We consider two game-theoretic settings to determine the optimal values of an issuer's interchange fee rate, an acquirer's merchant discount rate, and a merchant's retail prices for multiple products in a credit card network. In the first setting, we investigate a two-stage game problem in which the issuer and the acquirer first negotiate the interchange fee rate, and the acquirer and the retailer then determine their merchant discount rate and retail prices, respectively. In the second setting, motivated by the recent U.S. bill "H.R. 2695," we develop a three-player cooperative game in which the issuer, the acquirer, and the merchant form a grand coalition and bargain over the interchange fee rate and the merchant discount rate. Following the cooperative game, the retailer makes its retail pricing decisions. We derive both the Shapley value- and the nucleolus-characterized unique rates for the grand coalition. Comparing the two game settings, we show that the participation of the merchant in the negotiation process can result in the reduction of both rates. Moreover, the stability of the grand coalition in the cooperative game setting may require that the merchant should delegate the credit card business only to the issuer and the acquirer with sufficiently low operation costs. We also find that the large, highly-specialized merchants and banks are more likely to join the cooperative negotiation whereas the small firms may prefer the two-stage game setting. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that the acquirer's and the issuer's unit operation costs more significantly impact both rates in the cooperative game setting than in the two-stage game setting.

The purpose of this study was to explore how master jazz pedagogues and artist-level jazz musicians used pedagogical content knowledge to sequence their instructional methods when teaching jazz improvisation. Pedagogical content knowledge served as the theoretical framework for this study. To gain insights into how they used their knowledge when teaching jazz improvisation, I first sought to explore how they learned to improvise. For this study, an overarching research question “How did the participants learn to improvise in jazz?” aided me with contextualizing how they learned content and pedagogy when they began to improvise. Then, the following questions guided my investigation into how these participants used their pedagogical and content knowledge when they taught jazz improvisation: (1) How, if at all, did the participants’ curriculum knowledge influence their approaches to teaching jazz improvisation? (2) How, if at all, did the participants’ pedagogical knowledge influence their approaches to teaching jazz improvisation? (3) How, if at all, did the participants’ content knowledge influence their approaches to teaching jazz improvisation? In this study both the artist-level musicians and master jazz pedagogues all subscribed to an organic mode of teaching jazz improvisation, and not a one size fits all approach that many published jazz materials espouse. Most of these participants did not utilize an established curriculum for teaching, but rather relied on the knowledge of their students and their own content knowledge of what they know and how they learned for the best practices of teaching. Based on the pedagogical content knowledge they provided in this study, I devised a model for teaching jazz improvisation to undergraduate students. I organized this model by developing an eight-semester, or four-year sequence, of pedagogy and content for instruction. For each academic year, I present a description of what I learned from the participants, and how this pedagogical content knowledge can be used with students to learn how to improvise in jazz. I then present a two-semester outline (one academic year) that demonstrates how the pedagogical principles and content knowledge shared by the participants in this study can be sequenced. Each of the participants in this study taught their students based on their own content knowledge and the knowledge of their students. In order to teach jazz and jazz improvisation, preservice teachers need more than just a casual experience with jazz pedagogy, and should look to increase their own content knowledge in the area of jazz through both formal and informal educational opportunities. Furthermore, the scope of this study was limited to world renowned jazz musicians and educators who taught at the university level and only considered the perspectives of jazz educators. Additional studies could focus on active school music teachers who identify as jazz educators or could involve researchers studying the perspectives of the students regarding how they learn pedagogy and content and how they use/retain this knowledge with improvisation. Keywords: jazz, jazz pedagogy, jazz improvisation, pedagogical content knowledge, jazz education

In this paper an extension of the well-known binomial approach to option pricing is presented. The classical question is: What is the price of an option on the risky asset? The traditional answer is obtained with the help of a replicating portfolio by ruling out arbitrage. Instead a two-person game from the Nash equilibrium of which the option price can be derived is formulated. Consequently both the underlying asset’s price at expiration and the price of the option on this asset are endogenously determined. The option price derived this way turns out, however, to be identical to the classical no-arbitrage option price of the binomial model if the expiration-date prices of the underlying asset and the corresponding risk-neutral probability are properly adjusted according to the Nash equilibrium data of the game.

