Competitive or weak cooperative stochastic Lotka-Volterra systems conditioned on non-extinction.

PubMed

Cattiaux, Patrick; Méléard, Sylvie

2010-06-01

We are interested in the long time behavior of a two-type density-dependent biological population conditioned on non-extinction, in both cases of competition or weak cooperation between the two species. This population is described by a stochastic Lotka-Volterra system, obtained as limit of renormalized interacting birth and death processes. The weak cooperation assumption allows the system not to blow up. We study the existence and uniqueness of a quasi-stationary distribution, that is convergence to equilibrium conditioned on non-extinction. To this aim we generalize in two-dimensions spectral tools developed for one-dimensional generalized Feller diffusion processes. The existence proof of a quasi-stationary distribution is reduced to the one for a d-dimensional Kolmogorov diffusion process under a symmetry assumption. The symmetry we need is satisfied under a local balance condition relying the ecological rates. A novelty is the outlined relation between the uniqueness of the quasi-stationary distribution and the ultracontractivity of the killed semi-group. By a comparison between the killing rates for the populations of each type and the one of the global population, we show that the quasi-stationary distribution can be either supported by individuals of one (the strongest one) type or supported by individuals of the two types. We thus highlight two different long time behaviors depending on the parameters of the model: either the model exhibits an intermediary time scale for which only one type (the dominant trait) is surviving, or there is a positive probability to have coexistence of the two species.

Using process groups to implement failure detection in asynchronous environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ricciardi, Aleta M.; Birman, Kenneth P.

1991-01-01

Agreement on the membership of a group of processes in a distributed system is a basic problem that arises in a wide range of applications. Such groups occur when a set of processes cooperate to perform some task, share memory, monitor one another, subdivide a computation, and so forth. The group membership problems is discussed as it relates to failure detection in asynchronous, distributed systems. A rigorous, formal specification for group membership is presented under this interpretation. A solution is then presented for this problem.

Distributed and cooperative task processing: Cournot oligopolies on a graph.

PubMed

Pavlic, Theodore P; Passino, Kevin M

2014-06-01

This paper introduces a novel framework for the design of distributed agents that must complete externally generated tasks but also can volunteer to process tasks encountered by other agents. To reduce the computational and communication burden of coordination between agents to perfectly balance load around the network, the agents adjust their volunteering propensity asynchronously within a fictitious trading economy. This economy provides incentives for nontrivial levels of volunteering for remote tasks, and thus load is shared. Moreover, the combined effects of diminishing marginal returns and network topology lead to competitive equilibria that have task reallocations that are qualitatively similar to what is expected in a load-balancing system with explicit coordination between nodes. In the paper, topological and algorithmic conditions are given that ensure the existence and uniqueness of a competitive equilibrium. Additionally, a decentralized distributed gradient-ascent algorithm is given that is guaranteed to converge to this equilibrium while not causing any node to over-volunteer beyond its maximum task-processing rate. The framework is applied to an autonomous-air-vehicle example, and connections are drawn to classic studies of the evolution of cooperation in nature.

Heterogeneous Link Weight Promotes the Cooperation in Spatial Prisoner's Dilemma

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Zhi-Qin; Xia, Cheng-Yi; Sun, Shi-Wen; Wang, Li; Wang, Huai-Bin; Wang, Juan

The spatial structure has often been identified as a prominent mechanism that substantially promotes the cooperation level in prisoner's dilemma game. In this paper we introduce a weighting mechanism into the spatial prisoner's dilemma game to explore the cooperative behaviors on the square lattice. Here, three types of weight distributions: exponential, power-law and uniform distributions are considered, and the weight is assigned to links between players. Through large-scale numerical simulations we find, compared with the traditional spatial game, that this mechanism can largely enhance the frequency of cooperators. For most ranges of b, we find that the power-law distribution enables the highest promotion of cooperation and the uniform one leads to the lowest enhancement, whereas the exponential one lies often between them. The great improvement of cooperation can be caused by the fact that the distributional link weight yields inhomogeneous interaction strength among individuals, which can facilitate the formation of cooperative clusters to resist the defector's invasion. In addition, the impact of amplitude of the undulation of weight distribution and noise strength on cooperation is also investigated for three kinds of weight distribution. Current researches can aid in the further understanding of evolutionary cooperation in biological and social science.

Lone-Wolf Terrorist Radicalization and the Prisoner’s Dilemma: Ensuring Mutual Cooperation Between at-Risk Muslim Americans and Local Communities

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-01

for public release; distribution is unlimited 12b. DISTRIBUTION CODE A 13. ABSTRACT While scholars study the radicalization process that...the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN SECURITY STUDIES (HOMELAND SECURITY AND DEFENSE) from the NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL September 2015...Affairs iv THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK v ABSTRACT While scholars study the radicalization process that produces lone-wolf terrorists

A Framework for a Computer System to Support Distributed Cooperative Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiu, Chiung-Hui

2004-01-01

To develop a computer system to support cooperative learning among distributed students; developers should consider the foundations of cooperative learning. This article examines the basic elements that make cooperation work and proposes a framework for such computer supported cooperative learning (CSCL) systems. This framework is constituted of…

Implementation strategies influence the structure, process and outcome of quality systems: an empirical study of hospital departments in Sweden.

PubMed

Kunkel, S; Rosenqvist, U; Westerling, R

2009-02-01

To analyse whether the organisation of quality systems (structure, process, and outcome) is related to how these systems were implemented (implementation prerequisites, cooperation between managers and staff, and source of initiative). A questionnaire was developed, piloted and distributed to 600 hospital departments. Questions were included to reflect implementation prerequisites (adequate resources, competence, problem-solving capacity and high expectations), cooperative implementation, source of initiative (manager, staff and purchaser), structure (resources and administration), process (culture and cooperation) and outcome (goal evaluation and competence development). The adjusted response rate was 75%. Construct validity and reliability was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis, and Cronbach alpha scores were calculated. The relationships among the variables were analysed with structural equation modelling with LISREL. Implementation prerequisites were highly related to structure (0.51) and process (0.33). Cooperative implementation was associated with process (0.26) and outcome (0.34). High manager initiative was related to structure (0.19) and process (0.17). The numbers in parentheses can be interpreted as correlations. Construct validity was good, and reliability was excellent for all factors (Cronbach alpha>0.78). The model was a good representation of reality (model fit p value = 0.082). The implementation of organisationally demanding quality systems may require managers to direct and lead the process while assuring that their staff get opportunities to contribute to the planning and designing of the new system. This would correspond to a cooperative implementation strategy rather than to top-down or bottom-up strategies. The results of this study could be used to adjust implementation processes.

Okayama optical polarimetry and spectroscopy system (OOPS) II. Network-transparent control software.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sasaki, T.; Kurakami, T.; Shimizu, Y.; Yutani, M.

Control system of the OOPS (Okayama Optical Polarimetry and Spectroscopy system) is designed to integrate several instruments whose controllers are distributed over a network; the OOPS instrument, a CCD camera and data acquisition unit, the 91 cm telescope, an autoguider, a weather monitor, and an image display tool SAOimage. With the help of message-based communication, the control processes cooperate with related processes to perform an astronomical observation under supervising control by a scheduler process. A logger process collects status data of all the instruments to distribute them to related processes upon request. Software structure of each process is described.

Representation of economic preferences in the structure and function of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex

PubMed Central

Fermin, Alan S. R.; Sakagami, Masamichi; Kiyonari, Toko; Li, Yang; Matsumoto, Yoshie; Yamagishi, Toshio

2016-01-01

Social value orientations (SVOs) are economic preferences for the distribution of resources – prosocial individuals are more cooperative and egalitarian than are proselfs. Despite the social and economic implications of SVOs, no systematic studies have examined their neural correlates. We investigated the amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) structures and functions in prosocials and proselfs by functional magnetic resonance imaging and evaluated cooperative behavior in the Prisoner’s Dilemma game. We found for the first time that amygdala volume was larger in prosocials and positively correlated with cooperation, while DLPFC volume was larger in proselfs and negatively correlated with cooperation. Proselfs’ decisions were marked by strong DLPFC and weak amygdala activity, and prosocials’ decisions were marked by strong amygdala activity, with the DLPFC signal increasing only in defection. Our findings suggest that proselfs’ decisions are controlled by DLPFC-mediated deliberative processes, while prosocials’ decisions are initially guided by automatic amygdala processes. PMID:26876988

Update on Controlling Herds of Cooperative Robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Quadrelli, Marco; Chang, Johnny

2007-01-01

A document presents further information on the subject matter of "Controlling Herds of Cooperative Robots". The document describes the results of the computational simulations of a one-blimp, three-surface-sonde herd in various operational scenarios, including sensitivity studies as a function of distributed communication and processing delays between the sondes and the blimp. From results of the simulations, it is concluded that the methodology is feasible, even if there are significant uncertainties in the dynamical models.

The evolution of cooperation on geographical networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Yixiao; Wang, Yi; Sheng, Jichuan

2017-11-01

We study evolutionary public goods game on geographical networks, i.e., complex networks which are located on a geographical plane. The geographical feature effects in two ways: In one way, the geographically-induced network structure influences the overall evolutionary dynamics, and, in the other way, the geographical length of an edge influences the cost when the two players at the two ends interact. For the latter effect, we design a new cost function of cooperators, which simply assumes that the longer the distance between two players, the higher cost the cooperator(s) of them have to pay. In this study, network substrates are generated by a previous spatial network model with a cost-benefit parameter controlling the network topology. Our simulations show that the greatest promotion of cooperation is achieved in the intermediate regime of the parameter, in which empirical estimates of various railway networks fall. Further, we investigate how the distribution of edges' geographical costs influences the evolutionary dynamics and consider three patterns of the distribution: an approximately-equal distribution, a diverse distribution, and a polarized distribution. For normal geographical networks which are generated using intermediate values of the cost-benefit parameter, a diverse distribution hinders the evolution of cooperation, whereas a polarized distribution lowers the threshold value of the amplification factor for cooperation in public goods game. These results are helpful for understanding the evolution of cooperation on real-world geographical networks.

Waste-to-Energy Technology Brief

EPA Science Inventory

ETV's Greenhouse Gas Technology (GHG) Center, operated by Southern Research Institute under a cooperative agreement with US EPA, verified two biogas processing systems and four distributed generation (DG) energy systems in collaboration with the Colorado Governors Office or the N...

Implementation of a Web-Based Collaborative Process Planning System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Huifen; Liu, Tingting; Qiao, Li; Huang, Shuangxi

Under the networked manufacturing environment, all phases of product manufacturing involving design, process planning, machining and assembling may be accomplished collaboratively by different enterprises, even different manufacturing stages of the same part may be finished collaboratively by different enterprises. Based on the self-developed networked manufacturing platform eCWS(e-Cooperative Work System), a multi-agent-based system framework for collaborative process planning is proposed. In accordance with requirements of collaborative process planning, share resources provided by cooperative enterprises in the course of collaboration are classified into seven classes. Then a reconfigurable and extendable resource object model is built. Decision-making strategy is also studied in this paper. Finally a collaborative process planning system e-CAPP is developed and applied. It provides strong support for distributed designers to collaboratively plan and optimize product process though network.

24 CFR 213.278 - Distribution of distributive share.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... AUTHORITIES COOPERATIVE HOUSING MORTGAGE INSURANCE Contract Rights and Obligations-Projects Cooperative... obligation of the Cooperative Management Housing Insurance Fund a share of the Participating Reserve Account... actuarial and accounting practice. ...

Architecture-Centric Development in Globally Distributed Projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sauer, Joachim

In this chapter architecture-centric development is proposed as a means to strengthen the cohesion of distributed teams and to tackle challenges due to geographical and temporal distances and the clash of different cultures. A shared software architecture serves as blueprint for all activities in the development process and ties them together. Architecture-centric development thus provides a plan for task allocation, facilitates the cooperation of globally distributed developers, and enables continuous integration reaching across distributed teams. Advice is also provided for software architects who work with distributed teams in an agile manner.

Cooperative Learning for Distributed In-Network Traffic Classification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Joseph, S. B.; Loo, H. R.; Ismail, I.; Andromeda, T.; Marsono, M. N.

2017-04-01

Inspired by the concept of autonomic distributed/decentralized network management schemes, we consider the issue of information exchange among distributed network nodes to network performance and promote scalability for in-network monitoring. In this paper, we propose a cooperative learning algorithm for propagation and synchronization of network information among autonomic distributed network nodes for online traffic classification. The results show that network nodes with sharing capability perform better with a higher average accuracy of 89.21% (sharing data) and 88.37% (sharing clusters) compared to 88.06% for nodes without cooperative learning capability. The overall performance indicates that cooperative learning is promising for distributed in-network traffic classification.

The Cooperative Distributive Education Program for Employers of Cooperative Distributive Education Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schwartz, Melvin

The booklet serves to acquaint employers with the cooperative distributive education program in New Jersey. Contents briefly cover facts concerning: the benefits of the program to the employer, conditions of employment of students, the students themselves, what students gain from the program, the role of the teacher coordinator, the students'…

Distributed semantic networks and CLIPS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Snyder, James; Rodriguez, Tony

1991-01-01

Semantic networks of frames are commonly used as a method of reasoning in many problems. In most of these applications the semantic network exists as a single entity in a single process environment. Advances in workstation hardware provide support for more sophisticated applications involving multiple processes, interacting in a distributed environment. In these applications the semantic network may well be distributed over several concurrently executing tasks. This paper describes the design and implementation of a frame based, distributed semantic network in which frames are accessed both through C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) expert systems and procedural C++ language programs. The application area is a knowledge based, cooperative decision making model utilizing both rule based and procedural experts.

Cooperative Control of Distributed Autonomous Vehicles in Adversarial Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-08-14

COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IN ADVERSARIAL ENVIRONMENTS Grant #F49620–01–1–0361 Final Report Jeff Shamma Department of...CONTRACT NUMBER F49620-01-1-0361 5b. GRANT NUMBER 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IN...single dominant language or a distribution of languages. A relation to multivehicle systems is understanding how highly autonomous vehicles on extended

Development of Web-based Distributed Cooperative Development Environmentof Sign-Language Animation System and its Evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuizono, Takaya; Hara, Kousuke; Nakayama, Shigeru

A web-based distributed cooperative development environment of sign-language animation system has been developed. We have extended the system from the previous animation system that was constructed as three tiered system which consists of sign-language animation interface layer, sign-language data processing layer, and sign-language animation database. Two components of a web client using VRML plug-in and web servlet are added to the previous system. The systems can support humanoid-model avatar for interoperability, and can use the stored sign language animation data shared on the database. It is noted in the evaluation of this system that the inverse kinematics function of web client improves the sign-language animation making.

Evolution of global cooperation driven by risks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Du, Jinming; Wu, Bin; Wang, Long

2012-05-01

Globalization facilitates our communication with each other, while it magnifies problems such as overharvesting of natural resources and human-induced climate change. Thus people all over the world are involved in a global social dilemma which calls for worldwide cooperation to reduce the risks of these extreme events and disasters. A collective target (threshold) is required to prevent such events. Everyone may lose their wealth once their total individual contributions fail to reach the threshold. To this end, we establish a model of threshold public goods games in a group-structured population and investigate its evolutionary process. We study multilevel public goods games with defectors, local cooperators, and global cooperators and are primarily concerned with how the global cooperative behavior evolves. We find that, compared with the standard public goods games, the strategy of global cooperation accounts for a bigger proportion in the stationary distribution of threshold public goods games. On the other hand, the fixation time of the global cooperation strategy is greatly shortened with increase of the probability of disaster striking. Therefore, global risks induced by the threshold can effectively promote global cooperation in environmental investment and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

MPL-net at ARM Sites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Spinhirne, J. D.; Welton, E. J.; Campbell, J. R.; Berkoff, T. A.; Starr, David OC. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

The NASA MPL-net project goal is consistent data products of the vertical distribution of clouds and aerosol from globally distributed lidar observation sites. The four ARM micro pulse lidars are a basis of the network to consist of over twelve sites. The science objective is ground truth for global satellite retrievals and accurate vertical distribution information in combination with surface radiation measurements for aerosol and cloud models. The project involves improvement in instruments and data processing and cooperation with ARM and other partners.

Physical and Biological Processes Underlying the Sudden Appearance of a Red-Tide Surface Patch in the Nearshore

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-01-01

DISTRIBUTION /AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Approved for public release; distribution unlimited 13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 14. ABSTRACT 15. SUBJECT TERMS 16...Survey (USGS) programs at Huntington Beach . George Robertson, Marlene Noble, Uwe Send, Steve Weisberg are thanked for their cooperation and assistance...Huntington Beach CA, was dominated by the locally common red-tide 5 forming dinoflagellate Lingulodinium polyedrum (F. Stein). Surface chlorophyll-a

42 CFR 486.324 - Condition: Administration and governing body.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... personnel, tissue banks, and voluntary health associations in the OPO's service area. (2) Individuals who... to cooperate with tissue banks for the retrieval, processing, preservation, storage, and distribution... syndrome (AIDS). (5) Appropriate tissue typing of organs. (6) A system for allocation of organs among...

42 CFR 486.324 - Condition: Administration and governing body.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... personnel, tissue banks, and voluntary health associations in the OPO's service area. (2) Individuals who... to cooperate with tissue banks for the retrieval, processing, preservation, storage, and distribution... syndrome (AIDS). (5) Appropriate tissue typing of organs. (6) A system for allocation of organs among...

42 CFR 486.324 - Condition: Administration and governing body.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... personnel, tissue banks, and voluntary health associations in the OPO's service area. (2) Individuals who... to cooperate with tissue banks for the retrieval, processing, preservation, storage, and distribution... syndrome (AIDS). (5) Appropriate tissue typing of organs. (6) A system for allocation of organs among...

42 CFR 486.324 - Condition: Administration and governing body.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... personnel, tissue banks, and voluntary health associations in the OPO's service area. (2) Individuals who... to cooperate with tissue banks for the retrieval, processing, preservation, storage, and distribution... syndrome (AIDS). (5) Appropriate tissue typing of organs. (6) A system for allocation of organs among...

42 CFR 486.324 - Condition: Administration and governing body.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... personnel, tissue banks, and voluntary health associations in the OPO's service area. (2) Individuals who... to cooperate with tissue banks for the retrieval, processing, preservation, storage, and distribution... syndrome (AIDS). (5) Appropriate tissue typing of organs. (6) A system for allocation of organs among...

7 CFR 252.1 - Purpose and scope.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... industry, acting in cooperation with the States and FNS, to develop new markets in which donated food may... Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) FOOD AND NUTRITION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE GENERAL REGULATIONS AND POLICIES-FOOD DISTRIBUTION NATIONAL COMMODITY PROCESSING PROGRAM § 252.1 Purpose...

A cooperative model for IS security risk management in distributed environment.

PubMed

Feng, Nan; Zheng, Chundong

2014-01-01

Given the increasing cooperation between organizations, the flexible exchange of security information across the allied organizations is critical to effectively manage information systems (IS) security in a distributed environment. In this paper, we develop a cooperative model for IS security risk management in a distributed environment. In the proposed model, the exchange of security information among the interconnected IS under distributed environment is supported by Bayesian networks (BNs). In addition, for an organization's IS, a BN is utilized to represent its security environment and dynamically predict its security risk level, by which the security manager can select an optimal action to safeguard the firm's information resources. The actual case studied illustrates the cooperative model presented in this paper and how it can be exploited to manage the distributed IS security risk effectively.

Parallel processing for scientific computations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Alkhatib, Hasan S.

1995-01-01

The scope of this project dealt with the investigation of the requirements to support distributed computing of scientific computations over a cluster of cooperative workstations. Various experiments on computations for the solution of simultaneous linear equations were performed in the early phase of the project to gain experience in the general nature and requirements of scientific applications. A specification of a distributed integrated computing environment, DICE, based on a distributed shared memory communication paradigm has been developed and evaluated. The distributed shared memory model facilitates porting existing parallel algorithms that have been designed for shared memory multiprocessor systems to the new environment. The potential of this new environment is to provide supercomputing capability through the utilization of the aggregate power of workstations cooperating in a cluster interconnected via a local area network. Workstations, generally, do not have the computing power to tackle complex scientific applications, making them primarily useful for visualization, data reduction, and filtering as far as complex scientific applications are concerned. There is a tremendous amount of computing power that is left unused in a network of workstations. Very often a workstation is simply sitting idle on a desk. A set of tools can be developed to take advantage of this potential computing power to create a platform suitable for large scientific computations. The integration of several workstations into a logical cluster of distributed, cooperative, computing stations presents an alternative to shared memory multiprocessor systems. In this project we designed and evaluated such a system.

Effects of heterogeneous wealth distribution on public cooperation with collective risk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jing; Fu, Feng; Wang, Long

2010-07-01

The distribution of wealth among individuals in real society can be well described by the Pareto principle or “80-20 rule.” How does such heterogeneity in initial wealth distribution affect the emergence of public cooperation, when individuals, the rich and the poor, engage in a collective-risk enterprise, not to gain a profit but to avoid a potential loss? Here we address this issue by studying a simple but effective model based on threshold public goods games. We analyze the evolutionary dynamics for two distinct scenarios, respectively: one with fair sharers versus defectors and the other with altruists versus defectors. For both scenarios, particularly, we in detail study the dynamics of the population with dichotomic initial wealth—the rich versus the poor. Moreover, we demonstrate the possible steady compositions of the population and provide the conditions for stability of these steady states. We prove that in a population with heterogeneous wealth distribution, richer individuals are more likely to cooperate than poorer ones. Participants with lower initial wealth may choose to cooperate only if all players richer than them are cooperators. The emergence of pubic cooperation largely relies on rich individuals. Furthermore, whenever the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is sufficiently large, cooperation of a few rich individuals can substantially elevate the overall level of social cooperation, which is in line with the well-known Pareto principle. Our work may offer an insight into the emergence of cooperative behavior in real social situations where heterogeneous distribution of wealth among individual is omnipresent.

Applications of Time-Reversal Processing for Planetary Surface Communications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Barton, Richard J.

