This classic on games and how to play them intelligently is being re-issued in a new, four volume edition. This book has laid the foundation to a mathematical approach to playing games. The wise authors wield witty words, which wangle wonderfully winning ways. In Volume 1, the authors do the Spade Work, presenting theories and techniques to "dissect" games of varied structures and formats in order to develop winning strategies.

Oligopoly theory is one of the most intensively studied areas of mathematical economics. On the basis of the pioneering works of Cournot (1838), many res- rchers have developed and extensively examined the different variants of oligopoly models. Initially, the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium of the different types of oligopolies was the main concern, and later the dynamic extensions of these models became the focus. The classical result of Theocharis (1960) asserts that under discrete time scales and static expectations, the equilibrium of a sing- product oligopoly without product differentiation and with linear price and cost functions is asymptotically stable if and only if it is a duopoly. In the continuous time case, asymptotic stability is guaranteed for any number of ?rms. In these cases the resulting dynamical systems are also linear, where local and global asymptotic stability are equivalent to each other. The classical book of Okuguchi (1976) gives a comprehensive summary of the earlier results and developments. The multipr- uct extensionshave been discussed in Okuguchiand Szidarovszky(1999);however, nonlinear features were barely touched upon in these contributions. WiththedevelopmentofthecriticalcurvemethodbyGumowskiandMira(1980) (see also Mira et al. (1996))fordiscrete time systemsand the introductionof cont- uously distributed information lags by Invernizzi and Medio (1991) in continuous time systems, increasing attention has been given to the global dynamics of n- linear oligopolies. The authors of this book have devoted a great deal of research effort to this area.

This book introduces an analytic framework constructed upon the iterated Prisoners' Dilemma game to model and analyze transboundary water interactions along the Nile River. It presents a thorough and in-depth analysis of the historical path through which conflict and cooperation have been generated among the Nile riparians over large-scale developmental schemes. This is done through modeling water interactions in the basin as an iterated Prisoners' Dilemma game and employing process-tracing method to compare four distinguishable rounds of the game: the colonial round, the Cold War round, the post-Cold War round, and the post-2011 round. The book examines the influences of the changing political contexts at the domestic, regional, and global levels on the game outcomes. This framework is initially applied on several cases of international rivers worldwide, while the rest of the book is devoted to the Nile case. The book's central argument is that the riparians' interests, capabilities, and beliefs are heterogeneous in varying degrees and that the changing multilevel political contexts influence the level of such heterogeneities among the riparians, which ultimately drive the equilibrium dynamics in the Nile game to generate different conflictive and cooperative outcomes over time. Although the book's main conclusion indicates that the absence of economic interdependence and regional integration will transfer the game into tug-of-war, which will impose harsh punishment on the basin communities and ecosystems on the long term, the final chapter lists a group of recommendations addressed to the riparian states and international donors, exploring the way for boosting cooperation and preventing conflicts in the basin. Presenting clear theoretical, methodological, and policy implications, this book is appropriate for students and scholars of international relations, hydrology, and development studies.

This book presents an epistemic framework for dealing with information-knowledge and certainty-uncertainty problems within the space of quality-quantity dualities. It bridges between theoretical concepts of entropy and entropy measurements, proposing the concept and measurement of fuzzy-stochastic entropy that is applicable to all areas of knowing under human cognitive limitations over the epistemological space. The book builds on two previous monographs by the same author concerning theories of info-statics and info-dynamics, to deal with identification and transformation problems respectively. The theoretical framework is developed by using the toolboxes such as those of the principle of opposites, systems of actual-potential polarities and negative-positive dualities, under different cost-benefit time-structures. The category theory and the fuzzy paradigm of thought, under methodological constructionism-reductionism duality, are used in the fuzzy-stochastic and cost-benefit spaces to point to directions of global application in knowing, knowledge and decision-choice actions. Thus, the book is concerned with a general theory of entropy, showing how the fuzzy paradigm of thought is developed to deal with the problems of qualitative-quantitative uncertainties over the fuzzy-stochastic space, which will be applicable to conditions of soft-hard data, fact, evidence and knowledge over the spaces of problem-solution dualities, decision-choice actions in sciences, non-sciences, engineering and planning sciences to abstract acceptable information-knowledge elements.

This book proposes novel methods for solving different types of non-cooperative games with interval/fuzzy/intuitionistic fuzzy payoffs. It starts by discussing several existing methods and shows that some mathematically incorrect assumptions have been considered in all these methods. It then proposes solutions to adapt those methods and validate the new proposed methods, such as Gaurika method Ambika-I-IV, Mehar method and others, by using them for solving existing numerical problems. The book offers a comprehensive guide on non-cooperative games with fuzzy payoffs to both students and researchers. It provides them with the all the necessary tools to understand the methods and the theory behind them.

