, etc. in such games.

This study develops a model to explain why accounting procedures, also known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, are “generally accepted”. For this purpose, we focus on depreciation defined as the rational and systematic allocation of the original cost of an asset over the expected useful life of that asset. We investigate what it means to be “rational” using cooperative game theory. We show that cost allocations determined by the straight-line (SL) method, which is conventionally used worldwide, are elements of the core and that the conditions of the core can be rational in practice. Furthermore, we examine the relationship between the SL method and other solution concepts, such as the Shapley value and the nucleolus. Our next step is to clarify the characteristics besides the core selection of the SL method, those of other depreciation methods used in practice, and the logical relations between these characteristics.

The intra-nuclear organisation of proteins is based on possibly transient interactions with morphologically defined compartments like the nucleolus. The fluidity of trafficking challenges the development of models that accurately identify compartment membership for novel proteins. A growing inventory of nucleolar proteins is here used to train a support-vector machine to recognise sequence features that allow the automatic assignment of compartment membership. We explore a range of sequence-kernels and find that while some success is achieved with a profile-based local alignment kernel, the problem is ill-suited to a standard compartment-classification approach.

Our main focus in this and the next chapter is the application of Cooperative Game Theory (CGT) models to international water resource issues. In this chapter we will justify the use of CGT in water resource problems, and in particular, in international conflict-cooperation cases. The chapter reviews several important CGT concepts and demonstrates their use and calculation. After reading this chapter you will have a good grasp of basic CGT concepts and be able to apply them at both conceptual and empirical levels to simple cases.

In this chapter, we focus on basic Cooperative Game Theory solution concepts, explain their foundations (including assumptions), and demonstrate their empirical application (calculation and interpretation). You will understand the principles used to construct several commonly used CGT solution concepts, such as the Shapley Value and the Nash Equilibrium, and get some acquaintance with additional CGT and other solution concepts, although to a lesser extent. You will also be introduced to an important aspect of CGT, namely the power of the players in the game and the stability of the solution. These are very important concepts that have not been always an integral part of cooperative solutions applications. The chapter explains several of the power and stability concepts and applies them to the game that is being carried over from Chapter 5.