2007-01-01

Due to the power constraints imposed on wireless sensor and communication networks deployed on a planetary surface during exploration, energy efficient transfer of data becomes a critical issue. In situations where groups of nodes within a network are located in relatively close proximity, cooperative communication techniques can be utilized to improve the range, data rate, power efficiency, and lifetime of the network. In particular, if the point-to-point communication channels on the network are well modeled as frequency non-selective, distributed or cooperative beamforming can employed. For frequency-selective channels, beamforming itself is not generally appropriate, but a natural generalization of it, time-reversal communication (TRC), can still be effective. Time-reversal processing has been proposed and studied previously for other applications, including acoustical imaging, electromagnetic imaging, underwater acoustic communication, and wireless communication channels. In this paper, we study both the theoretical advantages and the experimental performance of cooperative TRC for wireless communication on planetary surfaces. We give a brief introduction to TRC and present several scenarios where TRC could be profitably employed during planetary exploration. We also present simulation results illustrating the performance of cooperative TRC employed in a complex multipath environment and discuss the optimality of cooperative TRC for data aggregation in wireless sensor networks

Propagation of Data Dependency through Distributed Cooperating Processes

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-09-01

12 The External Data Dependency Analyzer ( EDDA ) .................................................. 12 The new EPL...47 EDDA Patch Files for the Dining Philosophers Example [Figure 23] ................... 49 L im itations...dependencies is evident. The External Data Dependency Analyzer ( EDDA ) The EDDA derives external data dependencies by performing two levels of analysis

Hidden profiles and concealed information: strategic information sharing and use in group decision making.

PubMed

Toma, Claudia; Butera, Fabrizio

2009-06-01

Two experiments investigated the differential impact of cooperation and competition on strategic information sharing and use in a three-person group decision-making task. Information was distributed in order to create a hidden profile so that disconfirmation of group members' initial preferences was required to solve the task. Experiment 1 revealed that competition, compared to cooperation, led group members to withhold unshared information, a difference that was not significant for shared information. In competition, compared to cooperation, group members were also more reluctant to disconfirm their initial preferences. Decision quality was lower in competition than in cooperation, this effect being mediated by disconfirmation use and not by information sharing. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and revealed the role of mistrust in predicting strategic information sharing and use in competition. These results support a motivated information processing approach of group decision making.

Auction-based Security Game for Multiuser Cooperative Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, An; Cai, Yueming; Yang, Wendong; Cheng, Yunpeng

2013-04-01

In this paper, we develop an auction-based algorithm to allocate the relay power efficiently to improve the system secrecy rate in a cooperative network, where several source-destination pairs and one cooperative relay are involved. On the one hand, the cooperative relay assists these pairs to transmit under a peak power constraint. On the other hand, the relay is untrusty and is also a passive eavesdropper. The whole auction process is completely distributed and no instantaneous channel state information exchange is needed. We also prove the existence and uniqueness of the Nash Equilibrium (NE) for the proposed power auction game. Moreover, the Pareto optimality is also validated. Simulation results show that our proposed auction-based algorithm can effectively improve the system secrecy rate. Besides, the proposed auction-based algorithm can converge to the unique NE point within a finite number of iterations. More interestingly, we also find that the proposed power auction mechanism is cheat-proof.

PILOT: An intelligent distributed operations support system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rasmussen, Arthur N.

1993-01-01

The Real-Time Data System (RTDS) project is exploring the application of advanced technologies to the real-time flight operations environment of the Mission Control Centers at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The system, based on a network of engineering workstations, provides services such as delivery of real time telemetry data to flight control applications. To automate the operation of this complex distributed environment, a facility called PILOT (Process Integrity Level and Operation Tracker) is being developed. PILOT comprises a set of distributed agents cooperating with a rule-based expert system; together they monitor process operation and data flows throughout the RTDS network. The goal of PILOT is to provide unattended management and automated operation under user control.

A Cooperative Model for IS Security Risk Management in Distributed Environment

PubMed Central

Zheng, Chundong

2014-01-01

Given the increasing cooperation between organizations, the flexible exchange of security information across the allied organizations is critical to effectively manage information systems (IS) security in a distributed environment. In this paper, we develop a cooperative model for IS security risk management in a distributed environment. In the proposed model, the exchange of security information among the interconnected IS under distributed environment is supported by Bayesian networks (BNs). In addition, for an organization's IS, a BN is utilized to represent its security environment and dynamically predict its security risk level, by which the security manager can select an optimal action to safeguard the firm's information resources. The actual case studied illustrates the cooperative model presented in this paper and how it can be exploited to manage the distributed IS security risk effectively. PMID:24563626

A Framework for Distributed Problem Solving

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leone, Joseph; Shin, Don G.

1989-03-01

This work explores a distributed problem solving (DPS) approach, namely the AM/AG model, to cooperative memory recall. The AM/AG model is a hierarchic social system metaphor for DPS based on the Mintzberg's model of organizations. At the core of the model are information flow mechanisms, named amplification and aggregation. Amplification is a process of expounding a given task, called an agenda, into a set of subtasks with magnified degree of specificity and distributing them to multiple processing units downward in the hierarchy. Aggregation is a process of combining the results reported from multiple processing units into a unified view, called a resolution, and promoting the conclusion upward in the hierarchy. The combination of amplification and aggregation can account for a memory recall process which primarily relies on the ability of making associations between vast amounts of related concepts, sorting out the combined results, and promoting the most plausible ones. The amplification process is discussed in detail. An implementation of the amplification process is presented. The process is illustrated by an example.

Heuristics guide the implementation of social preferences in one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma experiments

PubMed Central

Capraro, Valerio; Jordan, Jillian J.; Rand, David G.

2014-01-01

Cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is a widely documented aspect of human behaviour. Here we shed light on the motivations behind this behaviour by experimentally exploring cooperation in a one-shot continuous-strategy Prisoner's Dilemma (i.e. one-shot two-player Public Goods Game). We examine the distribution of cooperation amounts, and how that distribution varies based on the benefit-to-cost ratio of cooperation (b/c). Interestingly, we find a trimodal distribution at all b/c values investigated. Increasing b/c decreases the fraction of participants engaging in zero cooperation and increases the fraction engaging in maximal cooperation, suggesting a role for efficiency concerns. However, a substantial fraction of participants consistently engage in 50% cooperation regardless of b/c. The presence of these persistent 50% cooperators is surprising, and not easily explained by standard models of social preferences. We present evidence that this behaviour is a result of social preferences guided by simple decision heuristics, rather than the rational examination of payoffs assumed by most social preference models. We also find a strong correlation between play in the Prisoner's Dilemma and in a subsequent Dictator Game, confirming previous findings suggesting a common prosocial motivation underlying altruism and cooperation. PMID:25348470

Heuristics guide the implementation of social preferences in one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma experiments.

PubMed

Capraro, Valerio; Jordan, Jillian J; Rand, David G

2014-10-28

Cooperation in one-shot anonymous interactions is a widely documented aspect of human behaviour. Here we shed light on the motivations behind this behaviour by experimentally exploring cooperation in a one-shot continuous-strategy Prisoner's Dilemma (i.e. one-shot two-player Public Goods Game). We examine the distribution of cooperation amounts, and how that distribution varies based on the benefit-to-cost ratio of cooperation (b/c). Interestingly, we find a trimodal distribution at all b/c values investigated. Increasing b/c decreases the fraction of participants engaging in zero cooperation and increases the fraction engaging in maximal cooperation, suggesting a role for efficiency concerns. However, a substantial fraction of participants consistently engage in 50% cooperation regardless of b/c. The presence of these persistent 50% cooperators is surprising, and not easily explained by standard models of social preferences. We present evidence that this behaviour is a result of social preferences guided by simple decision heuristics, rather than the rational examination of payoffs assumed by most social preference models. We also find a strong correlation between play in the Prisoner's Dilemma and in a subsequent Dictator Game, confirming previous findings suggesting a common prosocial motivation underlying altruism and cooperation.

Characteristics of traffic flow at a non-signalized intersection in the framework of game theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fan, Hongqiang; Jia, Bin; Tian, Junfang; Yun, Lifen

2014-12-01

At a non-signalized intersection, some vehicles violate the traffic rules to pass the intersection as soon as possible. These behaviors may cause many traffic conflicts even traffic accidents. In this paper, a simulation model is proposed to research the effects of these behaviors at a non-signalized intersection. Vehicle’s movement is simulated by the cellular automaton (CA) model. The game theory is introduced for simulating the intersection dynamics. Two types of driver participate the game process: cooperator (C) and defector (D). The cooperator obey the traffic rules, but the defector does not. A transition process may occur when the cooperator is waiting before the intersection. The critical value of waiting time follows the Weibull distribution. One transition regime is found in the phase diagram. The simulation results illustrate the applicability of the proposed model and reveal a number of interesting insights into the intersection management, including that the existence of defectors is benefit for the capacity of intersection, but also reduce the safety of intersection.

A usability study of CPOE's medication administration functions: impact on physician-nurse cooperation.

PubMed

Beuscart-Zéphir, Marie Catherine; Pelayo, Sylvia; Degoulet, Patrice; Anceaux, Françoise; Guerlinger, Sandra; Meaux, Jean-Jacques

2004-01-01

Implementation of CPOE systems in Healthcare Institutions has proven efficient in reducing medication errors but it also induces hidden side-effects on Doctor-Nurse cooperation. We propose a usability engineering approach to this problem. An extensive activity analysis of the medication ordering and administration process was performed in several departments of 3 different hospitals. Two of these hospitals are still using paper-based orders, while the 3rd one is in the roll-out phase of medication functions of its CPOE system. We performed a usability assessment of this CPOE system. The usability assessment uncovered usability problems for the entry of medication administration time scheduling by the physician and revealed that the information can be ambiguous for the nurse. The comparison of cooperation models in both situation shows that users tend to adopt a distributed decision making paradigm in the paper-based situation, while the CPOE system supports a centralized decision making process. This analysis can support recommendation for the re-engineering of the Human-Computer Interface.

A Knowledge Generation Model via the Hypernetwork

PubMed Central

Liu, Jian-Guo; Yang, Guang-Yong; Hu, Zhao-Long

2014-01-01

The influence of the statistical properties of the network on the knowledge diffusion has been extensively studied. However, the structure evolution and the knowledge generation processes are always integrated simultaneously. By introducing the Cobb-Douglas production function and treating the knowledge growth as a cooperative production of knowledge, in this paper, we present two knowledge-generation dynamic evolving models based on different evolving mechanisms. The first model, named “HDPH model,” adopts the hyperedge growth and the hyperdegree preferential attachment mechanisms. The second model, named “KSPH model,” adopts the hyperedge growth and the knowledge stock preferential attachment mechanisms. We investigate the effect of the parameters on the total knowledge stock of the two models. The hyperdegree distribution of the HDPH model can be theoretically analyzed by the mean-field theory. The analytic result indicates that the hyperdegree distribution of the HDPH model obeys the power-law distribution and the exponent is . Furthermore, we present the distributions of the knowledge stock for different parameters . The findings indicate that our proposed models could be helpful for deeply understanding the scientific research cooperation. PMID:24626143

A knowledge generation model via the hypernetwork.

PubMed

Liu, Jian-Guo; Yang, Guang-Yong; Hu, Zhao-Long

2014-01-01

The influence of the statistical properties of the network on the knowledge diffusion has been extensively studied. However, the structure evolution and the knowledge generation processes are always integrated simultaneously. By introducing the Cobb-Douglas production function and treating the knowledge growth as a cooperative production of knowledge, in this paper, we present two knowledge-generation dynamic evolving models based on different evolving mechanisms. The first model, named "HDPH model," adopts the hyperedge growth and the hyperdegree preferential attachment mechanisms. The second model, named "KSPH model," adopts the hyperedge growth and the knowledge stock preferential attachment mechanisms. We investigate the effect of the parameters (α,β) on the total knowledge stock of the two models. The hyperdegree distribution of the HDPH model can be theoretically analyzed by the mean-field theory. The analytic result indicates that the hyperdegree distribution of the HDPH model obeys the power-law distribution and the exponent is γ = 2 + 1/m. Furthermore, we present the distributions of the knowledge stock for different parameters (α,β). The findings indicate that our proposed models could be helpful for deeply understanding the scientific research cooperation.

Demonstration of the Competency-Based Curriculum for Distributive Education and Distributive Cooperative Training Programs. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marshall Univ., Huntington, WV. Dept. of Occupational, Adult, and Safety Education.

A core curriculum, training plans, and implementation guide developed by the project are included in this final report, which describes activities to resolve problems encountered by teachers using the IDECC (Interstate Distributive Education Curriculum Consortium) system designed for distributive education (DE) and diversified cooperative training…

Evolutionary dynamics of public goods games with diverse contributions in finite populations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jing; Wu, Bin; Chen, Xiaojie; Wang, Long

2010-05-01

The public goods game is a powerful metaphor for exploring the maintenance of social cooperative behavior in a group of interactional selfish players. Here we study the emergence of cooperation in the public goods games with diverse contributions in finite populations. The theory of stochastic process is innovatively adopted to investigate the evolutionary dynamics of the public goods games involving a diversity of contributions. In the limit of rare mutations, the general stationary distribution of this stochastic process can be analytically approximated by means of diffusion theory. Moreover, we demonstrate that increasing the diversity of contributions greatly reduces the probability of finding the population in a homogeneous state full of defectors. This increase also raises the expectation of the total contribution in the entire population and thus promotes social cooperation. Furthermore, by investigating the evolutionary dynamics of optional public goods games with diverse contributions, we find that nonparticipation can assist players who contribute more in resisting invasion and taking over individuals who contribute less. In addition, numerical simulations are performed to confirm our analytical results. Our results may provide insight into the effect of diverse contributions on cooperative behaviors in the real world.

Evolutionary prisoner's dilemma on Newman-Watts social networks with an asymmetric payoff distribution mechanism

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Du, Wen-Bo; Cao, Xian-Bin; Yang, Han-Xin; Hu, Mao-Bin

2010-01-01

In this paper, we introduce an asymmetric payoff distribution mechanism into the evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) on Newman-Watts social networks, and study its effects on the evolution of cooperation. The asymmetric payoff distribution mechanism can be adjusted by the parameter α: if α > 0, the rich will exploit the poor to get richer; if α < 0, the rich are forced to offer part of their income to the poor. Numerical results show that the cooperator frequency monotonously increases with α and is remarkably promoted when α > 0. The effects of updating order and self-interaction are also investigated. The co-action of random updating and self-interaction can induce the highest cooperation level. Moreover, we employ the Gini coefficient to investigate the effect of asymmetric payoff distribution on the the system's wealth distribution. This work may be helpful for understanding cooperative behaviour and wealth inequality in society.

Chinese Mainland Movie Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Ai-Fen; Xue, Yu-Hua; He, Da-Ren

2008-03-01

We propose describing a large kind of cooperation-competition networks by bipartite graphs and their unipartite projections. In the graphs the topological structure describe the cooperation-competition configuration of the basic elements, and the vertex weight describe their different roles in cooperation or results of competition. This complex network description may be helpful for finding and understanding common properties of cooperation-competition systems. In order to show an example, we performed an empirical investigation on the movie cooperation-competition network within recent 80 years in the Chinese mainland. In the net the movies are defined as nodes, and two nodes are connected by a link if a common main movie actor performs in them. The edge represents the competition relationship between two movies for more audience among a special audience colony. We obtained the statistical properties, such as the degree distribution, act degree distribution, act size distribution, and distribution of the total node weight, and explored the influence factors of Chinese mainland movie competition intensity.

An IUR evolutionary game model on the patent cooperate of Shandong China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Mengmeng; Ma, Yinghong; Liu, Zhiyuan; You, Xuemei

2017-06-01

Organizations of industries and university & research institutes cooperate to meet their respective needs based on social contacts, trust and share complementary resources. From the perspective of complex network together with the patent data of Shandong province in China, a novel evolutionary game model on patent cooperation network is presented. Two sides in the game model are industries and universities & research institutes respectively. The cooperation is represented by a connection when a new patent is developed together by the two sides. The optimal strategy of the evolutionary game model is quantified by the average positive cooperation probability p ¯ and the average payoff U ¯ . The feasibility of this game model is simulated on the parameters such as the knowledge spillover, the punishment, the development cost and the distribution coefficient of the benefit. The numerical simulations show that the cooperative behaviors are affected by the variation of parameters. The knowledge spillover displays different behaviors when the punishment is larger than the development cost or less than it. Those results indicate that reasonable punishment would improve the positive cooperation. The appropriate punishment will be useful to enhance the big degree nodes positively cooperate with industries and universities & research institutes. And an equitable plan for the distribution of cooperative profits is half-and-half distribution strategy for the two sides in game.

The Healthy Homes Partnership: A Cooperative Extension Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Booth, Laura B.; Peek, Gina G.

2013-01-01

This article highlights the accomplishments of the Healthy Homes Partnership, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Since the program began in 1999, funds totaling $2.7 million have been distributed to 34 states and Virgin Islands Extension programs through a competitive process. Extension professionals have used the funds as seed grants…

Applying Goldwater-Nichols Reforms to Foster Interagency Cooperation Between Public Safety Agencies in New York City

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-03-01

release; distribution is unlimited APPLYING GOLDWATER-NICHOLS REFORMS TO FOSTER INTERAGENCY COOPERATION BETWEEN PUBLIC SAFTEY AGENCIES IN NEW YORK...NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited APPLYING GOLDWATER... Applying Goldwater-Nichols Reforms to Foster Interagency Cooperation Between Public Safety Agencies in New York City 6. AUTHOR(S) Joseph P

Marketing and Distribution: New Minimum Wage Legislation: Impact on Co-Op DE Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Husted, Stewart W.

1978-01-01

Impact on distributive education cooperative programs due to the legislation increasing the minimum wage effective January 1, 1978, indicates that the change could greatly restrict future cooperative placements, thereby reducing distributive education enrollments. Employer strategies (for example, reducing student work hours) to overcome wage…

The Dynamics of Coalition Formation on Complex Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Auer, S.; Heitzig, J.; Kornek, U.; Schöll, E.; Kurths, J.

2015-08-01

Complex networks describe the structure of many socio-economic systems. However, in studies of decision-making processes the evolution of the underlying social relations are disregarded. In this report, we aim to understand the formation of self-organizing domains of cooperation (“coalitions”) on an acquaintance network. We include both the network’s influence on the formation of coalitions and vice versa how the network adapts to the current coalition structure, thus forming a social feedback loop. We increase complexity from simple opinion adaptation processes studied in earlier research to more complex decision-making determined by costs and benefits, and from bilateral to multilateral cooperation. We show how phase transitions emerge from such coevolutionary dynamics, which can be interpreted as processes of great transformations. If the network adaptation rate is high, the social dynamics prevent the formation of a grand coalition and therefore full cooperation. We find some empirical support for our main results: Our model develops a bimodal coalition size distribution over time similar to those found in social structures. Our detection and distinguishing of phase transitions may be exemplary for other models of socio-economic systems with low agent numbers and therefore strong finite-size effects.

Cooperation between schools and businesses/industries in meeting the demand for working experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Widiyanti, Yoto, Solichin

2017-09-01

Vocational Secondary School (VSS) as one of the educational institutions has a mission or purpose to prepare a workforce who can fill job requirements and qualified professionals who are expected to play a role as a featured tool for business and industry in Indonesia in facing global competition. The principle of industrial cooperation between schools and business world has the objective to accelerate the adjustment period needed by vocational high school graduates to enter the workforce, which eventually will improve the quality of the vocational high schools. A scope of activities that would enable both sides to implement the activities is necessary to be applied during the cooperation. The types of programs that will be conducted consist of the Internship Program, Training Program, Production Program (innovative product), and Graduate Distribution Program. Such programs also implement the strategies of cooperation, such as recruitment, career fair, human resource delivery to the company, hiring process and arrival at the enterprise.

Effects of adaptive degrees of trust on coevolution of quantum strategies on scale-free networks.

PubMed

Li, Qiang; Chen, Minyou; Perc, Matjaž; Iqbal, Azhar; Abbott, Derek

2013-10-15

We study the impact of adaptive degrees of trust on the evolution of cooperation in the quantum prisoner's dilemma game. In addition to the strategies, links between players are also subject to evolution. Starting with a scale-free interaction network, players adjust trust towards their neighbors based on received payoffs. The latter governs the strategy adoption process, while trust governs the rewiring of links. As soon as the degree of trust towards a neighbor drops to zero, the link is rewired to another randomly chosen player within the network. We find that for small temptations to defect cooperators always dominate, while for intermediate and strong temptations a single quantum strategy is able to outperform all other strategies. In general, reciprocal trust remains within close relationships and favors the dominance of a single strategy. Due to coevolution, the power-law degree distributions transform to Poisson distributions.

Effects of adaptive degrees of trust on coevolution of quantum strategies on scale-free networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Qiang; Chen, Minyou; Perc, Matjaž; Iqbal, Azhar; Abbott, Derek

2013-10-01

We study the impact of adaptive degrees of trust on the evolution of cooperation in the quantum prisoner's dilemma game. In addition to the strategies, links between players are also subject to evolution. Starting with a scale-free interaction network, players adjust trust towards their neighbors based on received payoffs. The latter governs the strategy adoption process, while trust governs the rewiring of links. As soon as the degree of trust towards a neighbor drops to zero, the link is rewired to another randomly chosen player within the network. We find that for small temptations to defect cooperators always dominate, while for intermediate and strong temptations a single quantum strategy is able to outperform all other strategies. In general, reciprocal trust remains within close relationships and favors the dominance of a single strategy. Due to coevolution, the power-law degree distributions transform to Poisson distributions.

Formation of plasmon pulses in the cooperative decay of excitons of quantum dots near a metal surface

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Shesterikov, A. B.; Gubin, M. Yu.; Gladush, M. G.

The formation of pulses of surface electromagnetic waves at a metal–dielectric boundary is considered in the process of cooperative decay of excitons of quantum dots distributed near a metal surface in a dielectric layer. It is shown that the efficiency of exciton energy transfer to excited plasmons can, in principle, be increased by selecting the dielectric material with specified values of the complex permittivity. It is found that in the mean field approximation, the semiclassical model of formation of plasmon pulses in the system under study is reduced to the pendulum equation with the additional term of nonlinear losses.

Celestial data routing network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bordetsky, Alex

2000-11-01

Imagine that information processing human-machine network is threatened in a particular part of the world. Suppose that an anticipated threat of physical attacks could lead to disruption of telecommunications network management infrastructure and access capabilities for small geographically distributed groups engaged in collaborative operations. Suppose that small group of astronauts are exploring the solar planet and need to quickly configure orbital information network to support their collaborative work and local communications. The critical need in both scenarios would be a set of low-cost means of small team celestial networking. To the geographically distributed mobile collaborating groups such means would allow to maintain collaborative multipoint work, set up orbital local area network, and provide orbital intranet communications. This would be accomplished by dynamically assembling the network enabling infrastructure of the small satellite based router, satellite based Codec, and set of satellite based intelligent management agents. Cooperating single function pico satellites, acting as agents and personal switching devices together would represent self-organizing intelligent orbital network of cooperating mobile management nodes. Cooperative behavior of the pico satellite based agents would be achieved by comprising a small orbital artificial neural network capable of learning and restructing the networking resources in response to the anticipated threat.