The chapters in this volume explore how various methods from game theory can be utilized to optimize security and risk-management strategies. Emphasizing the importance of connecting theory and practice, they detail the steps involved in selecting, adapting, and analyzing game-theoretic models in security engineering and provide case studies of successful implementations in different application domains. Practitioners who are not experts in game theory and are uncertain about incorporating it into their work will benefit from this resource, as well as researchers in applied mathematics and computer science interested in current developments and future directions. The first part of the book presents the theoretical basics, covering various different game-theoretic models related to and suitable for security engineering. The second part then shows how these models are adopted, implemented, and analyzed. Surveillance systems, interconnected networks, and power grids are among the different application areas discussed. Finally, in the third part, case studies from business and industry of successful applications of game-theoretic models are presented, and the range of applications discussed is expanded to include such areas as cloud computing, Internet of Things, and water utility networks.

This book details cutting-edge research into human-like driving technology, utilising game theory to better suit a human and machine hybrid driving environment. Covering feature identification and modelling of human driving behaviours, the book explains how to design an algorithm for decision making and control of autonomous vehicles in complex scenarios. Beginning with a review of current research in the field, the book uses this as a springboard from which to present a new theory of human-like driving framework for autonomous vehicles. Chapters cover system models of decision making and control, driving safety, riding comfort and travel efficiency. Throughout the book, game theory is applied to human-like decision making, enabling the autonomous vehicle and the human driver interaction to be modelled using noncooperative game theory approach. It also uses game theory to model collaborative decision making between connected autonomous vehicles. This framework enables human-like decision making and control of autonomous vehicles, which leads to safer and more efficient driving in complicated traffic scenarios. The book will be of interest to students and professionals alike, in the field of automotive engineering, computer engineering and control engineering.

This book surveys the state-of-the-art in the theory of combinatorial games, that is games not involving chance or hidden information. Enthusiasts will find a wide variety of exciting topics, from a trailblazing presentation of scoring to solutions of three piece ending positions of bidding chess. Theories and techniques in many subfields are covered, such as universality, Wythoff Nim variations, misere play, partizan bidding (a.k.a. Richman games), loopy games, and the algebra of placement games. Also included are an updated list of unsolved problems, extremely efficient algorithms for taking and breaking games, a historical exposition of binary numbers and games by David Singmaster, chromatic Nim variations, renormalization for combinatorial games, and a survey of temperature theory by Elwyn Berlekamp, one of the founders of the field. The volume was initiated at the Combinatorial Game Theory Workshop, January 2011, held at the Banff International Research Station.

In a series of conversational essays, this textbook discusses the manner in which economic thought addresses a broad array of everyday issues beyond classical textbook treatments. In the spirit of popular economics books, the author uncovers economic issues and solutions from individuals, businesses, society, and the country as a whole in a decidedly non-technical and relatable manner. Should the federal government mandate use of child safety seats on commercial airlines? Can genetic information substitute for a college degree? The contents of this book touch on many of these contemporary topics in an accessible way. Addressing undergraduate and graduate students, as well as scholars in different fields of economics, this book is a must-read for everybody interested in a better understanding of economic thought.

This work presents recent mathematical methods in the area of optimal control with a particular emphasis on the computational aspects and applications. Optimal control theory concerns the determination of control strategies for complex dynamical systems, in order to optimize some measure of their performance. Started in the 60's under the pressure of the "space race" between the US and the former USSR, the field now has a far wider scope, and embraces a variety of areas ranging from process control to traffic flow optimization, renewable resources exploitation and management of financial markets. These emerging applications require more and more efficient numerical methods for their solution, a very difficult task due the huge number of variables. The chapters of this volume give an up-to-date presentation of several recent methods in this area including fast dynamic programming algorithms, model predictive control and max-plus techniques. This book is addressed to researchers, graduate students and applied scientists working in the area of control problems, differential games and their applications.

With annual gross sales surpassing 100 billion U.S. dollars each of the last two years, the digital games industry may one day challenge theatrical-release movies as the highest-grossing entertainment media in the world. In their examination of the tremendous cultural influence of digital games, Daniel Reardon and David Wright analyze three companies that have shaped the industry: Bethesda, located in Rockville, Maryland, USA; BioWare in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; and CD Projekt Red in Warsaw, Poland. Each company has used social media and technical content in the games to promote players' belief that players control the companies' game narratives. The result has been at times explosive, as empowered players often attempted to co-op the creative processes of games through discussion board forum demands, fund-raising campaigns to persuade companies to change or add game content, and modifications ("modding") of the games through fan-created downloads. The result has changed the way we understand the interactive nature of digital games and the power of fan culture to shape those games.

