VCG auctions with reserve prices are practical simple auctions with provably approximately optimal revenue, and have been crucial in the analysis of other appealing auctions. When different reserve prices are applied to different bidders, the auctioneer may choose to apply the reserves either before (eagerly) or after (lazily) the comparison of bids. Both auction forms have been studied in vari...

The existence of truthful social choice mechanisms strongly depends on whether monetary transfers are allowed. Without payments there are no truthful, non-dictatorial mechanisms under mild requirements, whereas the VCG mechanism guarantees truthfulness along with welfare maximization when there are payments and utility is quasi-linear in money. In this paper we study mechanisms in which we can ...

We compared newly developed radionuclide cystography with conventional contrast voiding cystography (VCG) with regard to their diagnostic usefulness of intrarenal reflux (IRR) in children. Based on the imaging findings, we assessed the role of IRR in the pathogenesis of reflux nephropathy (RN). Among the ureters which revealed IRR diagnosed by radionuclide cystography, 38.9% (7 out of 18 ureter...

In [1] the use of VCG in matching markets is motivated by saying that in order to compute market clearing prices in a matching market, the auctioneer needs to know the true valuations of the bidders. Hence VCG and corresponding personalized prices are proposed as an incentive compatible mechanism. The same line of argument pops up in several lecture sheets and other documents related to courses...

When information or control in a multiagent system is private to the agents, they may misreport this information or refuse to execute an agreed outcome, in order to change the resulting end state of such a system to their benefit. In some domains this may result in an execution failure. We show that in such settings VCG mechanisms lose truthfulness, and that the utility of truthful agents can b...

Vegetative compatibility groups (VCGs) are determined for many fungi to test for the ability of fungal isolates to undergo heterokaryon formation. In several fungal plant pathogens, isolates belonging to a VCG have been shown to share significantly higher genetic similarity than those of different VCGs. In this study we sought to examine the relationship between VCG and genetic similarity of an...

For allocation problems with one or more items, the well-known VickreyClarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism (aka. Clarke mechanism, Generalized Vickrey Auction) is efficient, strategy-proof, individually rational, and does not incur a deficit. However, it is not (strongly) budget balanced: generally, the agents’ payments will sum to more than 0. We study mechanisms that redistribute some of the VCG pay...

fusarium wilt of melon is a destructive fungal disease throughout the world. in this study, the evolutionary relationships among isolates of different formae speciales of fusarium oxysporum was examined, with a special emphasis on the forma specialis melonis. bootstrapped maximum likelihood analysis of the elongation factor-1α (ef-1α) sequence was conducted on 16 iranian and 11 foreign isolates...

We have examined the feasibility of using array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) to explore intraspecific genetic variability at the genomic level in two pathogenic molds, Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus flavus. Our analysis showed that strain-specific genes may comprise up to 2% of their genomes in comparison to isolates from different vegetative (heterokaryon) compatibility grou...