<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><BASE
href=http://www.femtopizza.net/ head <>
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2600.0" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY text=black bgColor=white>
<DIV>Game theory might help draw up war settlements, from <A
href="http://www.nature.com/nsu/031215/031215-1.html">Nature</A>: A political
scientist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico has devised a mathematical
method that could help civil-war negotiators to find the most stable peace
treaties. Elisabeth Wood calculates that a settlement will be stronger and more
likely to last if it finds the ideal way to apportion the stakes. For example,
if two warring factions each want control of some part of a disputed region,
negotiators need to divide the territory in a way that comes closest to
satisfying them both. This doesn't guarantee that neither party will fight on in
the hope of gaining more. But it may lead them to decide that further fighting
will not substantially improve the eventual outcome. Wood hopes that her
technique could provide a general framework for resolving civil conflicts over
power, land or other resources fairly and transparently. At present, dispute is
addressed ad hoc. She reckons that her mathematical model offers a way to make
progress even if the stakes of the conflict are less obviously
divisible.</DIV></BODY></HTML>