This Palgrave Pivot uses a simple model from game theory to explain the behavior of countries disputing ownership of resources and of small islands in the South China Sea. It argues that the rapid transformation of the region's economy - the rise of Factory Asia - is not being acknowledged, leading countries to take chances beyond what a rational picture of costs and benefits would suggest. Regional economic cooperation may be a viable alternative to the present conflicts. However, the varied experience of regional initiatives in Southeast Asia provides a cautionary note that, while there is the potential for peaceful development of the South China Sea, there are significant challenges to structuring successful programs.

This book develops a detailed, disaggregated theoretical and empirical framework that explains variations in mass killing by authoritarian regimes globally, with a specific focus on Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Using a combination of game-theoretic, statistical, and qualitative approaches, this project explicates when civilians within nondemocratic states will mobilize against the ruling elite, and when such mobilization will result in mass killing. In doing so, it illustrates the important role urbanization and food insecurity historically played, and will continue to play, in generating extreme forms of civilian victimization.

The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a threat to our health and economy, but also has strong implications for defence and security. Indeed, defence leaders have highlighted a second fight surrounding the spread of COVID-19, namely disinformation and preparing to face adversaries willing to exploit the public health crisis for nefarious purposes. The current pandemic is a breeding ground for the propagation of disinformation, as it represents the first major global health event in which large social media platforms have become the main distributor of information. This multi-national edited volume consists of contributions from Defence Science, academia and industry, including NATO Headquarters, United States, Netherlands, Singapore, United Kingdom and Norway. The content is aimed at a diverse audience, including NATO members, researchers from defence and security organizations, academics, and militaries including analysts and practitioners, as well as policy makers. This volume focuses on various aspects of COVID-19 disinformation, including identifying global dominant disinformation narratives and the methods used to spread disinformation, examining COVID-19 disinformation within the broader context of the cognitive domain, examining the psychological effects of COVID-19 disinformation and COVID-19 disinformation on instant messaging platforms, along with examining various countermeasures to disinformation.

This book examines how China's decentralization process has affected and will affect the country's macroeconomic performance and the functioning of the market. With an innovative application of game theory, the author develops an analytical framework that can explain the behaviour of the central and local governments under alternative institutional environments. The study also suggests how to establish desirable rules of games in China's political and economic institutions through appropriate reforms.

There are thousands of books relating to poker, blackjack, roulette and baccarat, including strategy guides, statistical analysis, psychological studies, and much more. However, there are no books on Pell, Rouleno, Street Dice, and many other games that have had a short life in casinos! While this is understandable - most casino gamblers have not heard of these games, and no one is currently playing them - their absence from published works means that some interesting mathematics and gaming history are at risk of being lost forever. Table games other than baccarat, blackjack, craps, and roulette are called carnival games, as a nod to their origin in actual traveling or seasonal carnivals. Mathematics of Casino Carnival Games is a focused look at these games and the mathematics at their foundation. Features * Exercises, with solutions, are included for readers who wish to practice the ideas presented * Suitable for a general audience with an interest in the mathematics of gambling and games * Goes beyond providing practical 'tips' for gamblers, and explores the mathematical principles that underpin gambling games

The first volume, Geometry, Language and Strategy, extended the concepts of Game Theory, replacing static equilibrium with a deterministic dynamic theory. The first volume opened up many applications that were only briefly touched on. To study the consequences of the deterministic approach in contrast to standard Bayesian approaches, the richness of applications, requires an engineering foundation and discipline, which this volume supplies. It provides a richer list of applications, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, which extends the resonant behavior of Vol. 1 to more general time-dependent and transient behaviors.

Casino games and traditional card games have rich and idiosyncratic histories, complex subcultures and player practices, and facilitate the flow of billions of dollars each year through casinos and card rooms, and between professional players and amateurs. They have nevertheless been overlooked by game scholars due to the negative ethical weight of “gambling” – with such games pathologized and labelled as deviance or mental illness, few look beyond to unpick the games, their players, and their communities. The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader offers 25 chapters studying the communities playing these games, the distinctive cultures and practices that have emerged around them, their activities and beliefs and interpersonal relationships, and how these games influence – both positively and negatively – the lives and careers of millions of game players around the world. It is the first of a new series of edited collections, Play Beyond the Computer, dedicated to exploring the play of games beyond computers and games consoles.