Modified allocation capacitated planning model in blood supply chain management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mansur, A.; Vanany, I.; Arvitrida, N. I.

2018-04-01

Blood supply chain management (BSCM) is a complex process management that involves many cooperating stakeholders. BSCM involves four echelon processes, which are blood collection or procurement, production, inventory, and distribution. This research develops an optimization model of blood distribution planning. The efficiency of decentralization and centralization policies in a blood distribution chain are compared, by optimizing the amount of blood delivered from a blood center to a blood bank. This model is developed based on allocation problem of capacitated planning model. At the first stage, the capacity and the cost of transportation are considered to create an initial capacitated planning model. Then, the inventory holding and shortage costs are added to the model. These additional parameters of inventory costs lead the model to be more realistic and accurate.

Effects of dynamical grouping on cooperation in N-person evolutionary snowdrift game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ji, M.; Xu, C.; Hui, P. M.

2011-09-01

A population typically consists of agents that continually distribute themselves into different groups at different times. This dynamic grouping has recently been shown to be essential in explaining many features observed in human activities including social, economic, and military activities. We study the effects of dynamic grouping on the level of cooperation in a modified evolutionary N-person snowdrift game. Due to the formation of dynamical groups, the competition takes place in groups of different sizes at different times and players of different strategies are mixed by the grouping dynamics. It is found that the level of cooperation is greatly enhanced by the dynamic grouping of agents, when compared with a static population of the same size. As a parameter β, which characterizes the relative importance of the reward and cost, increases, the fraction of cooperative players fC increases and it is possible to achieve a fully cooperative state. Analytically, we present a dynamical equation that incorporates the effects of the competing game and group size distribution. The distribution of cooperators in different groups is assumed to be a binomial distribution, which is confirmed by simulations. Results from the analytic equation are in good agreement with numerical results from simulations. We also present detailed simulation results of fC over the parameter space spanned by the probabilities of group coalescence νm and group fragmentation νp in the grouping dynamics. A high νm and low νp promotes cooperation, and a favorable reward characterized by a high β would lead to a fully cooperative state.

Diversity of rationality affects the evolution of cooperation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Yu-Zhong; Huang, Zi-Gang; Wang, Sheng-Jun; Zhang, Yan; Wang, Ying-Hai

2009-05-01

By modifying the Fermi updating rule, we present the diversity of individual rationality to the evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma game, and our results shows that this diversity heavily influences the evolution of cooperation. Cluster-forming mechanism of cooperators can either be highly enhanced or severely deteriorated by different distributions of rationality. Slight change in the rationality distribution may transfer the whole system from the global absorbing state of cooperators to that of defectors. Based on mean-field argument, quantitative analysis of the stability of cooperative clusters reveals the critical role played by agents with moderate degree values in the evolution of the whole system. The inspiration from our work may provide us a deeper comprehension toward some social phenomena.

Cooperation and Coordination Between Fuzzy Reinforcement Learning Agents in Continuous State Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Berenji, Hamid R.; Vengerov, David

1999-01-01

Successful operations of future multi-agent intelligent systems require efficient cooperation schemes between agents sharing learning experiences. We consider a pseudo-realistic world in which one or more opportunities appear and disappear in random locations. Agents use fuzzy reinforcement learning to learn which opportunities are most worthy of pursuing based on their promise rewards, expected lifetimes, path lengths and expected path costs. We show that this world is partially observable because the history of an agent influences the distribution of its future states. We consider a cooperation mechanism in which agents share experience by using and-updating one joint behavior policy. We also implement a coordination mechanism for allocating opportunities to different agents in the same world. Our results demonstrate that K cooperative agents each learning in a separate world over N time steps outperform K independent agents each learning in a separate world over K*N time steps, with this result becoming more pronounced as the degree of partial observability in the environment increases. We also show that cooperation between agents learning in the same world decreases performance with respect to independent agents. Since cooperation reduces diversity between agents, we conclude that diversity is a key parameter in the trade off between maximizing utility from cooperation when diversity is low and maximizing utility from competitive coordination when diversity is high.

Distributed Planning and Control for Teams of Cooperating Mobile Robots

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Parker, L.E.

2004-06-15

This CRADA project involved the cooperative research of investigators in ORNL's Center for Engineering Science Advanced Research (CESAR) with researchers at Caterpillar, Inc. The subject of the research was the development of cooperative control strategies for autonomous vehicles performing applications of interest to Caterpillar customers. The project involved three Phases of research, conducted over the time period of November 1998 through December 2001. This project led to the successful development of several technologies and demonstrations in realistic simulation that illustrated the effectiveness of the control approaches for distributed planning and cooperation in multi-robot teams.

Cooperative Agreement on Pesticide Safety Education

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

EPA is awarding the eXtension Foundation with a cooperative agreement to establish a system to distribute EPA funds to Pesticide Safety Education Programs (PSEPs) in State Cooperative Extension Services at Land Grant Universities.

Cooperative crossing of traffic intersections in a distributed robot system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rausch, Alexander; Oswald, Norbert; Levi, Paul

1995-09-01

In traffic scenarios a distributed robot system has to cope with problems like resource sharing, distributed planning, distributed job scheduling, etc. While travelling along a street segment can be done autonomously by each robot, crossing of an intersection as a shared resource forces the robot to coordinate its actions with those of other robots e.g. by means of negotiations. We discuss the issue of cooperation on the design of a robot control architecture. Task and sensor specific cooperation between robots requires the robots' architectures to be interlinked at different hierarchical levels. Inside each level control cycles are running in parallel and provide fast reaction on events. Internal cooperation may occur between cycles of the same level. Altogether the architecture is matrix-shaped and contains abstract control cycles with a certain degree of autonomy. Based upon the internal structure of a cycle we consider the horizontal and vertical interconnection of cycles to form an individual architecture. Thereafter we examine the linkage of several agents and its influence on an interacting architecture. A prototypical implementation of a scenario, which combines aspects of active vision and cooperation, illustrates our approach. Two vision-guided vehicles are faced with line following, intersection recognition and negotiation.

Learning Multirobot Hose Transportation and Deployment by Distributed Round-Robin Q-Learning.

PubMed

Fernandez-Gauna, Borja; Etxeberria-Agiriano, Ismael; Graña, Manuel

2015-01-01

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) algorithms face two main difficulties: the curse of dimensionality, and environment non-stationarity due to the independent learning processes carried out by the agents concurrently. In this paper we formalize and prove the convergence of a Distributed Round Robin Q-learning (D-RR-QL) algorithm for cooperative systems. The computational complexity of this algorithm increases linearly with the number of agents. Moreover, it eliminates environment non sta tionarity by carrying a round-robin scheduling of the action selection and execution. That this learning scheme allows the implementation of Modular State-Action Vetoes (MSAV) in cooperative multi-agent systems, which speeds up learning convergence in over-constrained systems by vetoing state-action pairs which lead to undesired termination states (UTS) in the relevant state-action subspace. Each agent's local state-action value function learning is an independent process, including the MSAV policies. Coordination of locally optimal policies to obtain the global optimal joint policy is achieved by a greedy selection procedure using message passing. We show that D-RR-QL improves over state-of-the-art approaches, such as Distributed Q-Learning, Team Q-Learning and Coordinated Reinforcement Learning in a paradigmatic Linked Multi-Component Robotic System (L-MCRS) control problem: the hose transportation task. L-MCRS are over-constrained systems with many UTS induced by the interaction of the passive linking element and the active mobile robots.

Negotiation.

PubMed

Thompson, Leigh L; Wang, Jiunwen; Gunia, Brian C

2010-01-01

Negotiation occurs whenever people cannot achieve their own goals without the cooperation of others. Our review highlights recent empirical research that investigates this ubiquitous social activity. We selectively review descriptive research emerging from social psychology and organizational behavior. This research examines negotiation behavior and outcomes at five levels of analysis: intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organizational, and virtual. At each level, we review research on negotiation processes and outcomes, and we discuss the implications of various processes and outcomes for the two functions of negotiation: value creation (integrative negotiation) and value claiming (distributive negotiation).

Develop Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing Process of ZrO 2 Nanocrystals/Acrylic Nanocomposites for High Refractive Index Applications

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Joshi, Pooran C.; Compton, Brett G.; Li, Jianlin

2015-04-01

The purpose of this Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) was to develop and evaluate ZrO 2/acrylic nanocomposite coatings for integrated optoelectronic applications. The formulations engineered to be compatible with roll-to-roll process were evaluated in terms of optical and dielectric properties. The uniform distribution of the ZrO 2 nanocrystals in the polymer matrix resulted in highly tunable refractive index and dielectric response suitable for advanced photonic and electronic device applications.

Decentralized cooperative TOA/AOA target tracking for hierarchical wireless sensor networks.

PubMed

Chen, Ying-Chih; Wen, Chih-Yu

2012-11-08

This paper proposes a distributed method for cooperative target tracking in hierarchical wireless sensor networks. The concept of leader-based information processing is conducted to achieve object positioning, considering a cluster-based network topology. Random timers and local information are applied to adaptively select a sub-cluster for the localization task. The proposed energy-efficient tracking algorithm allows each sub-cluster member to locally estimate the target position with a Bayesian filtering framework and a neural networking model, and further performs estimation fusion in the leader node with the covariance intersection algorithm. This paper evaluates the merits and trade-offs of the protocol design towards developing more efficient and practical algorithms for object position estimation.

Family living sets the stage for cooperative breeding and ecological resilience in birds

PubMed Central

Drobniak, Szymon M.; Nakagawa, Shinichi; Botero, Carlos A.

2017-01-01

Cooperative breeding is an extreme form of cooperation that evolved in a range of lineages, including arthropods, fish, birds, and mammals. Although cooperative breeding in birds is widespread and well-studied, the conditions that favored its evolution are still unclear. Based on phylogenetic comparative analyses on 3,005 bird species, we demonstrate here that family living acted as an essential stepping stone in the evolution of cooperative breeding in the vast majority of species. First, families formed by prolonging parent–offspring associations beyond nutritional independency, and second, retained offspring began helping at the nest. These findings suggest that assessment of the conditions that favor the evolution of cooperative breeding can be confounded if this process is not considered to include 2 steps. Specifically, phylogenetic linear mixed models show that the formation of families was associated with more productive and seasonal environments, where prolonged parent–offspring associations are likely to be less costly. However, our data show that the subsequent evolution of cooperative breeding was instead linked to environments with variable productivity, where helpers at the nest can buffer reproductive failure in harsh years. The proposed 2-step framework helps resolve current disagreements about the role of environmental forces in the evolution of cooperative breeding and better explains the geographic distribution of this trait. Many geographic hotspots of cooperative breeding have experienced a historical decline in productivity, suggesting that a higher proportion of family-living species could have been able to avoid extinction under harshening conditions through the evolution of cooperative breeding. These findings underscore the importance of considering the potentially different factors that drive different steps in the evolution of complex adaptations. PMID:28636615

Family living sets the stage for cooperative breeding and ecological resilience in birds.

PubMed

Griesser, Michael; Drobniak, Szymon M; Nakagawa, Shinichi; Botero, Carlos A

2017-06-01

Cooperative breeding is an extreme form of cooperation that evolved in a range of lineages, including arthropods, fish, birds, and mammals. Although cooperative breeding in birds is widespread and well-studied, the conditions that favored its evolution are still unclear. Based on phylogenetic comparative analyses on 3,005 bird species, we demonstrate here that family living acted as an essential stepping stone in the evolution of cooperative breeding in the vast majority of species. First, families formed by prolonging parent-offspring associations beyond nutritional independency, and second, retained offspring began helping at the nest. These findings suggest that assessment of the conditions that favor the evolution of cooperative breeding can be confounded if this process is not considered to include 2 steps. Specifically, phylogenetic linear mixed models show that the formation of families was associated with more productive and seasonal environments, where prolonged parent-offspring associations are likely to be less costly. However, our data show that the subsequent evolution of cooperative breeding was instead linked to environments with variable productivity, where helpers at the nest can buffer reproductive failure in harsh years. The proposed 2-step framework helps resolve current disagreements about the role of environmental forces in the evolution of cooperative breeding and better explains the geographic distribution of this trait. Many geographic hotspots of cooperative breeding have experienced a historical decline in productivity, suggesting that a higher proportion of family-living species could have been able to avoid extinction under harshening conditions through the evolution of cooperative breeding. These findings underscore the importance of considering the potentially different factors that drive different steps in the evolution of complex adaptations.

Decelerated invasion and waning-moon patterns in public goods games with delayed distribution.

PubMed

Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž

2013-05-01

We study the evolution of cooperation in the spatial public goods game, focusing on the effects that are brought about by the delayed distribution of goods that accumulate in groups due to the continuous investments of cooperators. We find that intermediate delays enhance network reciprocity because of a decelerated invasion of defectors, who are unable to reap the same high short-term benefits as they do in the absence of delayed distribution. Long delays, however, introduce a risk because the large accumulated wealth might fall into the wrong hands. Indeed, as soon as the curvature of a cooperative cluster turns negative, the engulfed defectors can collect the heritage of many generations of cooperators and by doing so start a waning-moon pattern that nullifies the benefits of decelerated invasion. Accidental meeting points of growing cooperative clusters may also act as triggers for the waning-moon effect, thus linking the success of cooperators with their propensity to fail in a rather bizarre way. Our results highlight that "investing in the future" is a good idea only if that future is sufficiently near and not likely to be burdened by inflation.

Distributed cooperative H∞ optimal tracking control of MIMO nonlinear multi-agent systems in strict-feedback form via adaptive dynamic programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luy, N. T.

2018-04-01

The design of distributed cooperative H∞ optimal controllers for multi-agent systems is a major challenge when the agents' models are uncertain multi-input and multi-output nonlinear systems in strict-feedback form in the presence of external disturbances. In this paper, first, the distributed cooperative H∞ optimal tracking problem is transformed into controlling the cooperative tracking error dynamics in affine form. Second, control schemes and online algorithms are proposed via adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) and the theory of zero-sum differential graphical games. The schemes use only one neural network (NN) for each agent instead of three from ADP to reduce computational complexity as well as avoid choosing initial NN weights for stabilising controllers. It is shown that despite not using knowledge of cooperative internal dynamics, the proposed algorithms not only approximate values to Nash equilibrium but also guarantee all signals, such as the NN weight approximation errors and the cooperative tracking errors in the closed-loop system, to be uniformly ultimately bounded. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is shown by simulation results of an application to wheeled mobile multi-robot systems.

Social diversity promotes cooperation in spatial multigames

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qin, Jiahu; Chen, Yaming; Kang, Yu; Perc, Matjaž

2017-04-01

Social diversity is omnipresent in the modern world. Here we introduce this diversity into spatial multigames and study its impact on the evolution of cooperation. Multigames are characterized by two or more different social dilemmas being contested among players in the population. When a fraction of players plays the prisoner's dilemma game while the remainder plays the snowdrift game cooperation becomes a difficult proposition. We show that social diversity, determined by the payoff scaling factors from the uniform, exponential or power-law distribution, significantly promotes cooperation. In particular, the stronger the social diversity, the more widespread cooperative behavior becomes. Monte Carlo simulations on the square lattice reveal that a power-law distribution of social diversity is in fact optimal for socially favorable states, thus resonating with findings previously reported for single social dilemmas. We also show that the same promotion mechanism works in time-varying environments, thus further generalizing the important role of social diversity for cooperation in social dilemmas.

On fairness, full cooperation, and quantum game with incomplete information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lei, Zhen-Zhou; Liu, Bo-Yang; Yi, Ying; Dai, Hong-Yi; Zhang, Ming

2018-03-01

Quantum entanglement has emerged as a new resource to enhance cooperation and remove dilemmas. This paper aims to explore conditions under which full cooperation is achievable even when the information of payoff is incomplete. Based on the quantum version of the extended classical cash in a hat game, we demonstrate that quantum entanglement may be used for achieving full cooperation or avoiding moral hazards with the reasonable profit distribution policies even when the profit is uncertain to a certain degree. This research further suggests that the fairness of profit distribution should play an important role in promoting full cooperation. It is hopeful that quantum entanglement and fairness will promote full cooperation among distant people from various interest groups when quantum networks and quantum entanglement are accessible to the public. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61673389, 61273202, and 61134008.

The Collective Benefits of Feeling Good and Letting Go: Positive Emotion and (dis)Inhibition Interact to Predict Cooperative Behavior

PubMed Central

Rand, David G.; Kraft-Todd, Gordon; Gruber, June

2015-01-01

Cooperation is central to human existence, forming the bedrock of everyday social relationships and larger societal structures. Thus, understanding the psychological underpinnings of cooperation is of both scientific and practical importance. Recent work using a dual-process framework suggests that intuitive processing can promote cooperation while deliberative processing can undermine it. Here we add to this line of research by more specifically identifying deliberative and intuitive processes that affect cooperation. To do so, we applied automated text analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software to investigate the association between behavior in one-shot anonymous economic cooperation games and the presence inhibition (a deliberative process) and positive emotion (an intuitive process) in free-response narratives written after (Study 1, N = 4,218) or during (Study 2, N = 236) the decision-making process. Consistent with previous results, across both studies inhibition predicted reduced cooperation while positive emotion predicted increased cooperation (even when controlling for negative emotion). Importantly, there was a significant interaction between positive emotion and inhibition, such that the most cooperative individuals had high positive emotion and low inhibition. This suggests that inhibition (i.e., reflective or deliberative processing) may undermine cooperative behavior by suppressing the prosocial effects of positive emotion. PMID:25625722

The collective benefits of feeling good and letting go: positive emotion and (dis)inhibition interact to predict cooperative behavior.

PubMed

Rand, David G; Kraft-Todd, Gordon; Gruber, June

2015-01-01

Cooperation is central to human existence, forming the bedrock of everyday social relationships and larger societal structures. Thus, understanding the psychological underpinnings of cooperation is of both scientific and practical importance. Recent work using a dual-process framework suggests that intuitive processing can promote cooperation while deliberative processing can undermine it. Here we add to this line of research by more specifically identifying deliberative and intuitive processes that affect cooperation. To do so, we applied automated text analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software to investigate the association between behavior in one-shot anonymous economic cooperation games and the presence inhibition (a deliberative process) and positive emotion (an intuitive process) in free-response narratives written after (Study 1, N = 4,218) or during (Study 2, N = 236) the decision-making process. Consistent with previous results, across both studies inhibition predicted reduced cooperation while positive emotion predicted increased cooperation (even when controlling for negative emotion). Importantly, there was a significant interaction between positive emotion and inhibition, such that the most cooperative individuals had high positive emotion and low inhibition. This suggests that inhibition (i.e., reflective or deliberative processing) may undermine cooperative behavior by suppressing the prosocial effects of positive emotion.

Application of new type of distributed multimedia databases to networked electronic museum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuroda, Kazuhide; Komatsu, Naohisa; Komiya, Kazumi; Ikeda, Hiroaki

1999-01-01

Recently, various kinds of multimedia application systems have actively been developed based on the achievement of advanced high sped communication networks, computer processing technologies, and digital contents-handling technologies. Under this background, this paper proposed a new distributed multimedia database system which can effectively perform a new function of cooperative retrieval among distributed databases. The proposed system introduces a new concept of 'Retrieval manager' which functions as an intelligent controller so that the user can recognize a set of distributed databases as one logical database. The logical database dynamically generates and performs a preferred combination of retrieving parameters on the basis of both directory data and the system environment. Moreover, a concept of 'domain' is defined in the system as a managing unit of retrieval. The retrieval can effectively be performed by cooperation of processing among multiple domains. Communication language and protocols are also defined in the system. These are used in every action for communications in the system. A language interpreter in each machine translates a communication language into an internal language used in each machine. Using the language interpreter, internal processing, such internal modules as DBMS and user interface modules can freely be selected. A concept of 'content-set' is also introduced. A content-set is defined as a package of contents. Contents in the content-set are related to each other. The system handles a content-set as one object. The user terminal can effectively control the displaying of retrieved contents, referring to data indicating the relation of the contents in the content- set. In order to verify the function of the proposed system, a networked electronic museum was experimentally built. The results of this experiment indicate that the proposed system can effectively retrieve the objective contents under the control to a number of distributed domains. The result also indicate that the system can effectively work even if the system becomes large.

Use of a Cooperative to Interlock Contingencies and Balance the Commonwealth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alavosius, Mark; Getting, Jim; Dagen, Joseph; Newsome, William; Hopkins, Bill

2009-01-01

Cooperatives are systems organized along key principles to balance the distribution of wealth across organizational members. The cooperative movement has an extensive history and has contributed to the design and operation of a large variety of endeavors that seek to maximize returns to a maximum number of stakeholders. While cooperatives are…

The interplay between cooperativity and diversity in model threshold ensembles

PubMed Central

Cervera, Javier; Manzanares, José A.; Mafe, Salvador

2014-01-01

The interplay between cooperativity and diversity is crucial for biological ensembles because single molecule experiments show a significant degree of heterogeneity and also for artificial nanostructures because of the high individual variability characteristic of nanoscale units. We study the cross-effects between cooperativity and diversity in model threshold ensembles composed of individually different units that show a cooperative behaviour. The units are modelled as statistical distributions of parameters (the individual threshold potentials here) characterized by central and width distribution values. The simulations show that the interplay between cooperativity and diversity results in ensemble-averaged responses of interest for the understanding of electrical transduction in cell membranes, the experimental characterization of heterogeneous groups of biomolecules and the development of biologically inspired engineering designs with individually different building blocks. PMID:25142516

A distributed computing model for telemetry data processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barry, Matthew R.; Scott, Kevin L.; Weismuller, Steven P.

