Consider the problem of discriminating between two polynomial regression models on the q-cube [−1, 1] , q ≥ 2, and estimating parameters in the models. To find designs which are efficient for both model discrimination and parameter estimation, Zen and Tsai (2002) proposed a multiple-objective optimality criterion for the univariate case. In this work, taking the same Mγ-criterion which uses wei...

We continue, and in a sense complete, our study the motion of a rod (line segment) in the plane in the presence of polygonal obstacles, under an optimality criterion based on minimizing the trace length of a fixed but arbitrary point (called the focus) on the rod. In an earlier paper, we showed that this problem is NP-hard when the focus is in the relative interior of the rod. Our proof did not...

The problem of asymptotically optimum watermark detection and embedding has been addressed in a recent paper by Merhav and Sabbag where the optimality criterion corresponds to the maximization of the false negative error exponent for a fixed false positive error exponent. In particular Merhav and Sabbag derive the optimum detection rule under the assumption that the detector relies on the secon...

In this paper we consider the problem of constructing T -optimal discriminating designs for Fourier regression models. We provide explicit solutions of the optimal design problem for discriminating between two Fourier regression models, which differ by at most three trigonometric functions. In general, the T -optimal discriminating design depends in a complicated way on the parameters of the la...

Determination of Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) as an optimality criterion for the problem of localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is a very important issue. Currently, CRLBs have been derived for line-of-sight (LOS) situation in WSNs. However, one of major problems for accurate localization in WSNs is non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation. This article proposes two CRLBs for WSNs loca...

The victory of Viktor Yanukovych in the second round of Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election has been widely portrayed as a rebuke of the 2004 Orange Revolution and the pro-Western alignment it ushered in. Even before the election, however, the effects of the Eurasian color revolutions, celebrated with such euphoria in some Western foreign policy circles in the mid-2000s, had far-reaching and u...

Credit card default losses increased dramatically in the 80s and 90s, from 3% to over 5% of outstanding debt. We explore whether technological progress in debt collection is behind this change by developing a new theory featuring costly state verification with signals. We motivate our approach by the predominance of informal bankruptcy in the credit card market, which necessitates the costly in...

Once there was a time when mainframes walked the earth and reigned supreme over all the land. Lowly users were far too unclean and unschooled to commune with these vastly superior beings made of silicon and software, and so there arose among us a programming priesthood who served as intermediaries between human and machine. Like the monks of old, who studiously labored over the production of el...

Automation is “the application of machines to tasks once performed by human beings, or increasingly, to tasks that would otherwise be impossible”, Encyclopaedia Britannica [1]. The term automation itself was coined in the 1940s at the Ford Motor Company. The idea of automating processes and systems started many years earlier than this as part of the agricultural and industrial revolutions of th...

Introduction It is a great pleasure to be here in Oslo, nearly 30 years after I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I wish to thank the Norwegian Nobel Institute and the U.S. Embassy in Norway for arranging this lecture. Today, I am here to take stock of the contributions of the so-called “Green Revolution,” and explore the role of science and technology in the coming decades to improve the quan...