THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTS. By Oscar Kempthorne. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1952. 631 pp. $8.50. This book by a teacher of statistics (as well as a consultant for \"experimenters\") is a comprehensive study of the philosophical background for the statistical design of experiment. It is necessary to have some facility with algebraic notation and manipulation to be able to use the volume intelligently. The problems are presented from the theoretical point of view, without such practical examples as would be helpful for those not acquainted with mathematics. The mathematical justification for the techniques is given. As a somewhat advanced treatment of the design and analysis of experiments, this volume will be interesting and helpful for many who approach statistics theoretically as well as practically. With emphasis on the \"why,\" and with description given broadly, the author relates the subject matter to the general theory of statistics and to the general problem of experimental inference. MARGARET J. ROBERTSON

The Design and Analysis of Experiments

Data Mining - Concepts and Techniques.

Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

In many parts of the world there is growing demand for participation in public policy decision making. This demand could be satisfied by the design and deployment of Web-based group decision support systems to aid large groups of, possibly unsophisticated, users in participating in such decisions. After describing several mechanisms for participatory democracy, we provide a framework for decision support in this area and describe decision support functions that could be implemented in such a framework. We illustrate the ideas with a specific system to support participatory budget elaboration through the Web. Several practical issues are discussed along the way.

Towards decision support for participatory democracy

Several studies of two-party negotiations have shown that negotiators more often than not reach inefficient compromises. We analyze the circumstances under which rational agents make inefficient compromises and refrain from improving them. We do this by describing and interpreting various negotiation situations and by developing formal constructs and theorems for determining the character of a negotiation situation. Key among these concepts is the notion of opposition. Although opposition is defined in terms of utility functions, it is more fundamental in the sense that it is more intuitive to decision-makers and can be used in contexts in which the parties' utilities are unknown or are partially known. The effects of various rationality assumptions on efficiency and their implications for negotiation support systems are discussed. We argue that the prescriptive/descriptive approach advocated by negotiation analysts lacks sufficient explanatory powers to be effectively used in negotiation support and that negotiation support systems should not constrain the parties to the set of efficient points.

/pdf/rational-agents-contract-curves-and-inefficient-compromises-2f6ngj71i3.pdf

Rational agents, contract curves, and inefficient compromises

Experiments with negotiation software agents’ in frictionless commerce indicate potential for destructive behaviour. Most of the agents are capable of engaging in auctions and have no ability to conduct complex business negotiations. Recognizing that people and software agents operate in different although overlapping spheres we propose an environment in which negotiation and decision support systems work together with software agents in electronic negotiations. Based on our experiences with the Inspire system we constructed an environment comprising software agents, and negotiation and decision support systems. One agent monitors the process, facilitates the use of Inspire, interprets the negotiators’ activities and provides methodological advice. The architecture of this environment is based on the separation of user support functions from the autonomous software activities, separation of the support for individuals from facilitation and mediation; and scalability and the ability to provide linkages with the existing software.

http://interneg.concordia.ca/views/bodyfiles/paper/2001/05.pdf

Negotiation Support Systems and Software Agents in E-Business Negotiations

An increasing number of negotiations are conducted via electronic media allowing for an extensive use of software in negotiators' activities Traditionally, negotiation support was based on normative and prescriptive research; its users were analysts and experts The purpose of the recently developed e-negotiation systems is to provide negotiators with services and to satisfy their requirements rather than direct their activities so that they conform to rationality and optimality principles This orientation is typical to software engineering Dueto the difficulties in reconciling results of prescriptive and descriptive studies the e-negotiation design specifications are often based on selected descriptive approaches at the expense of the prescriptive support This paper presents selected results from negotiation and e-negotiation research and provides specifications for e-negotiation system design and development Based on review of methodological foundations and a media reference model an e-negotiation view integration model that integrates behavioural, scientific and engineering views on e-negotiation support and media reference mode is proposed

http://interneg.concordia.ca/views/bodyfiles/paper/2003/02.pdf

The science and engineering of e-negotiation: an introduction

The objective of this paper is to introduce a flexible approach to the structuring of negotiations. The process of negotiations with its intricacies is discussed, and drawbacks of quantitative methods are analyzed. The decomposition of the negotiation process into a certain hierarchical structure is presented. This structure is represented with ‘and/or’ trees used for knowledge representation in artificial intelligence. The definitions of flexibility and reactions to the opponent's moves are introduced with the help of a rule-based formalism. The implications of these definitions for the analysis of the negotiation process are presented. The approach is illustrated with a set of hypothetical examples.

Gregory E. Kersten

Papers

Towards decision support for participatory democracy

Rational agents, contract curves, and inefficient compromises

Negotiation Support Systems and Software Agents in E-Business Negotiations

The science and engineering of e-negotiation: an introduction

Representing the negotiation process with a rule-based formalism