1994-05-01

We present a new approach to distributing processed telemetry data among spacecraft flight controllers within the control centers at NASA's Johnson Space Center. This approach facilitates the development of application programs which integrate spacecraft-telemetered data and ground-based synthesized data, then distributes this information to flight controllers for analysis and decision-making. The new approach combines various distributed computing models into one hybrid distributed computing model. The model employs both client-server and peer-to-peer distributed computing models cooperating to provide users with information throughout a diverse operations environment. Specifically, it provides an attractive foundation upon which we are building critical real-time monitoring and control applications, while simultaneously lending itself to peripheral applications in playback operations, mission preparations, flight controller training, and program development and verification. We have realized the hybrid distributed computing model through an information sharing protocol. We shall describe the motivations that inspired us to create this protocol, along with a brief conceptual description of the distributed computing models it employs. We describe the protocol design in more detail, discussing many of the program design considerations and techniques we have adopted. Finally, we describe how this model is especially suitable for supporting the implementation of distributed expert system applications.

A distributed computing model for telemetry data processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Barry, Matthew R.; Scott, Kevin L.; Weismuller, Steven P.

1994-01-01

We present a new approach to distributing processed telemetry data among spacecraft flight controllers within the control centers at NASA's Johnson Space Center. This approach facilitates the development of application programs which integrate spacecraft-telemetered data and ground-based synthesized data, then distributes this information to flight controllers for analysis and decision-making. The new approach combines various distributed computing models into one hybrid distributed computing model. The model employs both client-server and peer-to-peer distributed computing models cooperating to provide users with information throughout a diverse operations environment. Specifically, it provides an attractive foundation upon which we are building critical real-time monitoring and control applications, while simultaneously lending itself to peripheral applications in playback operations, mission preparations, flight controller training, and program development and verification. We have realized the hybrid distributed computing model through an information sharing protocol. We shall describe the motivations that inspired us to create this protocol, along with a brief conceptual description of the distributed computing models it employs. We describe the protocol design in more detail, discussing many of the program design considerations and techniques we have adopted. Finally, we describe how this model is especially suitable for supporting the implementation of distributed expert system applications.

Educational Strategies and Extent of Cooperation with Agri-Educators by Selected Agribusinesses.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ubadigbo, Fidelis N.; Gamon, Julia A.

A study examined the educational strategies used by three Iowa agribusinesses--livestock feed, chemical/fertilizer production and distribution, and seed production and distribution. The goals of the study were to identify (1) different educational strategies used by the three types of agribusinesses, (2) the extent of cooperation between the…

Marketing and Distribution: Does D.E. Make a Difference?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klaurens, Mary K.

1978-01-01

If distributive education graduates are to qualify for better jobs and wages than persons with no training, they must have skills that differentiate them from the average job applicant or employee. The author stresses careful placement for cooperative training, good cooperative training plans, and more attention to selling in the curriculum. (MF)

The interplay between cooperativity and diversity in model threshold ensembles.

PubMed

Cervera, Javier; Manzanares, José A; Mafe, Salvador

2014-10-06

The interplay between cooperativity and diversity is crucial for biological ensembles because single molecule experiments show a significant degree of heterogeneity and also for artificial nanostructures because of the high individual variability characteristic of nanoscale units. We study the cross-effects between cooperativity and diversity in model threshold ensembles composed of individually different units that show a cooperative behaviour. The units are modelled as statistical distributions of parameters (the individual threshold potentials here) characterized by central and width distribution values. The simulations show that the interplay between cooperativity and diversity results in ensemble-averaged responses of interest for the understanding of electrical transduction in cell membranes, the experimental characterization of heterogeneous groups of biomolecules and the development of biologically inspired engineering designs with individually different building blocks. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Evolutionary dynamics of social dilemmas in structured heterogeneous populations.

PubMed

Santos, F C; Pacheco, J M; Lenaerts, Tom

2006-02-28

Real populations have been shown to be heterogeneous, in which some individuals have many more contacts than others. This fact contrasts with the traditional homogeneous setting used in studies of evolutionary game dynamics. We incorporate heterogeneity in the population by studying games on graphs, in which the variability in connectivity ranges from single-scale graphs, for which heterogeneity is small and associated degree distributions exhibit a Gaussian tale, to scale-free graphs, for which heterogeneity is large with degree distributions exhibiting a power-law behavior. We study the evolution of cooperation, modeled in terms of the most popular dilemmas of cooperation. We show that, for all dilemmas, increasing heterogeneity favors the emergence of cooperation, such that long-term cooperative behavior easily resists short-term noncooperative behavior. Moreover, we show how cooperation depends on the intricate ties between individuals in scale-free populations.

An interprovincial cooperative game model for air pollution control in China.

PubMed

Xue, Jian; Zhao, Laijun; Fan, Longzhen; Qian, Ying

2015-07-01

The noncooperative air pollution reduction model (NCRM) that is currently adopted in China to manage air pollution reduction of each individual province has inherent drawbacks. In this paper, we propose a cooperative air pollution reduction game model (CRM) that consists of two parts: (1) an optimization model that calculates the optimal pollution reduction quantity for each participating province to meet the joint pollution reduction goal; and (2) a model that distribute the economic benefit of the cooperation (i.e., pollution reduction cost saving) among the provinces in the cooperation based on the Shapley value method. We applied the CRM to the case of SO2 reduction in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in China. The results, based on the data from 2003-2009, show that cooperation helps lower the overall SO2 pollution reduction cost from 4.58% to 11.29%. Distributed across the participating provinces, such a cost saving from interprovincial cooperation brings significant benefits to each local government and stimulates them for further cooperation in pollution reduction. Finally, sensitivity analysis is performed using the year 2009 data to test the parameters' effects on the pollution reduction cost savings. China is increasingly facing unprecedented pressure for immediate air pollution control. The current air pollution reduction policy does not allow cooperation and is less efficient. In this paper we developed a cooperative air pollution reduction game model that consists of two parts: (1) an optimization model that calculates the optimal pollution reduction quantity for each participating province to meet the joint pollution reduction goal; and (2) a model that distributes the cooperation gains (i.e., cost reduction) among the provinces in the cooperation based on the Shapley value method. The empirical case shows that such a model can help improve efficiency in air pollution reduction. The result of the model can serve as a reference for Chinese government pollution reduction policy design.

A Cooperative Downloading Method for VANET Using Distributed Fountain Code.

PubMed

Liu, Jianhang; Zhang, Wenbin; Wang, Qi; Li, Shibao; Chen, Haihua; Cui, Xuerong; Sun, Yi

2016-10-12

Cooperative downloading is one of the effective methods to improve the amount of downloaded data in vehicular ad hoc networking (VANET). However, the poor channel quality and short encounter time bring about a high packet loss rate, which decreases transmission efficiency and fails to satisfy the requirement of high quality of service (QoS) for some applications. Digital fountain code (DFC) can be utilized in the field of wireless communication to increase transmission efficiency. For cooperative forwarding, however, processing delay from frequent coding and decoding as well as single feedback mechanism using DFC cannot adapt to the environment of VANET. In this paper, a cooperative downloading method for VANET using concatenated DFC is proposed to solve the problems above. The source vehicle and cooperative vehicles encodes the raw data using hierarchical fountain code before they send to the client directly or indirectly. Although some packets may be lost, the client can recover the raw data, so long as it receives enough encoded packets. The method avoids data retransmission due to packet loss. Furthermore, the concatenated feedback mechanism in the method reduces the transmission delay effectively. Simulation results indicate the benefits of the proposed scheme in terms of increasing amount of downloaded data and data receiving rate.

Dissociative Ionization and Product Distributions of Benzene and Pyridine by Electron Impact

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dateo, Christopher E.; Huo, Winifred M.; Fletcher, Graham D.

2003-01-01

We report a theoretical study of the dissociative ionization (DI) and product distributions of benzene (C6H6) and pyridine (C5H5N) from their low-lying ionization channels. Our approach makes use of the fact that electronic motion is much faster than nuclear motion allowing DI to be treated as a two-step process. The first step is the electron-impact ionization resulting in an ion with the same nuclear geometry as the neutral molecule. In the second step, the nuclei relax from the initial geometry and undergo unimolecular dissociation. For the ionization process we use the improved binary-encounter dipole (iBED) model [W.M. Huo, Phys. Rev. A64,042719-I (2001)]. For the unimolecular dissociation, we use multiconfigurational self-consistent field (MCSCF) methods to determine the steepest descent pathways to the possible product channels. More accurate methods are then used to obtain better energetics of the paths which are used to determine unimolecular dissociation probabilities and product distributions. Our analysis of the dissociation products and the thresholds of their productions for benzene are compared with the recent dissociative photoionization meausurements of benzene by Feng et al. [R. Feng, G. Cooper, C.E. Brion, J. Electron Spectrosc. Relat. Phenom. 123,211 (2002)] and the dissociative photoionization measurements of pyridine by Tixier et al. [S. Tixier, G. Cooper, R. Feng, C.E. Brion, J. Electron Spectrosc. Relat. Phenom. 123,185 (2002)] using dipole (e,e+ion) coincidence spectroscopy.

27 CFR 6.52 - Cooperative advertising.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Cooperative advertising. 6..., DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY ALCOHOL âTIED-HOUSEâ Unlawful Inducements Paying for Advertising, Display Or Distribution Service § 6.52 Cooperative advertising. An arrangement in which an industry member participates...

27 CFR 6.52 - Cooperative advertising.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false Cooperative advertising. 6..., DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY ALCOHOL âTIED-HOUSEâ Unlawful Inducements Paying for Advertising, Display Or Distribution Service § 6.52 Cooperative advertising. An arrangement in which an industry member participates...

27 CFR 6.52 - Cooperative advertising.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Cooperative advertising. 6..., DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY LIQUORS âTIED-HOUSEâ Unlawful Inducements Paying for Advertising, Display Or Distribution Service § 6.52 Cooperative advertising. An arrangement in which an industry member participates...

27 CFR 6.52 - Cooperative advertising.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2012-04-01 2012-04-01 false Cooperative advertising. 6..., DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY LIQUORS âTIED-HOUSEâ Unlawful Inducements Paying for Advertising, Display Or Distribution Service § 6.52 Cooperative advertising. An arrangement in which an industry member participates...

27 CFR 6.52 - Cooperative advertising.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Cooperative advertising. 6..., DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY LIQUORS âTIED-HOUSEâ Unlawful Inducements Paying for Advertising, Display Or Distribution Service § 6.52 Cooperative advertising. An arrangement in which an industry member participates...

Distributed process manager for an engineering network computer

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gait, J.

1987-08-01

MP is a manager for systems of cooperating processes in a local area network of engineering workstations. MP supports transparent continuation by maintaining multiple copies of each process on different workstations. Computational bandwidth is optimized by executing processes in parallel on different workstations. Responsiveness is high because workstations compete among themselves to respond to requests. The technique is to select a master from among a set of replicates of a process by a competitive election between the copies. Migration of the master when a fault occurs or when response slows down is effected by inducing the election of a newmore » master. Competitive response stabilizes system behavior under load, so MP exhibits realtime behaviors.« less

A Standard Training Plan for Distributive Education Cooperative Work Programs. (Revised Spring, 1976).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robinson, James B.; Hanjis, Anthony J.

Prepared to assist the distributive education work coordinator in using the Standard Training Plan (STP) for the cooperative program work assignments of students, this manual describes the development of the STP, provides instructions for its use, and discusses some specific problem areas. The author takes the approach that what is needed is a…

Cooperative Adaptive Output Regulation for Second-Order Nonlinear Multiagent Systems With Jointly Connected Switching Networks.

PubMed

Liu, Wei; Huang, Jie

2018-03-01

This paper studies the cooperative global robust output regulation problem for a class of heterogeneous second-order nonlinear uncertain multiagent systems with jointly connected switching networks. The main contributions consist of the following three aspects. First, we generalize the result of the adaptive distributed observer from undirected jointly connected switching networks to directed jointly connected switching networks. Second, by performing a new coordinate and input transformation, we convert our problem into the cooperative global robust stabilization problem of a more complex augmented system via the distributed internal model principle. Third, we solve the stabilization problem by a distributed state feedback control law. Our result is illustrated by the leader-following consensus problem for a group of Van der Pol oscillators.

Hybrid Method for Mobile learning Cooperative: Study of Timor Leste

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

da Costa Tavares, Ofelia Cizela; Suyoto; Pranowo

2018-02-01

In the modern world today the decision support system is very useful to help in solving a problem, so this study discusses the learning process of savings and loan cooperatives in Timor Leste. The purpose of the observation is that the people of Timor Leste are still in the process of learning the use DSS for good saving and loan cooperative process. Based on existing research on the Timor Leste community on credit cooperatives, a mobile application will be built that will help the cooperative learning process in East Timorese society. The methods used for decision making are AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) and SAW (simple additive Weighting) method to see the result of each criterion and the weight of the value. The result of this research is mobile leaning cooperative in decision support system by using SAW and AHP method. Originality Value: Changed the two methods of mobile application development using AHP and SAW methods to help the decision support system process of a savings and credit cooperative in Timor Leste.

Distributed Coordination of Heterogeneous Agents Using a Semantic Overlay Network and a Goal-Directed Graphplan Planner

PubMed Central

Lopes, António Luís; Botelho, Luís Miguel

2013-01-01

In this paper, we describe a distributed coordination system that allows agents to seamlessly cooperate in problem solving by partially contributing to a problem solution and delegating the subproblems for which they do not have the required skills or knowledge to appropriate agents. The coordination mechanism relies on a dynamically built semantic overlay network that allows the agents to efficiently locate, even in very large unstructured networks, the necessary skills for a specific problem. Each agent performs partial contributions to the problem solution using a new distributed goal-directed version of the Graphplan algorithm. This new goal-directed version of the original Graphplan algorithm provides an efficient solution to the problem of "distraction", which most forward-chaining algorithms suffer from. We also discuss a set of heuristics to be used in the backward-search process of the planning algorithm in order to distribute this process amongst idle agents in an attempt to find a solution in less time. The evaluation results show that our approach is effective in building a scalable and efficient agent society capable of solving complex distributable problems. PMID:23704885

Effect of self-organized interdependence between populations on the evolution of cooperation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luo, Chao; Zhang, Xiaolin

2017-01-01

In this article, based on interdependent networks, the effect of self-organized interdependence on the evolution of cooperation is studied. Different from the previous works, the interdependent strength, which can effectively improve the fitness of players, is taken as a kind of limited resources and co-evolves with players' strategy. We show that the self-organization of interdependent strength would spontaneously lead to power law distribution at the stationary state, where the level of cooperation in system can be significantly promoted. Furthermore, when intermediate quantity of interdependence resources existing in system, the power law distribution is most evident with the power β ≈ 1.72, meanwhile the level of cooperation also reaches the maximum value. We discuss the related microscopic system properties which are responsible for the observed results and also demonstrate that the power law distribution of interdependence resources is an elementary property which is robust against the governing repeated games and the initial resources allocation patterns.

Contribution inequality in the spatial public goods game: Should the rich contribute more?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tu, Jing

2018-04-01

Scale-free property exists in resource distribution, and the rich pay more in public goods is commonplace in reality. What will happen if the rich are expected to contribute more in the spatial public goods game? This paper therefore proposes a new contribution paradigm, in which individual contribution is determined by his payoff in the last evolution step. Tunable parameter w is used to characterize the contribution rate of nodes whose payoff is larger than the average. The results of simulations reveal that the impact of w on cooperation is associated with the enhancement factor r. When r is low, the higher w is, the lower the cooperation rate is. With the increment of r, the value of w to optimize cooperation rate increases with r. The relationship of cooperation rate and wealth on the network has also been investigated. Interestingly, higher cooperation rate does not always lead to higher wealth. Finally, the impact of w on the wealth distribution on the network is explored. The higher w reduces the inequality in wealth distribution by the shrinking of lower-class, which is enhanced by a higher r.

Selection of the distributional rule as an alternative tool to foster cooperation in a Public Good Game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Colasante, Annarita

2017-02-01

This paper presents an investigation about cooperation in a Public Good Game using an Agent Based Model calibrated on experimental data. Starting from the experiment proposed in Colasante and Russo (2016), we analyze the dynamic of cooperation in a Public Good Game where agents receive an heterogeneous income and choose both the level of contribution and the distribution rule. The starting point is the calibration and the output validation of the model using the experimental results. Once tested the goodness of fit of the Agent Based Model, we run some policy experiment in order to verify how each distribution rule, i.e. equidistribution, proportional to contribution and progressive, affects the level of contribution in the simulated model. We find out that the share of cooperators decreases over time if we exogenously set the equidistribution rule. On the contrary, the share of cooperators converges to 100 % if we impose the progressive rule. Finally, the most interesting result refers to the effect of the progressive rule. We observe that, in the case of high inequality, this rule is not able to reduce the heterogeneity of income.

Problems and Countermeasures of Zhejiang High-Tech Enterprises Industry-University-Institute Cooperation in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Qing; Mao, Chong-Feng; Hou, Lin

Industry-university-institute cooperation is an important means to accelerate technical development and achievements for high-tech enterprises. Considering that Zhejiang high-tech enterprises existed some problems which included low cooperative level, single distribution, weak secondary R&D ability, obvious risk and so on, government should play an guiding role on improving information service system, enhancing cooperative level, promoting scientific intermediary service organization system construction, and building better environment for Industry-university-institute cooperation.

Stochastic dynamics and stable equilibrium of evolutionary optional public goods game in finite populations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Quan, Ji; Liu, Wei; Chu, Yuqing; Wang, Xianjia

2018-07-01

Continuous noise caused by mutation is widely present in evolutionary systems. Considering the noise effects and under the optional participation mechanism, a stochastic model for evolutionary public goods game in a finite size population is established. The evolutionary process of strategies in the population is described as a multidimensional ergodic and continuous time Markov process. The stochastic stable state of the system is analyzed by the limit distribution of the stochastic process. By numerical experiments, the influences of the fixed income coefficient for non-participants and the investment income coefficient of the public goods on the stochastic stable equilibrium of the system are analyzed. Through the numerical calculation results, we found that the optional participation mechanism can change the evolutionary dynamics and the equilibrium of the public goods game, and there is a range of parameters which can effectively promote the evolution of cooperation. Further, we obtain the accurate quantitative relationship between the parameters and the probabilities for the system to choose different stable equilibriums, which can be used to realize the control of cooperation.

CompatPM: enabling energy efficient multimedia workloads for distributed mobile platforms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nathuji, Ripal; O'Hara, Keith J.; Schwan, Karsten; Balch, Tucker

2007-01-01

The computation and communication abilities of modern platforms are enabling increasingly capable cooperative distributed mobile systems. An example is distributed multimedia processing of sensor data in robots deployed for search and rescue, where a system manager can exploit the application's cooperative nature to optimize the distribution of roles and tasks in order to successfully accomplish the mission. Because of limited battery capacities, a critical task a manager must perform is online energy management. While support for power management has become common for the components that populate mobile platforms, what is lacking is integration and explicit coordination across the different management actions performed in a variety of system layers. This papers develops an integration approach for distributed multimedia applications, where a global manager specifies both a power operating point and a workload for a node to execute. Surprisingly, when jointly considering power and QoS, experimental evaluations show that using a simple deadline-driven approach to assigning frequencies can be non-optimal. These trends are further affected by certain characteristics of underlying power management mechanisms, which in our research, are identified as groupings that classify component power management as "compatible" (VFC) or "incompatible" (VFI) with voltage and frequency scaling. We build on these findings to develop CompatPM, a vertically integrated control strategy for power management in distributed mobile systems. Experimental evaluations of CompatPM indicate average energy improvements of 8% when platform resources are managed jointly rather than independently, demonstrating that previous attempts to maximize battery life by simply minimizing frequency are inappropriate from a platform-level perspective.

A Verification Method of Inter-Task Cooperation in Embedded Real-time Systems and its Evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yoshida, Toshio

In software development process of embedded real-time systems, the design of the task cooperation process is very important. The cooperating process of such tasks is specified by task cooperation patterns. Adoption of unsuitable task cooperation patterns has fatal influence on system performance, quality, and extendibility. In order to prevent repetitive work caused by the shortage of task cooperation performance, it is necessary to verify task cooperation patterns in an early software development stage. However, it is very difficult to verify task cooperation patterns in an early software developing stage where task program codes are not completed yet. Therefore, we propose a verification method using task skeleton program codes and a real-time kernel that has a function of recording all events during software execution such as system calls issued by task program codes, external interrupts, and timer interrupt. In order to evaluate the proposed verification method, we applied it to the software development process of a mechatronics control system.

Analysis of High Grazing Angle Sea-clutter with the KK-Distribution

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-11-01

work undertaken at the DSTO in characterising the maritime environment from high altitude airborne platforms. The focus of this report is to characterise...multichannel synthetic aperture radar through Adelaide University. He has worked at the DSTO as an RF engineer in the missile simulation centre, as a...with the Cooperative Research Centre for Sensor, Signal and Information Processing where he worked in the Pattern Recognition Group on the application

Clinical pharmacy services in an intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded.

PubMed

McKee, J R

1994-03-01

The impact of a focused drug regimen review process based on clear objectives and of interdisciplinary team cooperation is described. By shifting from a pharmacy departmental focus, which was primarily on drug distribution activities, to a broader agenda that promotes pharmacists as clinicians, inroads were made in reducing medication doses per resident, decreasing nursing time spent in medication administration, and decreasing pharmacy expenses in this residential facility for the developmentally disabled.

Let's Cooperate II: The Costs and Benefits of Cooperation Between Recreation/Park and Education Agencies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Committee for Recreation/Education Cooperation, CA.

The ideas and the information in this handbook illustrate the experiences of local recreation and education agencies that started cooperative programs in the face of declining resources and increasing demand for improved services. Funding distribution in California usually gives schools financial latitude in facilities and transporation, while…

Assortative and dissortative priorities for game interaction and strategy adaptation significantly bolster network reciprocity in the prisoner’s dilemma

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanimoto, Jun

2014-05-01

In 2 × 2 prisoner’s dilemma games, network reciprocity is one mechanism for adding social viscosity, which leads to cooperative equilibrium. Here we show that combining the process for selecting a gaming partner with the process for selecting an adaptation partner significantly enhances cooperation, even though such selection processes require additional costs to collect further information concerning which neighbor should be chosen. Based on elaborate investigations of the dynamics generated by our model, we find that high levels of cooperation result from two kinds of behavior: cooperators tend to interact with cooperators to prevent being exploited by defectors and defectors tend to choose cooperators to exploit despite the possibility that some defectors convert to cooperators.