The increasing popularity and widespread deployment of wireless data systems fuel the increasing demand for more spectrum. On the other hand, various studies measuring spectrum utilization show that there is a huge variation in spectrum utilization at different times and locations. In view of this, various dynamic spectrum access (DSA) methods have been proposed in order to achieve more efficient utilization of spectrum resources by virtue of exploiting the variations in spectrum demand over time and space. Implementing DSA systems in a centralized way can lead to complexity and scalability problems due to the extensive control signaling involved. Therefore distributed implementations of DSA systems in which the users can access the system resources at their own discretion have been proposed. These distributed mechanisms typically incorporate cognitive radio systems which act as agents on behalf of users to measure the radio environment and make decisions based on these measurements. On the other hand, the freedom of the users in distributed systems to form their actions can lead each user to try to maximize its benefit from the system without regard the overall performance of the DSA system. Therefore, selfish behavior can prevail in distributed systems, which is likely to degrade the system performance.In this thesis we investigate the implications of selfish decision making in dynamic spectrum access systems. To address this broad problem, we focus our analysis on a particular system which can represent the essential properties of DSA systems and thus can shed light on the performance of the broad class of DSA systems with selfish users. Specifically, we model a DSA system as a multichannel random access system which uses ALOHA for medium access, and we analyze the behavior of the selfish users by modeling the system as a non-cooperative game. In this analysis we incorporate the effect of channel state information on the decision making of the users; we consider both cases when the users act on global (complete) and on local (incomplete) information. We determine the behavior of the selfish users at the Nash equilibria of the non-cooperative game and measure the performance of the system in terms of sum and individual utilities for various user loads and amount of available resources. We try to identify how the performance of the DSA system with selfish users compares with its cooperative counterpart. By performing these analyses we provide insights into the broader question of whether selfish users can utilize spectrum resources in a DSA system as well as cooperative users. / <p>QC 20111208</p> / MultiOperator Dynamic Spectrum access (MODyS)

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京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第24741号 / 情博第829号 / 新制||情||139(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科数理工学専攻 / (主査)教授 山下 信雄, 教授 太田 快人, 教授 永持 仁 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

