Much work in computer science has adopted competitive analysis as a tool for decision making under uncertainty. In this work we extend competitive analysis to the context of multi-agent systems. Unlike classical competitive analysis where the behavior of an agent’s environment is taken to be arbitrary, we consider the case where an agent’s environment consists of other agents. These agents will...

The rate of adaptation to a competitive laboratory environment and the associated inbreeding depression in measures of reproductive fitness have been observed in populations of Drosophila melanogaster with mean effective breeding size of the order of 50 individuals. Two large wild-derived populations and a long-established laboratory cage population were used as base stocks, from which subpopul...

A local veterinarian, Environment Canada wildlife toxicologists and other wildlife researchers suspected pesticide poisoning, but the source was a mystery. Oddly, the poisonings occurred in winter, a time of minimal or no pesticide application. The strange timing, bizarre symptoms and large number of affected birds led researchers to investigate further. The Lower Fraser River Valley is the mos...

pressure refers to the feelings an athlete has about performing in a competitive situation. the primary aim of this study was to examine kinematic changes of tennis serves in increasing competitive pressure. 20 semi-professional right-handed male tennis players completed 120 serves under low (normal) and high competitive pressure phases. pressure checks (heart rate and perceived competitive sta...

This paper examines how strategic posture in IT investment with respect to industry peers (i.e., level of IT investment compared to the industry norm for IT investments) and competitive environment influence IT investments of a firm. We synthesize prior literature on determinants of IT investments and competitive dynamics to develop our theoretical framework. Using archival data for about 380 f...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the ability of commonly measured laboratory variables to predict imminent (within the same or next calendar day) medical emergency team (MET) calls, ICU admission or death. METHODS We performed a retrospective observational study of ED patients. We estimated the ability of each laboratory variable or combination of variables together with patient age to predict imminent ...

This paper evaluates effectiveness of federal research funding in stimulating universities’ total research and development (R&D), over a period of dramatic change in the federal funding environment. Instrumental variables estimation reveals that during the NIH budget doubling, 1998—2003, each federal research dollar spurred an additional $0.27 in subsequent research funding from nonfederal sour...