Physical Layer Secret-Key Generation Scheme for Transportation Security Sensor Network

PubMed Central

Yang, Bin; Zhang, Jianfeng

2017-01-01

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are widely used in different disciplines, including transportation systems, agriculture field environment monitoring, healthcare systems, and industrial monitoring. The security challenge of the wireless communication link between sensor nodes is critical in WSNs. In this paper, we propose a new physical layer secret-key generation scheme for transportation security sensor network. The scheme is based on the cooperation of all the sensor nodes, thus avoiding the key distribution process, which increases the security of the system. Different passive and active attack models are analyzed in this paper. We also prove that when the cooperative node number is large enough, even when the eavesdropper is equipped with multiple antennas, the secret-key is still secure. Numerical results are performed to show the efficiency of the proposed scheme. PMID:28657588

Physical Layer Secret-Key Generation Scheme for Transportation Security Sensor Network.

PubMed

Yang, Bin; Zhang, Jianfeng

2017-06-28

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are widely used in different disciplines, including transportation systems, agriculture field environment monitoring, healthcare systems, and industrial monitoring. The security challenge of the wireless communication link between sensor nodes is critical in WSNs. In this paper, we propose a new physical layer secret-key generation scheme for transportation security sensor network. The scheme is based on the cooperation of all the sensor nodes, thus avoiding the key distribution process, which increases the security of the system. Different passive and active attack models are analyzed in this paper. We also prove that when the cooperative node number is large enough, even when the eavesdropper is equipped with multiple antennas, the secret-key is still secure. Numerical results are performed to show the efficiency of the proposed scheme.

Cooperative Marketing and Distributive Education I and II (Junior and Senior High School Students). Vocational Education Teacher-Coordinators Curriculum Guide. Bulletin 1702.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Louisiana State Dept. of Education, Baton Rouge. Div. of Vocational Education.

Developed by experienced vocational teacher-coordinators and teacher-educators, this guide is intended to be used as a resource by cooperative distributive education and marketing teachers in Louisiana junior and senior high schools. The guide contains suggested curriculum for both beginning and advanced courses. Course I consists of 19 units in…

Network-based reading system for lung cancer screening CT

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fujino, Yuichi; Fujimura, Kaori; Nomura, Shin-ichiro; Kawashima, Harumi; Tsuchikawa, Megumu; Matsumoto, Toru; Nagao, Kei-ichi; Uruma, Takahiro; Yamamoto, Shinji; Takizawa, Hotaka; Kuroda, Chikazumi; Nakayama, Tomio

2006-03-01

This research aims to support chest computed tomography (CT) medical checkups to decrease the death rate by lung cancer. We have developed a remote cooperative reading system for lung cancer screening over the Internet, a secure transmission function, and a cooperative reading environment. It is called the Network-based Reading System. A telemedicine system involves many issues, such as network costs and data security if we use it over the Internet, which is an open network. In Japan, broadband access is widespread and its cost is the lowest in the world. We developed our system considering human machine interface and security. It consists of data entry terminals, a database server, a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system, and some reading terminals. It uses a secure Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) encrypting method and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) based secure DICOM image data distribution. We carried out an experimental trial over the Japan Gigabit Network (JGN), which is the testbed for the Japanese next-generation network, and conducted verification experiments of secure screening image distribution, some kinds of data addition, and remote cooperative reading. We found that network bandwidth of about 1.5 Mbps enabled distribution of screening images and cooperative reading and that the encryption and image distribution methods we proposed were applicable to the encryption and distribution of general DICOM images via the Internet.

Energy management and cooperation in microgrids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahbar, Katayoun

Microgrids are key components of future smart power grids, which integrate distributed renewable energy generators to efficiently serve the load demand locally. However, random and intermittent characteristics of renewable energy generations may hinder the reliable operation of microgrids. This thesis is thus devoted to investigating new strategies for microgrids to optimally manage their energy consumption, energy storage system (ESS) and cooperation in real time to achieve the reliable and cost-effective operation. This thesis starts with a single microgrid system. The optimal energy scheduling and ESS management policy is derived to minimize the energy cost of the microgrid resulting from drawing conventional energy from the main grid under both the off-line and online setups, where the renewable energy generation/load demand are assumed to be non-causally known and causally known at the microgrid, respectively. The proposed online algorithm is designed based on the optimal off-line solution and works under arbitrary (even unknown) realizations of future renewable energy generation/load demand. Therefore, it is more practically applicable as compared to solutions based on conventional techniques such as dynamic programming and stochastic programming that require the prior knowledge of renewable energy generation and load demand realizations/distributions. Next, for a group of microgrids that cooperate in energy management, we study efficient methods for sharing energy among them for both fully and partially cooperative scenarios, where microgrids are of common interests and self-interested, respectively. For the fully cooperative energy management, the off-line optimization problem is first formulated and optimally solved, where a distributed algorithm is proposed to minimize the total (sum) energy cost of microgrids. Inspired by the results obtained from the off-line optimization, efficient online algorithms are proposed for the real-time energy management, which are of low complexity and work given arbitrary realizations of renewable energy generation/load demand. On the other hand, for self-interested microgrids, the partially cooperative energy management is formulated and a distributed algorithm is proposed to optimize the energy cooperation such that energy costs of individual microgrids reduce simultaneously over the case without energy cooperation while limited information is shared among the microgrids and the central controller.

Research on Intelligent Synthesis Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Loftin, R. Bowen; Dryer, David; Major, Debra; Fletcher, Tom

2002-01-01

The ultimate goal of this research project is to develop a methodology for the assessment and continuous improvement of engineering team effectiveness in distributed collaborative environments. This review provides the theoretical foundation upon which subsequent empirical work will be based. Our review of the team performance literature has identified the following 12 conceptually distinct team interaction processes as characteristic of effective teams. 1) Mission Analysis; 2) Resource Distribution; 3) Leadership; 4) Timing; 5) Intra-team Feedback; 6) Motivational Functions; 7) Team Orientation; 8) Communication; 9) Coordination; 10) Mutual Performance Monitoring; 11) Back-up Behaviors; and 12) Cooperation. In addition, this review summarizes how team task characteristics (i.e., task type, task complexity, motivation, and temporal changes), team characteristics (i.e., team structure and team knowledge), and individual team member characteristics (i.e., dispositions and teamwork knowledge, skills, and abilities) affect team interaction processes, determine the relevance of these processes, and influence team performance. The costs and benefits of distributed team collaboration are also considered. The review concludes with a brief discussion of the nature of collaborative team engineering tasks.

Research on Intelligent Synthesis Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loftin, R. Bowen; Dryer, David; Major, Debra; Fletcher, Tom

2002-10-01

The ultimate goal of this research project is to develop a methodology for the assessment and continuous improvement of engineering team effectiveness in distributed collaborative environments. This review provides the theoretical foundation upon which subsequent empirical work will be based. Our review of the team performance literature has identified the following 12 conceptually distinct team interaction processes as characteristic of effective teams. 1) Mission Analysis; 2) Resource Distribution; 3) Leadership; 4) Timing; 5) Intra-team Feedback; 6) Motivational Functions; 7) Team Orientation; 8) Communication; 9) Coordination; 10) Mutual Performance Monitoring; 11) Back-up Behaviors; and 12) Cooperation. In addition, this review summarizes how team task characteristics (i.e., task type, task complexity, motivation, and temporal changes), team characteristics (i.e., team structure and team knowledge), and individual team member characteristics (i.e., dispositions and teamwork knowledge, skills, and abilities) affect team interaction processes, determine the relevance of these processes, and influence team performance. The costs and benefits of distributed team collaboration are also considered. The review concludes with a brief discussion of the nature of collaborative team engineering tasks.

Intelligent distributed medical image management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garcia, Hong-Mei C.; Yun, David Y.

1995-05-01

The rapid advancements in high performance global communication have accelerated cooperative image-based medical services to a new frontier. Traditional image-based medical services such as radiology and diagnostic consultation can now fully utilize multimedia technologies in order to provide novel services, including remote cooperative medical triage, distributed virtual simulation of operations, as well as cross-country collaborative medical research and training. Fast (efficient) and easy (flexible) retrieval of relevant images remains a critical requirement for the provision of remote medical services. This paper describes the database system requirements, identifies technological building blocks for meeting the requirements, and presents a system architecture for our target image database system, MISSION-DBS, which has been designed to fulfill the goals of Project MISSION (medical imaging support via satellite integrated optical network) -- an experimental high performance gigabit satellite communication network with access to remote supercomputing power, medical image databases, and 3D visualization capabilities in addition to medical expertise anywhere and anytime around the country. The MISSION-DBS design employs a synergistic fusion of techniques in distributed databases (DDB) and artificial intelligence (AI) for storing, migrating, accessing, and exploring images. The efficient storage and retrieval of voluminous image information is achieved by integrating DDB modeling and AI techniques for image processing while the flexible retrieval mechanisms are accomplished by combining attribute- based and content-based retrievals.

Facilitating the openEHR approach - organizational structures for defining high-quality archetypes.

PubMed

Kohl, Christian Dominik; Garde, Sebastian; Knaup, Petra

2008-01-01

Using openEHR archetypes to establish an electronic patient record promises rapid development and system interoperability by using or adopting existing archetypes. However, internationally accepted, high quality archetypes which enable a comprehensive semantic interoperability require adequate development and maintenance processes. Therefore, structures have to be created involving different health professions. In the following we present a model which facilitates and governs distributed but cooperative development and adoption of archetypes by different professionals including peer reviews. Our model consists of a hierarchical structure of professional committees and descriptions of the archetype development process considering these different committees.

Lifetime of Bubble Rafts: Cooperativity and Avalanches

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ritacco, Hernán; Kiefer, Flavien; Langevin, Dominique

2007-06-01

We have studied the collapse of pseudo-bi-dimensional foams. These foams are made of uniformly sized soap bubbles packed in an hexagonal lattice sitting at the top of a liquid surface. The collapse process follows the sequence: (1) rupture of a first bubble, driven by thermal fluctuations and (2) a cascade of bursting bubbles. We present a simple numerical model which captures the main characteristics of the dynamics of foam collapse. We show that in a certain range of viscosities of the foaming solutions, the size distribution of the avalanches follows power laws as in self-organized criticality processes.

Lifetime of bubble rafts: cooperativity and avalanches.

PubMed

Ritacco, Hernán; Kiefer, Flavien; Langevin, Dominique

2007-06-15

We have studied the collapse of pseudo-bi-dimensional foams. These foams are made of uniformly sized soap bubbles packed in an hexagonal lattice sitting at the top of a liquid surface. The collapse process follows the sequence: (1) rupture of a first bubble, driven by thermal fluctuations and (2) a cascade of bursting bubbles. We present a simple numerical model which captures the main characteristics of the dynamics of foam collapse. We show that in a certain range of viscosities of the foaming solutions, the size distribution of the avalanches follows power laws as in self-organized criticality processes.

Distributed cooperative regulation for multiagent systems and its applications to power systems: a survey.

PubMed

Hu, Jianqiang; Li, Yaping; Yong, Taiyou; Cao, Jinde; Yu, Jie; Mao, Wenbo

2014-01-01

Cooperative regulation of multiagent systems has become an active research area in the past decade. This paper reviews some recent progress in distributed coordination control for leader-following multiagent systems and its applications in power system and mainly focuses on the cooperative tracking control in terms of consensus tracking control and containment tracking control. Next, methods on how to rank the network nodes are summarized for undirected/directed network, based on which one can determine which follower should be connected to leaders such that partial followers can perceive leaders' information. Furthermore, we present a survey of the most relevant scientific studies investigating the regulation and optimization problems in power systems based on distributed strategies. Finally, some potential applications in the frequency tracking regulation of smart grids are discussed at the end of the paper.

Distributed Cooperative Regulation for Multiagent Systems and Its Applications to Power Systems: A Survey

PubMed Central

Li, Yaping; Yong, Taiyou; Yu, Jie; Mao, Wenbo

2014-01-01

Cooperative regulation of multiagent systems has become an active research area in the past decade. This paper reviews some recent progress in distributed coordination control for leader-following multiagent systems and its applications in power system and mainly focuses on the cooperative tracking control in terms of consensus tracking control and containment tracking control. Next, methods on how to rank the network nodes are summarized for undirected/directed network, based on which one can determine which follower should be connected to leaders such that partial followers can perceive leaders' information. Furthermore, we present a survey of the most relevant scientific studies investigating the regulation and optimization problems in power systems based on distributed strategies. Finally, some potential applications in the frequency tracking regulation of smart grids are discussed at the end of the paper. PMID:25243199

Distributed Cooperative Optimal Control for Multiagent Systems on Directed Graphs: An Inverse Optimal Approach.

PubMed

Zhang, Huaguang; Feng, Tao; Yang, Guang-Hong; Liang, Hongjing

2015-07-01

In this paper, the inverse optimal approach is employed to design distributed consensus protocols that guarantee consensus and global optimality with respect to some quadratic performance indexes for identical linear systems on a directed graph. The inverse optimal theory is developed by introducing the notion of partial stability. As a result, the necessary and sufficient conditions for inverse optimality are proposed. By means of the developed inverse optimal theory, the necessary and sufficient conditions are established for globally optimal cooperative control problems on directed graphs. Basic optimal cooperative design procedures are given based on asymptotic properties of the resulting optimal distributed consensus protocols, and the multiagent systems can reach desired consensus performance (convergence rate and damping rate) asymptotically. Finally, two examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

On Cooperative Behavior in Distributed Teams: The Influence of Organizational Design, Media Richness, Social Interaction, and Interaction Adaptation

PubMed Central

Håkonsson, Dorthe D.; Obel, Børge; Eskildsen, Jacob K.; Burton, Richard M.

2016-01-01

Self-interest vs. cooperation is a fundamental dilemma in animal behavior as well as in human and organizational behavior. In organizations, how to get people to cooperate despite or in conjunction with their self-interest is fundamental to the achievement of a common goal. While both organizational designs and social interactions have been found to further cooperation in organizations, some of the literature has received contradictory support, just as very little research, if any, has examined their joint effects in distributed organizations, where communication is usually achieved via different communication media. This paper reviews the extant literature and offers a set of hypotheses to integrate current theories and explanations. Further, it discusses how future research should examine the joint effects of media, incentives, and social interactions. PMID:27242605

On Cooperative Behavior in Distributed Teams: The Influence of Organizational Design, Media Richness, Social Interaction, and Interaction Adaptation.

PubMed

Håkonsson, Dorthe D; Obel, Børge; Eskildsen, Jacob K; Burton, Richard M

2016-01-01

Self-interest vs. cooperation is a fundamental dilemma in animal behavior as well as in human and organizational behavior. In organizations, how to get people to cooperate despite or in conjunction with their self-interest is fundamental to the achievement of a common goal. While both organizational designs and social interactions have been found to further cooperation in organizations, some of the literature has received contradictory support, just as very little research, if any, has examined their joint effects in distributed organizations, where communication is usually achieved via different communication media. This paper reviews the extant literature and offers a set of hypotheses to integrate current theories and explanations. Further, it discusses how future research should examine the joint effects of media, incentives, and social interactions.

Properties of four real world collaboration--competition networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fu, Chun-Hua; Xu, Xiu-Lian; He, Da-Ren

2009-03-01

Our research group has empirically investigated 9 real world collaboration networks and 25 real world cooperation-competition networks. Among the 34 real world systems, all the 9 real world collaboration networks and 6 real world cooperation-competition networks show the unimodal act-size distribution and the shifted power law distribution of degree and act-degree. We have proposed a collaboration network evolution model for an explanation of the rules [1]. The other 14 real world cooperation-competition networks show that the act-size distributions are not unimodal; instead, they take qualitatively the same shifted power law forms as the degree and act-degree distributions. The properties of four systems (the main land movie film network, Beijing restaurant network, 2004 Olympic network, and Tao-Bao notebook computer sale network) are reported in detail as examples. Via a numerical simulation, we show that the new rule can still be explained by the above-mentioned model. [1] H. Chang, B. B. Su, et al. Phsica A, 2007, 383: 687-702.

Distributed Economic Dispatch in Microgrids Based on Cooperative Reinforcement Learning.

PubMed

Liu, Weirong; Zhuang, Peng; Liang, Hao; Peng, Jun; Huang, Zhiwu; Weirong Liu; Peng Zhuang; Hao Liang; Jun Peng; Zhiwu Huang; Liu, Weirong; Liang, Hao; Peng, Jun; Zhuang, Peng; Huang, Zhiwu

2018-06-01

Microgrids incorporated with distributed generation (DG) units and energy storage (ES) devices are expected to play more and more important roles in the future power systems. Yet, achieving efficient distributed economic dispatch in microgrids is a challenging issue due to the randomness and nonlinear characteristics of DG units and loads. This paper proposes a cooperative reinforcement learning algorithm for distributed economic dispatch in microgrids. Utilizing the learning algorithm can avoid the difficulty of stochastic modeling and high computational complexity. In the cooperative reinforcement learning algorithm, the function approximation is leveraged to deal with the large and continuous state spaces. And a diffusion strategy is incorporated to coordinate the actions of DG units and ES devices. Based on the proposed algorithm, each node in microgrids only needs to communicate with its local neighbors, without relying on any centralized controllers. Algorithm convergence is analyzed, and simulations based on real-world meteorological and load data are conducted to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Cooperation and age structure in spatial games

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Zhen; Wang, Zhen; Zhu, Xiaodan; Arenzon, Jeferson J.

2012-01-01

We study the evolution of cooperation in evolutionary spatial games when the payoff correlates with the increasing age of players (the level of correlation is set through a single parameter, α). The demographic heterogeneous age distribution, directly affecting the outcome of the game, is thus shown to be responsible for enhancing the cooperative behavior in the population. In particular, moderate values of α allow cooperators not only to survive but to outcompete defectors, even when the temptation to defect is large and the ageless, standard α=0 model does not sustain cooperation. The interplay between age structure and noise is also considered, and we obtain the conditions for optimal levels of cooperation.

A Cooperative IDS Approach Against MPTCP Attacks

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-06-01

physical testbeds in order to present a methodology that allows distributed IDSs (DIDS) to cooperate in a manner that permits effective detection of...reconstruct MPTCP subflows and detect malicious content. Next, we build physical testbeds in order to present a methodology that allows distributed IDSs...hypotheses on a more realistic testbed environment. • Developing a methodology to incorporate multiple IDSs, real and virtual, to be able to detect cross

Cooperative Education Is a Superior Strategy for Using Basic Learning Processes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reed, V. Gerald

Cooperative education is a learning strategy that fits very well with basic laws of learning. In fact, several basic important learning processes are far better adapted to the cooperative education strategy than to methods that lean entirely on classroom instruction. For instance, cooperative education affords more opportunities for reinforcement,…

Distributed service-based approach for sensor data fusion in IoT environments.

PubMed

Rodríguez-Valenzuela, Sandra; Holgado-Terriza, Juan A; Gutiérrez-Guerrero, José M; Muros-Cobos, Jesús L

2014-10-15

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables the communication among smart objects promoting the pervasive presence around us of a variety of things or objects that are able to interact and cooperate jointly to reach common goals. IoT objects can obtain data from their context, such as the home, office, industry or body. These data can be combined to obtain new and more complex information applying data fusion processes. However, to apply data fusion algorithms in IoT environments, the full system must deal with distributed nodes, decentralized communication and support scalability and nodes dynamicity, among others restrictions. In this paper, a novel method to manage data acquisition and fusion based on a distributed service composition model is presented, improving the data treatment in IoT pervasive environments.

Automation of Shuttle Tile Inspection - Engineering methodology for Space Station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wiskerchen, M. J.; Mollakarimi, C.

1987-01-01

The Space Systems Integration and Operations Research Applications (SIORA) Program was initiated in late 1986 as a cooperative applications research effort between Stanford University, NASA Kennedy Space Center, and Lockheed Space Operations Company. One of the major initial SIORA tasks was the application of automation and robotics technology to all aspects of the Shuttle tile processing and inspection system. This effort has adopted a systems engineering approach consisting of an integrated set of rapid prototyping testbeds in which a government/university/industry team of users, technologists, and engineers test and evaluate new concepts and technologies within the operational world of Shuttle. These integrated testbeds include speech recognition and synthesis, laser imaging inspection systems, distributed Ada programming environments, distributed relational database architectures, distributed computer network architectures, multimedia workbenches, and human factors considerations.

Distributed Service-Based Approach for Sensor Data Fusion in IoT Environments

PubMed Central

Rodríguez-Valenzuela, Sandra; Holgado-Terriza, Juan A.; Gutiérrez-Guerrero, José M.; Muros-Cobos, Jesús L.

2014-01-01

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables the communication among smart objects promoting the pervasive presence around us of a variety of things or objects that are able to interact and cooperate jointly to reach common goals. IoT objects can obtain data from their context, such as the home, office, industry or body. These data can be combined to obtain new and more complex information applying data fusion processes. However, to apply data fusion algorithms in IoT environments, the full system must deal with distributed nodes, decentralized communication and support scalability and nodes dynamicity, among others restrictions. In this paper, a novel method to manage data acquisition and fusion based on a distributed service composition model is presented, improving the data treatment in IoT pervasive environments. PMID:25320907

Resource heterogeneity can facilitate cooperation.

PubMed

Kun, Ádám; Dieckmann, Ulf

2013-01-01

Although social structure is known to promote cooperation, by locally exposing selfish agents to their own deeds, studies to date assumed that all agents have access to the same level of resources. This is clearly unrealistic. Here we find that cooperation can be maintained when some agents have access to more resources than others. Cooperation can then emerge even in populations in which the temptation to defect is so strong that players would act fully selfishly if their resources were distributed uniformly. Resource heterogeneity can thus be crucial for the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. We also show that resource heterogeneity can hinder cooperation once the temptation to defect is significantly lowered. In all cases, the level of cooperation can be maximized by managing resource heterogeneity.

Adaptable Network Cooperate Catalog for Complex Information Objects. From Single Library to a Consortium: Sharing the Management and Distribution of Information Resources.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morag, Azriel

Libraries faced with the challenge of cooperative cataloging must maintain a high degree of unification within the library network (consortium) without compromising local libraries' independence. This paper compares a traditional model for cooperative catalogs achieved by means of a Union Catalog that depends entirely on replication of data…

Bacteria and game theory: the rise and fall of cooperation in spatially heterogeneous environments.

