Simple additive weighting is a well-known method for scoring and ranking alternative options based on multiple attributes. However the pitfalls associated with this approach are not widely appreciated. For example, the apparently innocuous step of normalizing the various attribute data in order to obtain comparable figures leads to markedly different rankings depending on which normalization is...

Videogames now enable players to spend virtual fortunes on exotic virtual goods and even create and sell virtual artefacts. Online consumers may also browse endlessly through virtual marketplaces and create and display virtual goods. These virtual commodities are desired and enjoyed as if they were real, but are not actually bought, or owned in a material sense – often resulting in frustration ...

In this paper we consider a routing problem where uncapacitated vehicles are loaded with goods, requested by the customers, that arrive at the depot over time. The arrival time of a product at the depot is called its release date. We consider two variants of the problem. In the first one a deadline to complete the distribution is given and the total distance traveled is minimized. In the second...

BACKGROUND Back pain is a common condition which has been described as a serious public health problem. Spinal shrinkage has been used as an index of spinal loading in a range of tasks. Epidemiological evidence shows that body mass index (BMI: 30 kg/m(2)) is related to the development of low back pain however, no studies have described the stature change patterns of obese individuals. This stud...

We introduce a new interpretation of two re­ lated notions conditional utility and utility independence. Unlike the traditional inter­ pretation, the new interpretation render the notions the direct analogues of their prob­ abilistic counterparts. To capture these no­ tions formally, we appeal to the notion of util­ ity distribution, introduced in previous paper. We show that utility distributi...

We propose the group knockoff filter, a method for false discovery rate control in a linear regression setting where the features are grouped, and we would like to select a set of relevant groups which have a nonzero effect on the response. By considering the set of true and false discoveries at the group level, this method gains power relative to sparse regression methods. We also apply our me...

In this paper we consider the classical problem of dividing a land among many agents so that everybody is satisfied with the parcel she receives. In the literature, it is usually assumed that all the agents are endowed with cardinally comparable, additive, and monotone utility functions. In many economic and political situations violations of these assumptions may arise. We show how a family of...

Adaptation to climate change is already being delivered by public and private actors, yet there has been little analysis of the relationships between the providers and beneficiaries of adaptation. This paper reviews the type of actors that are supplying adaptation services and their motivations. We then focus on a specific, under-explored case of adaptation: that of privately provided adaptatio...

The global market for virtual items, characters and currencies was estimated to exceed 2.1 Billion USD in 2007. Selling virtual goods for real money is an increasingly common revenue model not only for online games and virtual worlds, but for social networking sites and other mainstream online services as well. What drives consumer spending on virtual items is an increasingly relevant question,...

Virtual Worlds have become serious business models and thus gained the attention of law professionals. The legal problems arising out of Virtual Worlds have started a discussion which will be summarized in this article. Moreover arguments will be delivered which can be used to protect users of those Virtual Realities.