Au cours des deux dernières décennies, la stéatose hépatique non alcoolique (NAFLD) a été une maladie épidémique croissante, non seulement dans les pays occidentaux mais également dans le monde entier en raison de l’augmentation continue des modes de vie sédentaires, de l’obésité, et de la résistance à l’insuline. La prévalence mondiale de la NALFD est actuellement estimée à 25% dans la population générale adulte. NALFD est composé d’un éventail d’affections hépatiques s’étendant du foie gras non-alcoolique (NAFL), stéatohépatite non-alcoolique (NASH), fibrose avancée et cirrhose qui peut progresser au carcinome hépatocellulaire (HCC). L’inflammation induite par NASH peut moduler l’activation des cellules stellaires hépatiques (CSH) et donc influencer la progression de la fibrose hépatique. Le rôle de l’inflammation de type 3, qui est caractérisée par la production des cytokines IL-17A et IL-22, dans la fibrose de type NAFLD demeure incompris. Dans cette thèse, nous avons évalué le rôle d’IL-22 et d’IL-17A dans la fibrose liée à la NAFLD. Des biopsies cliniques de foie NAFLD humain et un modèle murin in vivo de NAFLD ont été utilisés et des expériences in vitro ont été effectuées. Nous avons démontré que l’expression hépatique d’IL-22 est plus élevée chez les femmes et chez les femelles avec NAFLD versus les hommes et les mâles. Nous avons identifié les neutrophiles et les cellules T, y compris les cellules T Th17, Th22 et γδ, en tant que principaux producteurs d’IL-22 chez les sujets féminins et les souris atteintes de NAFLD. De plus, nous avons démontré que l’absence de la signalisation endogène du récepteur IL-22 (modèle IL-22RA1 knockout) chez les souris femelles avec NAFLD, aggravait les lésions hépatiques, l’inflammation et la fibrose, comparé aux mâles. Cet effet hépatoprotecteur dépend des mécanismes anti-apoptotiques médiés par la signalisation du récepteur IL-22 qui favorisent la survie des hépatocytes et réduisent au minimum les dommages au foie. Nous avons également montré que l’expression hépatique d’IL-22BP est régulé à la hausse chez les souris femelles avec NAFLD comparé aux mâles. Dans ces femelles, le ratio d’ARN messager hépatique de l’IL-22 envers celui de l’IL-22BP est corrélé positivement avec les gènes en aval de cible d’IL-22 (gènes anti-apoptotiques et antioxydants). Par ailleurs, nous avons prouvé que les neutrophiles intrahépatiques produisent l’IL-17A in situ dans notre modèle NAFLD et ceci correspondait fortement avec la progression de la fibrose de foie et les dommages hépatiques. Nous avons fourni des preuves préliminaires que l’IL-17A peut induire des pièges extracellulaires de neutrophiles (NET) in vitro, et la signature de NETs est impliquée dans la progression de la fibrose hépatique dans notre NAFLD. Pris ensemble, Ces résultats démontrent qu’identifié un nouveau rôle de l’inflammation de type 3 dans la fibrose liée au NAFLD, où l’action de l’IL-22 est dépendante du sexe et possède des 4 fonctions hépatoprotectrices contre la fibrose du foie chez les femelles, alors que l’IL-17A agit en tant que cytokine profibrogénique et favorise la fibrose de foie. / Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a growing epidemic, not only in western countries but also worldwide due to the continuous rise in sedentary lifestyles, obesity, and insulin resistance over the last two decades. The global prevalence of NALFD is currently estimated to be 25% in the general adult population. NAFLD is comprised of a spectrum of liver disease ranging from non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFL), non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), advanced fibrosis, and finally cirrhosis that can progress to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). NASH-induced inflammation can modulate hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) activation and hence influence hepatic fibrosis progression. The role of type 3 inflammation, which is characterized by the production of the cytokines IL-17A and IL-22, in NAFLD-related fibrosis remain not clear. In this thesis, we evaluated the role of IL-22 and IL-17A in NAFLD-related fibrosis using clinical liver biopsies from a NAFLD human cohort, an in vivo NAFLD mouse model and in vitro experiments. We report that hepatic IL-22 expression had sexually dimorphic differences in both humans and mice with NAFLD where it was elevated in females versus males. We identified intrahepatic neutrophils in female subjects with NAFLD as well as T cells, including Th17, Th22, γδ T cells, in female mice with NAFLD as major producers of IL-22. In addition, we demonstrated that lack of endogenous IL-22 receptor signaling (IL-22RA1 knockout model), exacerbated liver injury, inflammation, and fibrosis in female but not male mice with NAFLD. This hepatoprotective effect was dependent on IL-22 receptor signaling-induced anti-apoptotic signals that promote hepatocyte survival and minimize liver damage. We also demonstrated that hepatic IL-22BP expression was upregulated in female mice with NAFLD compared to males, and the hepatic IL22/IL-22BP mRNA ratio positively correlated with IL-22 downstream target genes (anti-apoptotic and antioxidant genes) in those females. Moreover, we showed that intrahepatic neutrophils produce IL-17A in situ in our NAFLD model and this was strongly correlated with progression of liver fibrosis and liver injury. We provided preliminary evidence that IL-17A can induce neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in vitro, and that NETs are implicated in liver fibrosis progression in our NAFLD model. Taken together, we identified a novel role for type 3 inflammation in NAFLD-related fibrosis, where IL-22 act in sex-dependent manner and provided hepatoprotective functions against liver fibrosis in females, while IL-17A act as profibrogenic cytokine and promotes liver fibrosis through enhancing NETs.

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Policy Hill Climbing (PHC) is a reinforcement learning algorithm that extends Q-learning to learn probabilistic policies for multi-agent games. WoLF-PHC extends PHC with the "win or learn fast" principle. A proof that PHC will diverge in self-play when playing Shapley's game is given, and WoLF-PHC is shown empirically to diverge as well. Various WoLF-PHC based modifications were created, evaluated, and compared in an attempt to obtain convergence to the single shot Nash equilibrium when playing Shapley's game in self-play without using more information than WoLF-PHC uses. Partial Commitment WoLF-PHC (PCWoLF-PHC), which performs best on Shapley's game, is tested on other matrix games and shown to produce satisfactory results.