PubMed

Lambert, Guillaume; Vyawahare, Saurabh; Austin, Robert H

2014-08-06

One of the predictions of game theory is that cooperative behaviours are vulnerable to exploitation by selfish individuals, but this result seemingly contradicts the survival of cooperation observed in nature. In this review, we will introduce game theoretical concepts that lead to this conclusion and show how the spatial competition dynamics between microorganisms can be used to model the survival and maintenance of cooperation. In particular, we focus on how Escherichia coli bacteria with a growth advantage in stationary phase (GASP) phenotype maintain a proliferative phenotype when faced with overcrowding to gain a fitness advantage over wild-type populations. We review recent experimental approaches studying the growth dynamics of competing GASP and wild-type strains of E. coli inside interconnected microfabricated habitats and use a game theoretical approach to analyse the observed inter-species interactions. We describe how the use of evolutionary game theory and the ideal free distribution accurately models the spatial distribution of cooperative and selfish individuals in spatially heterogeneous environments. Using bacteria as a model system of cooperative and selfish behaviours may lead to a better understanding of the competition dynamics of other organisms-including tumour-host interactions during cancer development and metastasis.

Thermal activation of dislocations in large scale obstacle bypass

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sobie, Cameron; Capolungo, Laurent; McDowell, David L.; Martinez, Enrique

2017-08-01

Dislocation dynamics simulations have been used extensively to predict hardening caused by dislocation-obstacle interactions, including irradiation defect hardening in the athermal case. Incorporating the role of thermal energy on these interactions is possible with a framework provided by harmonic transition state theory (HTST) enabling direct access to thermally activated reaction rates using the Arrhenius equation, including rates of dislocation-obstacle bypass processes. Moving beyond unit dislocation-defect reactions to a representative environment containing a large number of defects requires coarse-graining the activation energy barriers of a population of obstacles into an effective energy barrier that accurately represents the large scale collective process. The work presented here investigates the relationship between unit dislocation-defect bypass processes and the distribution of activation energy barriers calculated for ensemble bypass processes. A significant difference between these cases is observed, which is attributed to the inherent cooperative nature of dislocation bypass processes. In addition to the dislocation-defect interaction, the morphology of the dislocation segments pinned to the defects play an important role on the activation energies for bypass. A phenomenological model for activation energy stress dependence is shown to describe well the effect of a distribution of activation energies, and a probabilistic activation energy model incorporating the stress distribution in a material is presented.

An object-oriented software approach for a distributed human tracking motion system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Micucci, Daniela L.

2003-06-01

Tracking is a composite job involving the co-operation of autonomous activities which exploit a complex information model and rely on a distributed architecture. Both information and activities must be classified and related in several dimensions: abstraction levels (what is modelled and how information is processed); topology (where the modelled entities are); time (when entities exist); strategy (why something happens); responsibilities (who is in charge of processing the information). A proper Object-Oriented analysis and design approach leads to a modular architecture where information about conceptual entities is modelled at each abstraction level via classes and intra-level associations, whereas inter-level associations between classes model the abstraction process. Both information and computation are partitioned according to level-specific topological models. They are also placed in a temporal framework modelled by suitable abstractions. Domain-specific strategies control the execution of the computations. Computational components perform both intra-level processing and intra-level information conversion. The paper overviews the phases of the analysis and design process, presents major concepts at each abstraction level, and shows how the resulting design turns into a modular, flexible and adaptive architecture. Finally, the paper sketches how the conceptual architecture can be deployed into a concrete distribute architecture by relying on an experimental framework.

A Biologically Inspired Cooperative Multi-Robot Control Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Howsman, Tom; Craft, Mike; ONeil, Daniel; Howell, Joe T. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

A prototype cooperative multi-robot control architecture suitable for the eventual construction of large space structures has been developed. In nature, there are numerous examples of complex architectures constructed by relatively simple insects, such as termites and wasps, which cooperatively assemble their nests. The prototype control architecture emulates this biological model. Actions of each of the autonomous robotic construction agents are only indirectly coordinated, thus mimicking the distributed construction processes of various social insects. The robotic construction agents perform their primary duties stigmergically i.e., without direct inter-agent communication and without a preprogrammed global blueprint of the final design. Communication and coordination between individual agents occurs indirectly through the sensed modifications that each agent makes to the structure. The global stigmergic building algorithm prototyped during the initial research assumes that the robotic builders only perceive the current state of the structure under construction. Simulation studies have established that an idealized form of the proposed architecture was indeed capable of producing representative large space structures with autonomous robots. This paper will explore the construction simulations in order to illustrate the multi-robot control architecture.

A Stigmergic Cooperative Multi-Robot Control Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Howsman, Thomas G.; O'Neil, Daniel; Craft, Michael A.

2004-01-01

In nature, there are numerous examples of complex architectures constructed by relatively simple insects, such as termites and wasps, which cooperatively assemble their nests. A prototype cooperative multi-robot control architecture which may be suitable for the eventual construction of large space structures has been developed which emulates this biological model. Actions of each of the autonomous robotic construction agents are only indirectly coordinated, thus mimicking the distributed construction processes of various social insects. The robotic construction agents perform their primary duties stigmergically, i.e., without direct inter-agent communication and without a preprogrammed global blueprint of the final design. Communication and coordination between individual agents occurs indirectly through the sensed modifications that each agent makes to the structure. The global stigmergic building algorithm prototyped during the initial research assumes that the robotic builders only perceive the current state of the structure under construction. Simulation studies have established that an idealized form of the proposed architecture was indeed capable of producing representative large space structures with autonomous robots. This paper will explore the construction simulations in order to illustrate the multi-robot control architecture.

36 CFR 1010.16 - Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... cooperation early in the NEPA process. 1010.16 Section 1010.16 Parks, Forests, and Public Property PRESIDIO TRUST ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY § 1010.16 Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process... other Federal, State, local, or tribal agency that has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with...

36 CFR 1010.16 - Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... cooperation early in the NEPA process. 1010.16 Section 1010.16 Parks, Forests, and Public Property PRESIDIO TRUST ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY § 1010.16 Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process... other Federal, State, local, or tribal agency that has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with...

The Effects of Multimodal Mobile Communications on Cooperative Team Interactions Executing Distributed Tasks

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-07-01

AFRL-RH-WP-TP-2013-0046 The Effects of Multimodal Mobile Communications on Cooperative Team Interactions Executing Distributed Tasks Gregory...3. DATES COVERED (From - To) 31-07-13 Interim 01 August 2011 – 01 August 2013 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE The Effects of Multimodal Mobile... multimodal communication capabilities can con- tribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of real-time, task outcome and per- formance. In this paper, we

A Content Markup Language for Data Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Noviello, C.; Acampa, P.; Mango Furnari, M.

Network content delivery and documents sharing is possible using a variety of technologies, such as distributed databases, service-oriented applications, and so forth. The development of such systems is a complex job, because document life cycle involves a strong cooperation between domain experts and software developers. Furthermore, the emerging software methodologies, such as the service-oriented architecture and knowledge organization (e.g., semantic web) did not really solve the problems faced in a real distributed and cooperating settlement. In this chapter the authors' efforts to design and deploy a distribute and cooperating content management system are described. The main features of the system are a user configurable document type definition and a management middleware layer. It allows CMS developers to orchestrate the composition of specialized software components around the structure of a document. In this chapter are also reported some of the experiences gained on deploying the developed framework in a cultural heritage dissemination settlement.

Activities of UAH

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Li, Ning

2000-01-01

From its start in December 1996, the Cooperative Agreement allowed that some tasks could be performed primarily by UAH, some primarily by MSFC and some in a joint manner. The detailed distribution of effort has evolved in a pragmatic fashion, with each organization focusing on those tasks that seemed most urgent and for which appropriate capabilities existed. The final, all-up experiments were envisioned as a very careful measurement process carried out jointly using components developed at both UAH and MSFC. The total project began with an air of optimism that the necessary apparatus for the adopted objectives could be quickly and easily assembled. Not surprisingly, technological difficulties were encountered by all parties and it has proven impossible to complete the challenging experiments in the term of this cooperative agreement. The UAH accomplishments toward the ultimate experiments are reported here in a taskwise manner.

A Distributed Energy-Aware Trust Management System for Secure Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stelios, Yannis; Papayanoulas, Nikos; Trakadas, Panagiotis; Maniatis, Sotiris; Leligou, Helen C.; Zahariadis, Theodore

Wireless sensor networks are inherently vulnerable to security attacks, due to their wireless operation. The situation is further aggravated because they operate in an infrastructure-less environment, which mandates the cooperation among nodes for all networking tasks, including routing, i.e. all nodes act as “routers”, forwarding the packets generated by their neighbours in their way to the sink node. This implies that malicious nodes (denying their cooperation) can significantly affect the network operation. Trust management schemes provide a powerful tool for the detection of unexpected node behaviours (either faulty or malicious). Once misbehaving nodes are detected, their neighbours can use this information to avoid cooperating with them either for data forwarding, data aggregation or any other cooperative function. We propose a secure routing solution based on a novel distributed trust management system, which allows for fast detection of a wide set of attacks and also incorporates energy awareness.

LQR-Based Optimal Distributed Cooperative Design for Linear Discrete-Time Multiagent Systems.

PubMed

Zhang, Huaguang; Feng, Tao; Liang, Hongjing; Luo, Yanhong

2017-03-01

In this paper, a novel linear quadratic regulator (LQR)-based optimal distributed cooperative design method is developed for synchronization control of general linear discrete-time multiagent systems on a fixed, directed graph. Sufficient conditions are derived for synchronization, which restrict the graph eigenvalues into a bounded circular region in the complex plane. The synchronizing speed issue is also considered, and it turns out that the synchronizing region reduces as the synchronizing speed becomes faster. To obtain more desirable synchronizing capacity, the weighting matrices are selected by sufficiently utilizing the guaranteed gain margin of the optimal regulators. Based on the developed LQR-based cooperative design framework, an approximate dynamic programming technique is successfully introduced to overcome the (partially or completely) model-free cooperative design for linear multiagent systems. Finally, two numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design methods.

EOS: A project to investigate the design and construction of real-time distributed embedded operating systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Campbell, R. H.; Essick, R. B.; Grass, J.; Johnston, G.; Kenny, K.; Russo, V.

1986-01-01

The EOS project is investigating the design and construction of a family of real-time distributed embedded operating systems for reliable, distributed aerospace applications. Using the real-time programming techniques developed in co-operation with NASA in earlier research, the project staff is building a kernel for a multiple processor networked system. The first six months of the grant included a study of scheduling in an object-oriented system, the design philosophy of the kernel, and the architectural overview of the operating system. In this report, the operating system and kernel concepts are described. An environment for the experiments has been built and several of the key concepts of the system have been prototyped. The kernel and operating system is intended to support future experimental studies in multiprocessing, load-balancing, routing, software fault-tolerance, distributed data base design, and real-time processing.

Parameter estimation techniques based on optimizing goodness-of-fit statistics for structural reliability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Starlinger, Alois; Duffy, Stephen F.; Palko, Joseph L.

1993-01-01

New methods are presented that utilize the optimization of goodness-of-fit statistics in order to estimate Weibull parameters from failure data. It is assumed that the underlying population is characterized by a three-parameter Weibull distribution. Goodness-of-fit tests are based on the empirical distribution function (EDF). The EDF is a step function, calculated using failure data, and represents an approximation of the cumulative distribution function for the underlying population. Statistics (such as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic and the Anderson-Darling statistic) measure the discrepancy between the EDF and the cumulative distribution function (CDF). These statistics are minimized with respect to the three Weibull parameters. Due to nonlinearities encountered in the minimization process, Powell's numerical optimization procedure is applied to obtain the optimum value of the EDF. Numerical examples show the applicability of these new estimation methods. The results are compared to the estimates obtained with Cooper's nonlinear regression algorithm.

Inferring Reputation Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation in Spatial Social Dilemma Games

PubMed Central

Wang, Zhen; Wang, Lin; Yin, Zi-Yu; Xia, Cheng-Yi

2012-01-01

In realistic world individuals with high reputation are more likely to influence the collective behaviors. Due to the cost and error of information dissemination, however, it is unreasonable to assign each individual with a complete cognitive power, which means that not everyone can accurately realize others’ reputation situation. Here we introduce the mechanism of inferring reputation into the selection of potential strategy sources to explore the evolution of cooperation. Before the game each player is assigned with a randomly distributed parameter p denoting his ability to infer the reputation of others. The parameter p of each individual is kept constant during the game. The value of p indicates that the neighbor possessing highest reputation is chosen with the probability p and randomly choosing an opponent is left with the probability 1−p. We find that this novel mechanism can be seen as an universally applicable promoter of cooperation, which works on various interaction networks and in different types of evolutionary game. Of particular interest is the fact that, in the early stages of evolutionary process, cooperators with high reputation who are easily regarded as the potential strategy donors can quickly lead to the formation of extremely robust clusters of cooperators that are impervious to defector attacks. These clusters eventually help cooperators reach their undisputed dominance, which transcends what can be warranted by the spatial reciprocity alone. Moreover, we provide complete phase diagrams to depict the impact of uncertainty in strategy adoptions and conclude that the effective interaction topology structure may be altered under such a mechanism. When the estimation of reputation is extended, we also show that the moderate value of evaluation factor enables cooperation to thrive best. We thus present a viable method of understanding the ubiquitous cooperative behaviors in nature and hope that it will inspire further studies to resolve social dilemmas. PMID:22808120

36 CFR 1010.16 - Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process. 1010.16 Section 1010.16 Parks, Forests, and Public Property PRESIDIO TRUST ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY § 1010.16 Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process...

Process of breaking and rendering permeable a subterranean rock mass

DOEpatents

Lekas, Mitchell A.

1980-01-01

The process of the present invention involves the following steps: producing, as by hydrofracing, a substantially horizontal fracture in the subterranean rock mass to be processed; emplacing an explosive charge in the mass in spaced juxtaposed position to the fracture; enlarging the fracture to create a void space thereat, an initial lifting of the overburden, and to provide a free face juxtaposed to and arranged to cooperate with the emplaced explosive charge; and exploding the charge against the free face for fragmenting the rock and to distribute the space, thus providing fractured, pervious, rubble-ized rock in an enclosed subterranean chamber. Firing of the charge provides a further lifting of the overburden, an enlargement of the chamber and a larger void space to distribute throughout the rubble-ized rock within the chamber. In some forms of the invention an explosive charge is used to produce a transitory enlargement of the fracture, and the juxtaposed emplaced charge is fired during the critical period of enlargement of the fracture.

Distributing Planning and Control for Teams of Cooperating Mobile Robots

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Parker, L.E.

2004-07-19

This CRADA project involved the cooperative research of investigators in ORNL's Center for Engineering Science Advanced Research (CESAR) with researchers at Caterpillar, Inc. The subject of the research was the development of cooperative control strategies for autonomous vehicles performing applications of interest to Caterpillar customers. The project involved three Phases of research, conducted over the time period of November 1998 through December 2001. This project led to the successful development of several technologies and demonstrations in realistic simulation that illustrated the effectiveness of our control approaches for distributed planning and cooperation in multi-robot teams. The primary objectives of this researchmore » project were to: (1) Develop autonomous control technologies to enable multiple vehicles to work together cooperatively, (2) Provide the foundational capabilities for a human operator to exercise oversight and guidance during the multi-vehicle task execution, and (3) Integrate these capabilities to the ALLIANCE-based autonomous control approach for multi-robot teams. These objectives have been successfully met with the results implemented and demonstrated in a near real-time multi-vehicle simulation of up to four vehicles performing mission-relevant tasks.« less

Mutually cooperative epidemics on power-law networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cui, Peng-Bi; Colaiori, Francesca; Castellano, Claudio

2017-08-01

The spread of an infectious disease can, in some cases, promote the propagation of other pathogens favoring violent outbreaks, which cause a discontinuous transition to an endemic state. The topology of the contact network plays a crucial role in these cooperative dynamics. We consider a susceptible-infected-removed-type model with two mutually cooperative pathogens: An individual already infected with one disease has an increased probability of getting infected by the other. We present a heterogeneous mean-field theoretical approach to the coinfection dynamics on generic uncorrelated power-law degree-distributed networks and validate its results by means of numerical simulations. We show that, when the second moment of the degree distribution is finite, the epidemic transition is continuous for low cooperativity, while it is discontinuous when cooperativity is sufficiently high. For scale-free networks, i.e., topologies with diverging second moment, the transition is instead always continuous. In this way we clarify the effect of heterogeneity and system size on the nature of the transition, and we validate the physical interpretation about the origin of the discontinuity.

Design and Simulation of Material-Integrated Distributed Sensor Processing with a Code-Based Agent Platform and Mobile Multi-Agent Systems

PubMed Central

Bosse, Stefan

2015-01-01

Multi-agent systems (MAS) can be used for decentralized and self-organizing data processing in a distributed system, like a resource-constrained sensor network, enabling distributed information extraction, for example, based on pattern recognition and self-organization, by decomposing complex tasks in simpler cooperative agents. Reliable MAS-based data processing approaches can aid the material-integration of structural-monitoring applications, with agent processing platforms scaled to the microchip level. The agent behavior, based on a dynamic activity-transition graph (ATG) model, is implemented with program code storing the control and the data state of an agent, which is novel. The program code can be modified by the agent itself using code morphing techniques and is capable of migrating in the network between nodes. The program code is a self-contained unit (a container) and embeds the agent data, the initialization instructions and the ATG behavior implementation. The microchip agent processing platform used for the execution of the agent code is a standalone multi-core stack machine with a zero-operand instruction format, leading to a small-sized agent program code, low system complexity and high system performance. The agent processing is token-queue-based, similar to Petri-nets. The agent platform can be implemented in software, too, offering compatibility at the operational and code level, supporting agent processing in strong heterogeneous networks. In this work, the agent platform embedded in a large-scale distributed sensor network is simulated at the architectural level by using agent-based simulation techniques. PMID:25690550

Design and simulation of material-integrated distributed sensor processing with a code-based agent platform and mobile multi-agent systems.

PubMed

Bosse, Stefan

2015-02-16

Multi-agent systems (MAS) can be used for decentralized and self-organizing data processing in a distributed system, like a resource-constrained sensor network, enabling distributed information extraction, for example, based on pattern recognition and self-organization, by decomposing complex tasks in simpler cooperative agents. Reliable MAS-based data processing approaches can aid the material-integration of structural-monitoring applications, with agent processing platforms scaled to the microchip level. The agent behavior, based on a dynamic activity-transition graph (ATG) model, is implemented with program code storing the control and the data state of an agent, which is novel. The program code can be modified by the agent itself using code morphing techniques and is capable of migrating in the network between nodes. The program code is a self-contained unit (a container) and embeds the agent data, the initialization instructions and the ATG behavior implementation. The microchip agent processing platform used for the execution of the agent code is a standalone multi-core stack machine with a zero-operand instruction format, leading to a small-sized agent program code, low system complexity and high system performance. The agent processing is token-queue-based, similar to Petri-nets. The agent platform can be implemented in software, too, offering compatibility at the operational and code level, supporting agent processing in strong heterogeneous networks. In this work, the agent platform embedded in a large-scale distributed sensor network is simulated at the architectural level by using agent-based simulation techniques.

Large-Scale Cooperative Task Distribution on Peer-to-Peer Networks

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-01-01

SUBTITLE Large-scale cooperative task distribution on peer-to-peer networks 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6...of agents, and each agent attempts to form a coalition with its most profitable partner. The second algorithm builds upon the Shapley for- mula [37...ters at the second layer. These Category Layer clusters each represent a single resource, and agents join one or more clusters based on their

Aerial cooperative transporting and assembling control using multiple quadrotor-manipulator systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qi, Yuhua; Wang, Jianan; Shan, Jiayuan

2018-02-01

In this paper, a fully distributed control scheme for aerial cooperative transporting and assembling is proposed using multiple quadrotor-manipulator systems with each quadrotor equipped with a robotic manipulator. First, the kinematic and dynamic models of a quadrotor with multi-Degree of Freedom (DOF) robotic manipulator are established together using Euler-Lagrange equations. Based on the aggregated dynamic model, the control scheme consisting of position controller, attitude controller and manipulator controller is presented. Regarding cooperative transporting and assembling, multiple quadrotor-manipulator systems should be able to form a desired formation without collision among quadrotors from any initial position. The desired formation is achieved by the distributed position controller and attitude controller, while the collision avoidance is guaranteed by an artificial potential function method. Then, the transporting and assembling tasks request the manipulators to reach the desired angles cooperatively, which is achieved by the distributed manipulator controller. The overall stability of the closed-loop system is proven by a Lyapunov method and Matrosov's theorem. In the end, the proposed control scheme is simplified for the real application and then validated by two formation flying missions of four quadrotors with 2-DOF manipulators.

Implementing interorganizational cooperation in labour market reintegration: a case study.

PubMed

Ståhl, Christian

2012-06-01

To bring people with complex medical, social and vocational needs back to the labour market, interorganizational cooperation is often needed. Yet, studies of processes and strategies for achieving sustainable interorganizational cooperation are sparse. The aim of this study was to analyse the implementation processes of Swedish legislation on financial coordination, with specific focus on different strategies for and perspectives on implementing interorganizational cooperation. A multiple-case study was used, where two local associations for financial coordination were studied in order to elucidate and compare the development of cooperative work in two settings. The material, collected during a 3-year period, consisted of documents, individual interviews with managers, and focus groups with officials. Two different implementation strategies were identified. In case 1, a linear strategy was used to implement cooperative projects, which led to difficulties in maintaining cooperative work forms due to a fragmented and time-limited implementation process. In case 2, an interactive strategy was used, where managers and politicians were continuously involved in developing a central cooperation team that became a central part of a developing structure for interorganizational cooperation. An interactive cooperation strategy with long-term joint financing was here shown to be successful in overcoming organizational barriers to cooperation. It is suggested that a strategy based on adaptation to local conditions, flexibility and constant evaluation is preferred for developing sustainable interorganizational cooperation when implementing policies or legislation affecting interorganizational relationships.

Spatial Information in local society's cultural conservation and research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jang, J.-J.; Liao, H.-M.; Fan, I.-C.