The book presents new developments in the dynamic modeling and optimization methods in environmental economics and provides a huge range of applications dealing with the economics of natural resources, the impacts of climate change and of environmental pollution, and respective policy measures. The interrelationship between economic activities and environmental quality, the development of cleaner technologies, the switch from fossil to renewable resources and the proper use of policy instruments play an important role along the path towards a sustainable future. Biological, physical and economic processes are naturally involved in the subject, and postulate the main modelling, simulation and decision-making tools: the methods of dynamic optimization and dynamic games.

This book addresses the perennial question of how to promote Africa's indigenous languages as medium of instruction in educational systems. Breaking with the traditional approach to the continent's language question by focusing on the often overlooked issue of the link between African languages and economic development, Language Policy and Economics argues that African languages are an integral part of a nation's socio-political and economic development. Therefore, the book argues that any language policy designed to promote these languages in such higher domains as the educational system in particular must have economic advantages if the intent is to succeed, and proposes Prestige Planning as the way to address this issue. The proposition is a welcome break away from language policies which pay lip-service to the empowerment of African languages while, by default, strengthening the stranglehold of imported European languages.

Differential Game Theory with Applications to Missiles and Autonomous Systems explains the use of differential game theory in autonomous guidance and control systems. The book begins with an introduction to the basic principles before considering optimum control and game theory. Two-party and multi-party game theory and guidance are then covered and, finally, the theory is demonstrated through simulation examples and models and the simulation results are discussed. Recent developments in the area of guidance and autonomous systems are also presented. Key features: * Presents new developments and how they relate to established control systems knowledge. * Demonstrates the theory through simulation examples and models. * Covers two-party and multi-party game theory and guidance. * Accompanied by a website hosting MATLAB(R) code. The book is essential reading for researchers and practitioners in the aerospace and defence industries as well as graduate students in aerospace engineering.

This book, published in honor of Professor Laurent Praly on the occasion of his 65th birthday, explores the responses of some leading international authorities to new challenges in nonlinear and adaptive control. The mitigation of the effects of uncertainty and nonlinearity - ubiquitous features of real-world engineering and natural systems - on closed-loop stability and robustness being of crucial importance, the contributions report the latest research into overcoming these difficulties in: autonomous systems; reset control systems; multiple-input-multiple-output nonlinear systems; input delays; partial differential equations; population games; and data-driven control. Trends in Nonlinear and Adaptive Control presents research inspired by and related to Professor Praly's lifetime of contributions to control theory and is a valuable addition to the literature of advanced control.

This book offers the first systematic analysis of economic thought concerning war. It retraces debates on war from the formation of European states, the rise of Mercantilism, to Colonialism, Imperialism, the World Wars and the Cold War. Allio shows different economic perspectives from which it is possible to study war as a tool to achieve economic ends: causes, consequences, costs, funding methods, and effects on the economic status of the state and on the well-being of citizens. Examining interpretations from Smith, Hobson, Keynes, Kalecki, Stiglitz and many more, this important volume addresses the economic implications of war from the perspectives of many who bore the costs of wars in reality.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP or 3Ps) allow the public sector to seek alternative funding and expertise from the private sector during procurement processes. Such partnerships, if executed with due diligence, often benefit the public immensely. Unfortunately, Public-Private Partnerships can be vulnerable to corruption. This book looks at what measures we can put in place to check corruption during procurement and what good governance strategies the public sector can adopt to improve the performance of 3Ps. The book applies mathematical models to analyze 3Ps. It uses game theory to study the interaction and dynamics between the stakeholders and suggests strategies to reduce corruption risks in various 3Ps stages. The authors explain through game theory-based simulation how governments can adopt a evaluating process at the start of each procurement to weed out undesirable private partners and why the government should take a more proactive approach. Using a methodological framework rooted in mathematical models to illustrate how we can combat institutional corruption, this book is a helpful reference for anyone interested in public policymaking and public infrastructure management.

Game theory involves multi-person decision making and differential dynamic game theory has been widely applied to n-person decision making problems, which are stimulated by a vast number of applications. This book addresses the gap to discuss general stochastic n-person noncooperative and cooperative game theory with wide applications to control systems, signal processing systems, communication systems, managements, financial systems, and biological systems. H8 game strategy, n-person cooperative and noncooperative game strategy are discussed for linear and nonlinear stochastic systems along with some computational algorithms developed to efficiently solve these game strategies.