SAGT 2011 papers
The accepted papers list is now public .
Posts
Dr. Adil Najam: New LUMS VC
So it's doubly official now. Just received an email from the LUMS Alumni office that Dr. Adil Najam will be joining LUMS at the position of Vice Chancellor from July 2011. Adil Najam, more widely known for his blog Pakistaniat.com seems well-suited to take up the leadership role at LUMS. The following is an excerpt from his profile: -------- Dr. Adil Najam will be joining LUMS at the position of Vice Chancellor from July 01, 2011. Dr. Najam is a leading authority on global public policy. He holds the Frederick S. Pardee Chair for Global Public Policy at Boston University. He also serves as the Director of the Pardee Centre for the study of the Longer-Range Future and is a tenured Professor of International Relations and of Geography and the Environment. Earlier he served as a Professor of Negotiations and Diplomacy (2002-2007) at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has also taught at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) and the Universi...
Barcelona
For those attending IJCAI 2011 (in Barcelona) AND also looking forward to exploring the city, The Guardian is focussing on Barcelona on their city guide website. Enjoy!
Algorithmic game theory lecture videos
A while ago, the The innovations in Algorithmic Game Theory workshop was advertized. Considering the excellent speaker list, I was hopeful that the videos of the lectures would be put online. The good news is that the lectures were videotaped and are online! Please click on the following links: http://iasmac31.as.huji.ac.il: 8080/groups/ innovationsinalgorithmicgameth eory/blog/ http://iasmac31.as.huji.ac.il: 8080/groups/ innovationsinalgorithmicgameth eory/blog/?startIndex=20 The server is really slow but the videos should work. [Hat tip to Paul Goldberg for pointing out the video links]
The demerits of Plurality voting
A lot has been said about the pros and cons of using AV (Single Transferable Voting) as compared to First Past the Post ( Plurality ) in TV debates etc. What has been perplexing is that the opinions of specialists have hardly been sought. Or perhaps their voice got drowned amidst the political manouvering and lobbying. Although the AV issue is dead for now , I wanted to highlight what the experts have to say about Plurality, the most widely used voting method, also in use in the UK elections: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/expertcomment/av/ The relevant portion is from 10.00 onwards where Prof. Dennis Leech, a specialist on voting theory (also one of my PhD advisors) talks about the issue. Prof. Leech refers to a meeting by the most renowned social choice theorists where Plurality was dismissed as a reasonable voting method . This is of course not the first time, people have voiced concern over Plurality .