2015-09-01

Center for Geographic Information Science, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences,Academia Sinica (GIS center), Coordinate short-, medium-, and long-term operations of multidisciplinary researches focusing on related topics in the sciences and humanities. Based on the requirements of multi-disciplinary research applications, sustain collection and construction of sustaining and unifying spatial base data and knowledge and building of spatial data infrastructure. Since the 1990s, GIS center build geographic information platform: "Time and space infrastructure of Chinese civilization" (Chinese Civilizationin Time and Space, CCTS) and "Taiwan History and Culture Map" (Taiwan History and Culture in Time and Space, THCTS) . the goal of both system is constructing an integrated GIS-based application infrastructure on the spatial extent of China and Taiwan, in the timeframe of Chinese and Taiwanese history, and with the contents of Chinese and Taiwanese civilization. Base on THCTS, we began to build Cultural Resources GIS(CRGIS, http://crgis.rchss.sinica.edu.tw) in 2006, to collect temples, historic Monuments, historic buildings, old trees, wind lions god and other cultural resource in Taiwan, and provide a platform for the volunteers to make for all types of tangible, intangible cultural resources, add, edit, organize and query data via Content Management System(CMS) . CRGIS collected aggregated 13,000 temples, 4,900 churches. On this basis, draw a variety of religious beliefs map-multiple times Temple distributions, different main god distributions, church distribution. Such as Mazu maps, Multiple times temple distributions map (before 1823, 1823-1895,1895-1949,1949-2015 years) at Taijiang inner sea areas in Tainan. In Taiwan, there is a religious ritual through folk activities for a period ranging from one day to several days, passing specific geospatial range and passes through some temples or houses. Such an important folk activity somewhat similar to Western parade, called " raojing " , the main spirit is passing through of these ranges in the process, to reach the people within bless range, many scholars and academic experts's folk research are dependent on such spatial information. 2012, GIS center applied WebGIS and GPS to gather raojing activities spatial information in cooperation with multi-units, aggregated seven sessions, 22 days, 442 temples had pass through . The atlas also published named "Atlas of the 2012 Religious Processions in the Tainan Region" in 2014. we also applied national cultural resources data form relevant government authorities, through the metadata design and data processing(geocoding), established cultural geospatial and thematic information ,such as 800 monuments, 1,100 historic buildings and 4,300 old trees data. In recent years, based on CRGIS technology and operational concepts, different domain experts or local culture-ahistory research worker/team had to cooperate with us to establish local or thematic material and cultural resources. As in collaboration with local culture-history research worker in Kinmen County in 2012, build Kinmen intangible cultural assets - Wind Lion God ,set metadata and build 122 wind lion god `s attribute data and maps through field survey, it is worth mention such fieldwork data integrity is more than the official registration data form Kinmen National Park, the number of is wind lion god more than 40; in 2013,we were in cooperation with academic experts to establish property data and map of the theatre during the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan, a total of 170 theatres ; we were in cooperation with Japanese scholars, used his 44 detaile field survey data of sugar refineries during the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan ,to produce a sugar refineries distribution map and extend to a thematic web(http://map.net.tw/) [The Cultural Heritage Maps of Taiwan Suger Factories in a Century]site according to CRGIS independent cultural concept. Deployment and operation of the CRGIS, the meaning is not only build the thematic GIS system ,but also contain these concepts: Open Data, Wikipedia ,Public Participation, and we provide an interactive platform with culture resource data and geospatial technology. In addition to providing these reference material for local culture education, local cultural recognition, but to further cooperate with scholars, academic experts , local culture-history research worker / team, accumulated rich record of the past, research results, through the spatial database planning, data processing(ex. geocoding), field survey, geospatial materials overlapping, such as nesting geospatial technology to compile the cultural information and value-added applications.

Social setting, intuition and experience in laboratory experiments interact to shape cooperative decision-making

PubMed Central

Capraro, Valerio; Cococcioni, Giorgia

2015-01-01

Recent studies suggest that cooperative decision-making in one-shot interactions is a history-dependent dynamic process: promoting intuition versus deliberation typically has a positive effect on cooperation (dynamism) among people living in a cooperative setting and with no previous experience in economic games on cooperation (history dependence). Here, we report on a laboratory experiment exploring how these findings transfer to a non-cooperative setting. We find two major results: (i) promoting intuition versus deliberation has no effect on cooperative behaviour among inexperienced subjects living in a non-cooperative setting; (ii) experienced subjects cooperate more than inexperienced subjects, but only under time pressure. These results suggest that cooperation is a learning process, rather than an instinctive impulse or a self-controlled choice, and that experience operates primarily via the channel of intuition. Our findings shed further light on the cognitive basis of human cooperative decision-making and provide further support for the recently proposed social heuristics hypothesis. PMID:26156762

Reciprocity Outperforms Conformity to Promote Cooperation.

PubMed

Romano, Angelo; Balliet, Daniel

2017-10-01

Evolutionary psychologists have proposed two processes that could give rise to the pervasiveness of human cooperation observed among individuals who are not genetically related: reciprocity and conformity. We tested whether reciprocity outperformed conformity in promoting cooperation, especially when these psychological processes would promote a different cooperative or noncooperative response. To do so, across three studies, we observed participants' cooperation with a partner after learning (a) that their partner had behaved cooperatively (or not) on several previous trials and (b) that their group members had behaved cooperatively (or not) on several previous trials with that same partner. Although we found that people both reciprocate and conform, reciprocity has a stronger influence on cooperation. Moreover, we found that conformity can be partly explained by a concern about one's reputation-a finding that supports a reciprocity framework.

Photoelectron angular distributions for states of any mixed character: An experiment-friendly model for atomic, molecular, and cluster anions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khuseynov, Dmitry; Blackstone, Christopher C.; Culberson, Lori M.; Sanov, Andrei

2014-09-01

We present a model for laboratory-frame photoelectron angular distributions in direct photodetachment from (in principle) any molecular orbital using linearly polarized light. A transparent mathematical approach is used to generalize the Cooper-Zare central-potential model to anionic states of any mixed character. In the limit of atomic-anion photodetachment, the model reproduces the Cooper-Zare formula. In the case of an initial orbital described as a superposition of s and p-type functions, the model yields the previously obtained s-p mixing formula. The formalism is further advanced using the Hanstorp approximation, whereas the relative scaling of the partial-wave cross-sections is assumed to follow the Wigner threshold law. The resulting model describes the energy dependence of photoelectron anisotropy for any atomic, molecular, or cluster anions, usually without requiring a direct calculation of the transition dipole matrix elements. As a benchmark case, we apply the p-d variant of the model to the experimental results for NO- photodetachment and show that the observed anisotropy trend is described well using physically meaningful values of the model parameters. Overall, the presented formalism delivers insight into the photodetachment process and affords a new quantitative strategy for analyzing the photoelectron angular distributions and characterizing mixed-character molecular orbitals using photoelectron imaging spectroscopy of negative ions.

Photoelectron angular distributions for states of any mixed character: an experiment-friendly model for atomic, molecular, and cluster anions.

PubMed

Khuseynov, Dmitry; Blackstone, Christopher C; Culberson, Lori M; Sanov, Andrei

2014-09-28

We present a model for laboratory-frame photoelectron angular distributions in direct photodetachment from (in principle) any molecular orbital using linearly polarized light. A transparent mathematical approach is used to generalize the Cooper-Zare central-potential model to anionic states of any mixed character. In the limit of atomic-anion photodetachment, the model reproduces the Cooper-Zare formula. In the case of an initial orbital described as a superposition of s and p-type functions, the model yields the previously obtained s-p mixing formula. The formalism is further advanced using the Hanstorp approximation, whereas the relative scaling of the partial-wave cross-sections is assumed to follow the Wigner threshold law. The resulting model describes the energy dependence of photoelectron anisotropy for any atomic, molecular, or cluster anions, usually without requiring a direct calculation of the transition dipole matrix elements. As a benchmark case, we apply the p-d variant of the model to the experimental results for NO(-) photodetachment and show that the observed anisotropy trend is described well using physically meaningful values of the model parameters. Overall, the presented formalism delivers insight into the photodetachment process and affords a new quantitative strategy for analyzing the photoelectron angular distributions and characterizing mixed-character molecular orbitals using photoelectron imaging spectroscopy of negative ions.

Patch depletion, niche structuring and the evolution of co-operative foraging

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Many animals live in groups. One proposed reason is that grouping allows cooperative food finding. Group foraging models suggest that grouping could increase food finding rates, but that such group processes could be evolutionarily unstable. These models assume discrete food patches which are fully detectable. However, often animals may only be able to perceive local parts of larger-scale environmental patterns. We therefore use a spatial individual-based model where food patches are aggregates of food items beyond the scale of individual perception. We then study the evolution of foraging and grouping behavior in environments with different resource distributions. Results Our results show that grouping can evolve to increase food intake rates. Two kinds of grouping evolve: traveling pairs and opportunistic grouping, where individuals only aggregate when feeding. Grouping evolves because it allows individuals to better sense and deplete patches. Such enhanced patch depletion is particularly apparent on fragmented and partially depleted patches, which are especially difficult for solitary foragers to deplete. Solitary foragers often leave a patch prematurely because a whole patch cannot be observed directly. In groups, individuals that are still eating allow other individuals that inadvertently leave the patch, to return and continue feeding. For this information sharing a grouping tendency is sufficient and observing whether a neighbor is eating is not necessary. Grouping therefore leads to a release from individual sensing constraints and a shift in niche specialization, allowing individuals to better exploit partially depleted patches. Conclusions The evolved group foraging can be seen as cooperative in the sense that it leads to a mutually-beneficial synergy: together individuals can achieve more than on their own. This cooperation exists as a group-level process generated by the interaction between grouping and the environment. Thus we reveal how such a synergy can originate in evolution as a side-effect of grouping via multi-level selection. Here there is no cooperative dilemma as individuals cannot avoid producing information for their neighbors. This scenario may be a useful starting point for studying the evolution of further social and cooperative complexity. PMID:22093680

Self-affirmation model for football goal distributions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bittner, E.; Nußbaumer, A.; Janke, W.; Weigel, M.

2007-06-01

Analyzing football score data with statistical techniques, we investigate how the highly co-operative nature of the game is reflected in averaged properties such as the distributions of scored goals for the home and away teams. It turns out that in particular the tails of the distributions are not well described by independent Bernoulli trials, but rather well modeled by negative binomial or generalized extreme value distributions. To understand this behavior from first principles, we suggest to modify the Bernoulli random process to include a simple component of self-affirmation which seems to describe the data surprisingly well and allows to interpret the observed deviation from Gaussian statistics. The phenomenological distributions used before can be understood as special cases within this framework. We analyzed historical football score data from many leagues in Europe as well as from international tournaments and found the proposed models to be applicable rather universally. In particular, here we compare men's and women's leagues and the separate German leagues during the cold war times and find some remarkable differences.

Pore-scale modeling of capillary trapping in water-wet porous media: A new cooperative pore-body filling model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruspini, L. C.; Farokhpoor, R.; Øren, P. E.

2017-10-01

We present a pore-network model study of capillary trapping in water-wet porous media. The amount and distribution of trapped non-wetting phase is determined by the competition between two trapping mechanisms - snap-off and cooperative pore-body filling. We develop a new model to describe the pore-body filling mechanism in geologically realistic pore-networks. The model accounts for the geometrical characteristics of the pore, the spatial location of the connecting throats and the local fluid topology at the time of the displacement. We validate the model by comparing computed capillary trapping curves with published data for four different water-wet rocks. Computations are performed on pore-networks extracted from micro-CT images and process-based reconstructions of the actual rocks used in the experiments. Compared with commonly used stochastic models, the new model describes more accurately the experimental measurements, especially for well connected porous systems where trapping is controlled by subtleties of the pore structure. The new model successfully predicts relative permeabilities and residual saturation for Bentheimer sandstone using in-situ measured contact angles as input to the simulations. The simulated trapped cluster size distributions are compared with predictions from percolation theory.

Consensus-based distributed cooperative learning from closed-loop neural control systems.

PubMed

Chen, Weisheng; Hua, Shaoyong; Zhang, Huaguang

2015-02-01

In this paper, the neural tracking problem is addressed for a group of uncertain nonlinear systems where the system structures are identical but the reference signals are different. This paper focuses on studying the learning capability of neural networks (NNs) during the control process. First, we propose a novel control scheme called distributed cooperative learning (DCL) control scheme, by establishing the communication topology among adaptive laws of NN weights to share their learned knowledge online. It is further proved that if the communication topology is undirected and connected, all estimated weights of NNs can converge to small neighborhoods around their optimal values over a domain consisting of the union of all state orbits. Second, as a corollary it is shown that the conclusion on the deterministic learning still holds in the decentralized adaptive neural control scheme where, however, the estimated weights of NNs just converge to small neighborhoods of the optimal values along their own state orbits. Thus, the learned controllers obtained by DCL scheme have the better generalization capability than ones obtained by decentralized learning method. A simulation example is provided to verify the effectiveness and advantages of the control schemes proposed in this paper.

Cooperative Educational Project - The Southern Appalachians: A Changing World

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clark, S.; Back, J.; Tubiolo, A.; Romanaux, E.

2001-12-01

The Southern Appalachian Mountains, a popular recreation area known for its beauty and rich biodiversity, was chosen by the U.S. Geological Survey as the site to produce a video, booklet, and teachers guide to explain basic geologic principles and how long-term geologic processes affect landscapes, ecosystems, and the quality of human life. The video was produced in cooperation with the National Park Service and has benefited from the advice of the Southern Appalachian Man and Biosphere Cooperative, a group of 11 Federal and three State agencies that works to promote the environmental health, stewardship, and sustainable development of the resources of the region. Much of the information in the video is included in the booklet. A teachers guide provides supporting activities that teachers may use to reinforce the concepts presented in the video and booklet. Although the Southern Appalachians include some of the most visited recreation areas in the country, few are aware of the geologic underpinnings that have contributed to the beauty, biological diversity, and quality of human life in the region. The video includes several animated segments that show paleogeographic reconstructions of the Earth and movements of the North American continent over time; the formation of the Ocoee sedimentary basin beginning about 750 million years ago; the collision of the North American and African continents about 270 million years ago; the formation of granites and similar rocks, faults, and geologic windows; and the extent of glaciation in North America. The animated segments are tied to familiar public-access localities in the region. They illustrate geologic processes and time periods, making the geologic setting of the region more understandable to tourists and local students. The video reinforces the concept that understanding geologic processes and settings is an important component of informed land management to sustain the quality of life in a region. The video and a teachers guide will be distributed by the Southern Appalachian Man and Biosphere to local middle and high schools, libraries, and visitors centers in the region. It will be distributed by the U.S. Geological Survey and sold in Park Service and Forest Service gift shops in the region.

Study on the Flexibility in Cross-Border Water Resources Cooperation Governance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Zongrui; Wang, Teng; Zhou, Li

2018-02-01

Flexible strategy is very important to cross-border cooperation in international rivers water resources, which may be employed to reconcile contradictions and ease conflicts. Flexible characters of cross-border cooperation in international rivers water resources could be analyzed and revealed, using flexible strategic management framework, by taking international cooperation protocols related to water from Transboundary Freshwater Disputes Database (TFDD) as samples from the number of cooperation issues, the amount of management layers and regulator agencies in cooperation organization and the categories of income (cost) distribution (allocation) mode. The research demonstrates that there are some flexible features of cross-border cooperation in international rivers water resources: Riparian countries would select relative diversification strategies related to water, tend to construct a flexible cooperation organization featured with moderate hierarchies from vertical perspective and simplified administrations from horizontal perspective, and adopt selective inducement modes to respect ‘joint and several liability’.

Prisoner's dilemma on scale-free networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gallos, Lazaros

2005-07-01

In this work, we study via computer simulations the spatial prisoner's dilemma (PD) game for the general case where the distribution of the connections between the individuals playing the game obeys a power law. This distribution has been shown to describe many aspects of social acquaintances, while the PD game is a powerful tool for studying mutual trust and cooperation among individuals. We study this model under different conditions, such as varying degree of connectivity and payoff value. Depending on the exact conditions of the game, we observe a plethora of behaviors for the percentage of cooperating agents. For example, the same network may settle in an equilibrium configuration of either low or high percentage of cooperators, or induce a transition between these two regimes.

A security mechanism based on evolutionary game in fog computing.

PubMed

Sun, Yan; Lin, Fuhong; Zhang, Nan

2018-02-01

Fog computing is a distributed computing paradigm at the edge of the network and requires cooperation of users and sharing of resources. When users in fog computing open their resources, their devices are easily intercepted and attacked because they are accessed through wireless network and present an extensive geographical distribution. In this study, a credible third party was introduced to supervise the behavior of users and protect the security of user cooperation. A fog computing security mechanism based on human nervous system is proposed, and the strategy for a stable system evolution is calculated. The MATLAB simulation results show that the proposed mechanism can reduce the number of attack behaviors effectively and stimulate users to cooperate in application tasks positively.

Impact of heterogeneous activity and community structure on the evolutionary success of cooperators in social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Zhi-Xi; Rong, Zhihai; Yang, Han-Xin

2015-01-01

Recent empirical studies suggest that heavy-tailed distributions of human activities are universal in real social dynamics [L. Muchnik, S. Pei, L. C. Parra, S. D. S. Reis, J. S. Andrade Jr., S. Havlin, and H. A. Makse, Sci. Rep. 3, 1783 (2013), 10.1038/srep01783]. On the other hand, community structure is ubiquitous in biological and social networks [M. E. J. Newman, Nat. Phys. 8, 25 (2012), 10.1038/nphys2162]. Motivated by these facts, we here consider the evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game taking place on top of a real social network to investigate how the community structure and the heterogeneity in activity of individuals affect the evolution of cooperation. In particular, we account for a variation of the birth-death process (which can also be regarded as a proportional imitation rule from a social point of view) for the strategy updating under both weak and strong selection (meaning the payoffs harvested from games contribute either slightly or heavily to the individuals' performance). By implementing comparative studies, where the players are selected either randomly or in terms of their actual activities to play games with their immediate neighbors, we figure out that heterogeneous activity benefits the emergence of collective cooperation in a harsh environment (the action for cooperation is costly) under strong selection, whereas it impairs the formation of altruism under weak selection. Moreover, we find that the abundance of communities in the social network can evidently foster the formation of cooperation under strong selection, in contrast to the games evolving on randomized counterparts. Our results are therefore helpful for us to better understand the evolution of cooperation in real social systems.

A formation control strategy with coupling weights for the multi-robot system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liang, Xudong; Wang, Siming; Li, Weijie

2017-12-01

The distributed formation problem of the multi-robot system with general linear dynamic characteristics and directed communication topology is discussed. In order to avoid that the multi-robot system can not maintain the desired formation in the complex communication environment, the distributed cooperative algorithm with coupling weights based on zipf distribution is designed. The asymptotic stability condition for the formation of the multi-robot system is given, and the theory of the graph and the Lyapunov theory are used to prove that the formation can converge to the desired geometry formation and the desired motion rules of the virtual leader under this condition. Nontrivial simulations are performed to validate the effectiveness of the distributed cooperative algorithm with coupling weights.

Distributed Multi-Cell Resource Allocation with Price Based ICI Coordination in Downlink OFDMA Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lv, Gangming; Zhu, Shihua; Hui, Hui

Multi-cell resource allocation under minimum rate request for each user in OFDMA networks is addressed in this paper. Based on Lagrange dual decomposition theory, the joint multi-cell resource allocation problem is decomposed and modeled as a limited-cooperative game, and a distributed multi-cell resource allocation algorithm is thus proposed. Analysis and simulation results show that, compared with non-cooperative iterative water-filling algorithm, the proposed algorithm can remarkably reduce the ICI level and improve overall system performances.

Global Positioning Systems Directorate: GPS Update

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-04-29

Webpage • Load Operational Software on over 970,000 SAASM Receivers • Distribute PRNs for the World - 120 for US and 90 for GNSS International...Cooperation • 56 Authorized Allied Users - 25+ Years of Cooperation • GNSS -Europe - Galilee - China - COMPASS -Russia - GLONASS - Japan - QZSS

A Socio-technical Approach for Transient SME Alliances

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rezgui, Yacine

The paper discusses technical requirements to promote the adoption of alliance modes of operation by SMEs in the construction sector. These requirements have provided a basis for specifying a set of functionality to support the collaboration and cooperation needs of SMEs. While service-oriented architectures and semantic web services provide the middleware technology to implement the identified functionality, a number of key technical limitations have been identified, including lack of support for the dynamic and non-functional characteristics of SME alliances distributed business processes, lack of execution monitoring functionality to manage running business processes, and lack of support for semantic reasoning to enable SME business process service composition. The paper examines these issues and provides key directions for supporting SME alliances effectively.

Automation in the Space Station module power management and distribution Breadboard

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walls, Bryan; Lollar, Louis F.

1990-01-01

The Space Station Module Power Management and Distribution (SSM/PMAD) Breadboard, located at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, models the power distribution within a Space Station Freedom Habitation or Laboratory module. Originally designed for 20 kHz ac power, the system is now being converted to high voltage dc power with power levels on a par with those expected for a space station module. In addition to the power distribution hardware, the system includes computer control through a hierarchy of processes. The lowest level process consists of fast, simple (from a computing standpoint) switchgear, capable of quickly safing the system. The next level consists of local load center processors called Lowest Level Processors (LLP's). These LLP's execute load scheduling, perform redundant switching, and shed loads which use more than scheduled power. The level above the LLP's contains a Communication and Algorithmic Controller (CAC) which coordinates communications with the highest level. Finally, at this highest level, three cooperating Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems manage load prioritization, load scheduling, load shedding, and fault recovery and management. The system provides an excellent venue for developing and examining advanced automation techniques. The current system and the plans for its future are examined.

Data Information for Global Change Studies: NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers and Cooperating Data Centers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2000-01-01

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is an integral part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Earth Science Enterprise (ESE). ESE is a long-term global change research program designed to improve our understanding of the Earth's interrelated processes involving the atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces, and polar regions. Data from EOS instruments and other Earth science measurement systems are useful in understanding the causes and processes of global climate change and the consequences of human activities. The EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) provides a structure for data management and user services for products derived from EOS satellite instruments and other NASA Earth science data. Within the EOSDIS framework, the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) have been established to provide expertise in one or more Earth science disciplines. The DAACs and cooperating data centers provide data and information services to support the global change research community. Much of the development of the DAACs has been in anticipation of the enormous amount of data expected from EOS instruments to be launched within the next two decades. Terra, the EOS flagship launched in December 1999, is the first of a series of EOS satellites to carry several instruments with multispectral capabilities. Some data products from these instruments are now available from several of the DAACs. These and other data products can be ordered through the EOS Data Gateway (EDG) and DAAC-specific online ordering systems.

Non-cooperative game theory in biology and cooperative reasoning in humans.

