We consider the situation in which a group of agents are trying to find an agreeable time for a meeting. Each agent’s availability is governed by a known prior probability distribution, but the realization of it is private information. The goal (of the convener) is to find an agreeable time slot while optimizing in two dimensions: Expected time to reach agreement and expected inconvenience caus...

In an age when we can sequence an entire genome within a day, we expect to be able to gather and access accurate information at a pace. After all, you didn't wait for this issue of PLoS Medicine to arrive in the post or trudge down to the library to read it; you accessed it instantly via the internet. Patients and clinicians also expect technology to provide similar speed when it comes to diagn...

The Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) option to the 802.11 standard is the first step in addressing security concerns; it is an encryption provision. WEP is a security protocol designed to provide a wireless local area network with a level of security and privacy comparable to what is usually expected of a wired network. However since physical security mechanisms no longer apply, the goal of the a...