As massively multi-player gaming environments become more detailed, developing agents to populate these virtual worlds as capable non-player characters poses an increasingly complex problem. Human players in many games must achieve their objectives through financial skills such as trading and supply chain management as well as through combat and diplomacy. In this paper, we examine the problem ...

Regional integration agreements (RIAs) are examples of second best and have an ambiguous impact on welfare. This paper builds a model where RIAs unambiguously raise welfare by correcting for externalities. It assumes that trade between neighboring countries raises trust between them and reduce the likelihood of conflict. The optimum intervention in that case is a subsidy on imports from the nei...

Abstract Science diplomacy can be defined as “the use of scientific collaborations between countries to address joint problems and build constructive international partnerships for delivering effective advice policy making”. During the last 10 years, Institute Atmospheric Earth System Research (INAR) has been active in finding ways solve global Grand Challenges, particularly climate change poor...

The immune system's quieter side went unnoticed for some time, while inflammation inducing proteins soaked up all the attention. Fiona Powrie stepped in just after the concept of inflammation-reducing " suppressor " cells had emerged. In Don Mason's laboratory at the MRC Cellular Immunology Unit in Oxford, Powrie and her colleagues lent the vaguely described cells definition, by showing that on...

CAN VACCINATIONS HELP TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS AND NURTURE DIPLOMACY? LATER THIS MONTH, Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic country, will host U.S. President Obama, a visit that could establish important scientifi c ties between the United States and Indonesia and implement a potentially powerful piece of vaccine diplomacy. The oral polio vaccine is a substantive example of how vaccination...