PubMed

Kabalak, Alihan; Smirnova, Elena; Jost, Jürgen

2015-06-01

The readiness for spontaneous cooperation together with the assumptions that others share this cooperativity has been identified as a fundamental feature that distinguishes humans from other animals, including the great apes. At the same time, cooperativity presents an evolutionary puzzle because non-cooperators do better in a group of cooperators. We develop here an analysis of the process leading to cooperation in terms of rationality concepts, game theory and epistemic logic. We are, however, not attempting to reconstruct the actual evolutionary process. We rather want to provide the logical structure underlying cooperation in order to understand why cooperation is possible and what kind of reasoning and beliefs would lead to cooperative decision-making. Game theory depends on an underlying common belief in non-cooperative rationality of the players, and cooperativity similarly can utilize a common belief in cooperative rationality as its basis. We suggest a weaker concept of rational decision-making in games that encompasses both types of decision-making. We build this up in stages, starting from simple optimization, then using anticipation of the reaction of others, to finally arrive at reflexive and cooperative reasoning. While each stage is more difficult than the preceding, importantly, we also identify a reduction of complexity achieved by the consistent application of higher stage reasoning.

Green Energy Options for Consumer-Owned Business

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Co-opPlus of Western Massachusetts

2006-05-01

The goal of this project was to define, test, and prototype a replicable business model for consumer-owned cooperatives. The result is a replicable consumer-owned cooperative business model for the generation, interconnection, and distribution of renewable energy that incorporates energy conservation and efficiency improvements.

76 FR 8720 - Notice of Proposed Solicitation for Cooperative Agreement Applications (SCAA)

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-02-15

... Procurement Technical Assistance Program (PTAP) by awarding cost sharing cooperative agreements to assist eligible entities in establishing or maintaining procurement technical assistance centers (PTACs) pursuant... available for distribution. Written comments regarding this proposed SCAA may be submitted via mail to...

75 FR 24663 - Notice of Proposed Solicitation for Cooperative Agreement Applications (SCAA)

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-05-05

... Procurement Technical Assistance Program (PTAP) by awarding cost sharing cooperative agreements to assist eligible entities in establishing or maintaining procurement technical assistance centers (PTACs) pursuant... recipients'' at the bottom of the page). Printed copies are not available for distribution. Written comments...

Multi-Agent Cooperative Target Search

PubMed Central

Hu, Jinwen; Xie, Lihua; Xu, Jun; Xu, Zhao

2014-01-01

This paper addresses a vision-based cooperative search for multiple mobile ground targets by a group of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with limited sensing and communication capabilities. The airborne camera on each UAV has a limited field of view and its target discriminability varies as a function of altitude. First, by dividing the whole surveillance region into cells, a probability map can be formed for each UAV indicating the probability of target existence within each cell. Then, we propose a distributed probability map updating model which includes the fusion of measurement information, information sharing among neighboring agents, information decay and transmission due to environmental changes such as the target movement. Furthermore, we formulate the target search problem as a multi-agent cooperative coverage control problem by optimizing the collective coverage area and the detection performance. The proposed map updating model and the cooperative control scheme are distributed, i.e., assuming that each agent only communicates with its neighbors within its communication range. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is illustrated by simulation. PMID:24865884

Social setting, intuition and experience in laboratory experiments interact to shape cooperative decision-making.

PubMed

Capraro, Valerio; Cococcioni, Giorgia

2015-07-22

Recent studies suggest that cooperative decision-making in one-shot interactions is a history-dependent dynamic process: promoting intuition versus deliberation typically has a positive effect on cooperation (dynamism) among people living in a cooperative setting and with no previous experience in economic games on cooperation (history dependence). Here, we report on a laboratory experiment exploring how these findings transfer to a non-cooperative setting. We find two major results: (i) promoting intuition versus deliberation has no effect on cooperative behaviour among inexperienced subjects living in a non-cooperative setting; (ii) experienced subjects cooperate more than inexperienced subjects, but only under time pressure. These results suggest that cooperation is a learning process, rather than an instinctive impulse or a self-controlled choice, and that experience operates primarily via the channel of intuition. Our findings shed further light on the cognitive basis of human cooperative decision-making and provide further support for the recently proposed social heuristics hypothesis. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) Observations of Processes Controlling Spatio-Temporal Tropospheric-Ozone Distributions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Newchurch, M.; Johnson, M. S.; Leblanc, T.; Langford, A. O.; Senff, C. J.; Kuang, S.; Strawbridge, K. B.; McGee, T. J.; Berkoff, T.; Chen, G.

2017-12-01

The Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network, TOLNet, has matured into a credible scientific group of six ozone lidars that are capable of accurate, high-spatio-temporal-resolution measurement of tropospheric ozone structures and morphology These lidars have demonstrated their 10% accuracy in several intercomparison campaigns and have participated in several scientific investigations both in small and large instrumentation groups. They have investigated many scientific phenomena including stratosphere-to-troposphere exchange, boundary-layer development, the interaction between the boundary layer and the free troposphere, Front-range-ozone morphology, urban outflow, land/sea interactions, et al. These processes determine the ozone distribution affecting large portions of the population. The TOLNet group is now making significant contributions to the innovation of ozone lidar instrumentation and retrieval techniques. The campaigns proposed over the next few years build on demonstrated capability to address more difficult scientific issues, especially the ozone production potential and distribution from wildfires and prescribed burns. Through scientific cooperation with other ground-based profiling instrumentation, TOLNet is also contributing to the validation of the new measurement capabilities of TEMPO.

The infrared video image pseudocolor processing system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Yong; Zhang, JiangLing

2003-11-01

The infrared video image pseudo-color processing system, emphasizing on the algorithm and its implementation for measured object"s 2D temperature distribution using pseudo-color technology, is introduced in the paper. The data of measured object"s thermal image is the objective presentation of its surface temperature distribution, but the color has a close relationship with people"s subjective cognition. The so-called pseudo-color technology cross the bridge between subjectivity and objectivity, and represents the measured object"s temperature distribution in reason and at first hand. The algorithm of pseudo-color is based on the distance of IHS space. Thereby the definition of pseudo-color visual resolution is put forward. Both the software (which realize the map from the sample data to the color space) and the hardware (which carry out the conversion from the color space to palette by HDL) co-operate. Therefore the two levels map which is logic map and physical map respectively is presented. The system has been used abroad in failure diagnose of electric power devices, fire protection for lifesaving and even SARS detection in CHINA lately.

Peer-to-peer model for the area coverage and cooperative control of mobile sensor networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tan, Jindong; Xi, Ning

2004-09-01

This paper presents a novel model and distributed algorithms for the cooperation and redeployment of mobile sensor networks. A mobile sensor network composes of a collection of wireless connected mobile robots equipped with a variety of sensors. In such a sensor network, each mobile node has sensing, computation, communication, and locomotion capabilities. The locomotion ability enhances the autonomous deployment of the system. The system can be rapidly deployed to hostile environment, inaccessible terrains or disaster relief operations. The mobile sensor network is essentially a cooperative multiple robot system. This paper first presents a peer-to-peer model to define the relationship between neighboring communicating robots. Delaunay Triangulation and Voronoi diagrams are used to define the geometrical relationship between sensor nodes. This distributed model allows formal analysis for the fusion of spatio-temporal sensory information of the network. Based on the distributed model, this paper discusses a fault tolerant algorithm for autonomous self-deployment of the mobile robots. The algorithm considers the environment constraints, the presence of obstacles and the nonholonomic constraints of the robots. The distributed algorithm enables the system to reconfigure itself such that the area covered by the system can be enlarged. Simulation results have shown the effectiveness of the distributed model and deployment algorithms.

Relational Diversity Promotes Cooperation in Prisoner’s Dilemma Games

PubMed Central

Xu, Bo; Wang, Jianwei; Deng, Ruipu; Li, Miao

2014-01-01

Relational diversity can be characterized by heterogeneous distributions of tie strengths in social networks and this diversity is present not only among humans, but throughout the animal world. We account for this observation by analyzing two network datasets from Facebook. We measure the strength of a tie by calculating the extent of overlap of friends between the two individuals. Based on the previous findings in human experiments, we argue that it is very unlikely that players will allocate their investments equally to their neighbors. There is a tendency that players prefer to donate more to their intimate friends. We find that if players preferentially allocate their investments to their good friends, cooperation will be promoted in PDG. We proved that the facilitation of the cooperative strategy relies mostly on the cooperative allies between best friends, resulting in the formation of cooperative clusters which are able to prevail against the defectors even when there is a large cost to cooperate. Moreover, we discover that the effect of relational diversity cannot be analyzed by adopting classical complex networks models, because neither of the artificial networks is able to produce networks with diverse distributions of tie strengths. It is of vital importance to introduce real social networks to study the influence of diverse relations especially when it comes to humans. This research proposes a brand new perspective to understand the influence of social relations on the emergence of cooperation in evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma games. PMID:25474354

Relational diversity promotes cooperation in prisoner's dilemma games.

PubMed

Xu, Bo; Wang, Jianwei; Deng, Ruipu; Li, Miao

2014-01-01

Relational diversity can be characterized by heterogeneous distributions of tie strengths in social networks and this diversity is present not only among humans, but throughout the animal world. We account for this observation by analyzing two network datasets from Facebook. We measure the strength of a tie by calculating the extent of overlap of friends between the two individuals. Based on the previous findings in human experiments, we argue that it is very unlikely that players will allocate their investments equally to their neighbors. There is a tendency that players prefer to donate more to their intimate friends. We find that if players preferentially allocate their investments to their good friends, cooperation will be promoted in PDG. We proved that the facilitation of the cooperative strategy relies mostly on the cooperative allies between best friends, resulting in the formation of cooperative clusters which are able to prevail against the defectors even when there is a large cost to cooperate. Moreover, we discover that the effect of relational diversity cannot be analyzed by adopting classical complex networks models, because neither of the artificial networks is able to produce networks with diverse distributions of tie strengths. It is of vital importance to introduce real social networks to study the influence of diverse relations especially when it comes to humans. This research proposes a brand new perspective to understand the influence of social relations on the emergence of cooperation in evolutionary prisoner's dilemma games.

Relationship between Norm-internalization and Cooperation in N-person Prisoners' Dilemma Games

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matsumoto, Mitsutaka

In this paper, I discuss the problems of ``order in social situations'' using a computer simulation of iterated N-person prisoners' dilemma game. It has been claimed that, in the case of the 2-person prisoners' dilemma, repetition of games and the reciprocal use of the ``tit-for-tat'' strategy promote the possibility of cooperation. However, in cases of N-person prisoners' dilemma where N is greater than 2, the logic does not work effectively. The most essential problem is so called ``sanctioning problems''. In this paper, firstly, I discuss the ``sanctioning problems'' which were introduced by Axelrod and Keohane in 1986. Based on the model formalized by Axelrod, I propose a new model, in which I added a mechanism of players' payoff changes in the Axelrod's model. I call this mechanism norm-internalization and call our model ``norm-internalization game''. Second, by using the model, I investigated the relationship between agents' norm-internalization (payoff-alternation) and the possibilities of cooperation. The results of computer simulation indicated that unequal distribution of cooperating norm and uniform distribution of sanctioning norm are more effective in establishing cooperation. I discuss the mathematical features and the implications of the results on social science.

The effects of reputational and social knowledge on cooperation

PubMed Central

Gallo, Edoardo; Yan, Chang

2015-01-01

The emergence and sustenance of cooperative behavior is fundamental for a society to thrive. Recent experimental studies have shown that cooperation increases in dynamic networks in which subjects can choose their partners. However, these studies did not vary reputational knowledge, or what subjects know about other’s past actions, which has long been recognized as an important factor in supporting cooperation. They also did not give subjects access to global social knowledge, or information on who is connected to whom in the group. As a result, it remained unknown how reputational and social knowledge foster cooperative behavior in dynamic networks both independently and by complementing each other. In an experimental setting, we show that global reputational knowledge is crucial to sustaining a high level of cooperation and welfare. Cooperation is associated with the emergence of dense and clustered networks with highly cooperative hubs. Global social knowledge has no effect on the aggregate level of cooperation. A community analysis shows that the addition of global social knowledge to global reputational knowledge affects the distribution of cooperative activity: cooperators form a separate community that achieves a higher cooperation level than the community of defectors. Members of the community of cooperators achieve a higher payoff from interactions within the community than members of the less cooperative community. PMID:25775544

Induced-Dipole-Directed, Cooperative Self-Assembly of a Benzotrithiophene.

PubMed

Ikeda, Toshiaki; Adachi, Hiroaki; Fueno, Hiroyuki; Tanaka, Kazuyoshi; Haino, Takeharu

2017-10-06

A benzotrithiophene derivative possessing phenylisoxazoles self-assembled to form stacks. The molecule isodesmically self-assembled in chloroform, whereas it self-assembled in a cooperative fashion in decalin and in methylcyclohexane. Thermodynamic studies based on isodesmic, van der Schoot, and Goldstein-Stryer mathematical models revealed that the self-assembly processes are enthalpically driven and entropically opposed. An enthalpy-entropy compensation plot indicates that the assembly processes in chloroform, decalin, and methylcyclohexane are closely related. The enthalpic gains in less-polar solvents are greater than those in more-polar solvents, resulting in the formation of large assemblies in decalin and in methylcyclohexane. The formation of large assemblies leads to cooperative assemblies. The elongation process is enthalpically more favored than the nucleation process, which drives the cooperativity of the self-assembly. DFT calculations suggested that a hexameric assembly is more stable than tetrameric or dimeric assemblies. Cooperative self-assemblies based on intermolecular interactions other than hydrogen bonding have rarely been reported. It is demonstrated herein that van der Waals interactions, including induced dipole-dipole interactions, can drive the cooperative assembly of planar π-conjugated molecules.

Cooperative water network system to reduce carbon footprint.

PubMed

Lim, Seong-Rin; Park, Jong Moon

2008-08-15

Much effort has been made in reducing the carbon footprint to mitigate climate change. However, water network synthesis has been focused on reducing the consumption and cost of freshwater within each industrial plant. The objective of this study is to illustrate the necessity of the cooperation of industrial plants to reduce the total carbon footprint of their water supply systems. A mathematical optimization model to minimize global warming potentials is developed to synthesize (1) a cooperative water network system (WNS) integrated over two plants and (2) an individual WNS consisting of two WNSs separated for each plant. The cooperative WNS is compared to the individual WNS. The cooperation reduces their carbon footprint and is economically feasible and profitable. A strategy for implementing the cooperation is suggested for the fair distribution of costs and benefits. As a consequence, industrial plants should cooperate with their neighbor plants to further reduce the carbon footprint.

Building the Leviathan – Voluntary centralisation of punishment power sustains cooperation in humans

PubMed Central

Gross, Jörg; Méder, Zsombor Z.; Okamoto-Barth, Sanae; Riedl, Arno

2016-01-01

The prevalence of cooperation among humans is puzzling because cooperators can be exploited by free riders. Peer punishment has been suggested as a solution to this puzzle, but cumulating evidence questions its robustness in sustaining cooperation. Amongst others, punishment fails when it is not powerful enough, or when it elicits counter-punishment. Existing research, however, has ignored that the distribution of punishment power can be the result of social interactions. We introduce a novel experiment in which individuals can transfer punishment power to others. We find that while decentralised peer punishment fails to overcome free riding, the voluntary transfer of punishment power enables groups to sustain cooperation. This is achieved by non-punishing cooperators empowering those who are willing to punish in the interest of the group. Our results show how voluntary power centralisation can efficiently sustain cooperation, which could explain why hierarchical power structures are widespread among animals and humans. PMID:26888519

Conflicting social motives in negotiating groups.

PubMed

Weingart, Laurie R; Brett, Jeanne M; Olekalns, Mara; Smith, Philip L

2007-12-01

Negotiators' social motives (cooperative vs. individualistic) influence their strategic behaviors. In this study, the authors used multilevel modeling and analyses of strategy sequences to test hypotheses regarding how negotiators' social motives and the composition of the group influence group members' negotiation strategies. Four-person groups negotiating a 5-issue mixed-motive decision-making task were videotaped, and the tapes were transcribed and coded. Group composition included 2 homogeneous conditions (all cooperators and all individualists) and 3 heterogeneous conditions (3 cooperators and 1 individualist, 2 cooperators and 2 individualists, 1 cooperator and 3 individualists). Results showed that cooperative negotiators adjusted their use of integrative and distributive strategies in response to the social-motive composition of the group, but individualistic negotiators did not. Results from analyses of strategy sequences showed that cooperators responded more systematically to others' behaviors than did individualists. They also redirected the negotiation depending on group composition. (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved.

Building the Leviathan--Voluntary centralisation of punishment power sustains cooperation in humans.

PubMed

Gross, Jörg; Méder, Zsombor Z; Okamoto-Barth, Sanae; Riedl, Arno

2016-02-18

The prevalence of cooperation among humans is puzzling because cooperators can be exploited by free riders. Peer punishment has been suggested as a solution to this puzzle, but cumulating evidence questions its robustness in sustaining cooperation. Amongst others, punishment fails when it is not powerful enough, or when it elicits counter-punishment. Existing research, however, has ignored that the distribution of punishment power can be the result of social interactions. We introduce a novel experiment in which individuals can transfer punishment power to others. We find that while decentralised peer punishment fails to overcome free riding, the voluntary transfer of punishment power enables groups to sustain cooperation. This is achieved by non-punishing cooperators empowering those who are willing to punish in the interest of the group. Our results show how voluntary power centralisation can efficiently sustain cooperation, which could explain why hierarchical power structures are widespread among animals and humans.

Business Models and Regulation | Distributed Generation Interconnection

Science.gov Websites

@nrel.gov 303-384-4641 Utilities and regulators are responding to the growth of distributed generation with new business models and approaches. The growing role of distributed resources in the electricity Electric Cooperative, Groton Utilities Distributed Solar for Small Utilities A recording of the webinar is

Signal processing for distributed sensor concept: DISCO

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rafailov, Michael K.

2007-04-01

Distributed Sensor concept - DISCO proposed for multiplication of individual sensor capabilities through cooperative target engagement. DISCO relies on ability of signal processing software to format, to process and to transmit and receive sensor data and to exploit those data in signal synthesis process. Each sensor data is synchronized formatted, Signal-to-Noise Ration (SNR) enhanced and distributed inside of the sensor network. Signal processing technique for DISCO is Recursive Adaptive Frame Integration of Limited data - RAFIL technique that was initially proposed [1] as a way to improve the SNR, reduce data rate and mitigate FPA correlated noise of an individual sensor digital video-signal processing. In Distributed Sensor Concept RAFIL technique is used in segmented way, when constituencies of the technique are spatially and/or temporally separated between transmitters and receivers. Those constituencies include though not limited to two thresholds - one is tuned for optimum probability of detection, the other - to manage required false alarm rate, and limited frame integration placed somewhere between the thresholds as well as formatters, conventional integrators and more. RAFIL allows a non-linear integration that, along with SNR gain, provides system designers more capability where cost, weight, or power considerations limit system data rate, processing, or memory capability [2]. DISCO architecture allows flexible optimization of SNR gain, data rates and noise suppression on sensor's side and limited integration, re-formatting and final threshold on node's side. DISCO with Recursive Adaptive Frame Integration of Limited data may have flexible architecture that allows segmenting the hardware and software to be best suitable for specific DISCO applications and sensing needs - whatever it is air-or-space platforms, ground terminals or integration of sensors network.

Cooperative Management of a Lithium-Ion Battery Energy Storage Network: A Distributed MPC Approach

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Fang, Huazhen; Wu, Di; Yang, Tao

2016-12-12

This paper presents a study of cooperative power supply and storage for a network of Lithium-ion energy storage systems (LiBESSs). We propose to develop a distributed model predictive control (MPC) approach for two reasons. First, able to account for the practical constraints of a LiBESS, the MPC can enable a constraint-aware operation. Second, a distributed management can cope with a complex network that integrates a large number of LiBESSs over a complex communication topology. With this motivation, we then build a fully distributed MPC algorithm from an optimization perspective, which is based on an extension of the alternating direction methodmore » of multipliers (ADMM) method. A simulation example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.« less

Fuzzy distributed cooperative tracking for a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles with heterogeneous goals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kladis, Georgios P.; Menon, Prathyush P.; Edwards, Christopher

2016-12-01

This article proposes a systematic analysis for a tracking problem which ensures cooperation amongst a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), modelled as nonlinear systems with linear and angular velocity constraints, in order to achieve different goals. A distributed Takagi-Sugeno (TS) framework design is adopted for the representation of the nonlinear model of the dynamics of the UAVs. The distributed control law which is introduced is composed of both node and network level information. Firstly, feedback gains are synthesised using a parallel distributed compensation (PDC) control law structure, for a collection of isolated UAVs; ignoring communications among the swarm. Then secondly, based on an alternation-like procedure, the resulting feedback gains are used to determine Lyapunov matrices which are utilised at network level to incorporate into the control law, the relative differences in the states of the vehicles, and to induce cooperative behaviour. Eventually stability is guaranteed for the entire swarm. The control synthesis is performed using tools from linear control theory: in particular the design criteria are posed as linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). An example based on a UAV tracking scenario is included to outline the efficacy of the approach.

SISL and SIRL: Two knowledge dissemination models with leader nodes on cooperative learning networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jingjing; Zhang, Yumei; Man, Jiayu; Zhou, Yun; Wu, Xiaojun

2017-02-01

Cooperative learning is one of the most effective teaching methods, which has been widely used. Students' mutual contact forms a cooperative learning network in this process. Our previous research demonstrated that the cooperative learning network has complex characteristics. This study aims to investigating the dynamic spreading process of the knowledge in the cooperative learning network and the inspiration of leaders in this process. To this end, complex network transmission dynamics theory is utilized to construct the knowledge dissemination model of a cooperative learning network. Based on the existing epidemic models, we propose a new susceptible-infected-susceptible-leader (SISL) model that considers both students' forgetting and leaders' inspiration, and a susceptible-infected-removed-leader (SIRL) model that considers students' interest in spreading and leaders' inspiration. The spreading threshold λcand its impact factors are analyzed. Then, numerical simulation and analysis are delivered to reveal the dynamic transmission mechanism of knowledge and leaders' role. This work is of great significance to cooperative learning theory and teaching practice. It also enriches the theory of complex network transmission dynamics.

Cooperative fault-tolerant distributed computing U.S. Department of Energy Grant DE-FG02-02ER25537 Final Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sunderam, Vaidy S.

2007-01-09

The Harness project has developed novel software frameworks for the execution of high-end simulations in a fault-tolerant manner on distributed resources. The H2O subsystem comprises the kernel of the Harness framework, and controls the key functions of resource management across multiple administrative domains, especially issues of access and allocation. It is based on a “pluggable” architecture that enables the aggregated use of distributed heterogeneous resources for high performance computing. The major contributions of the Harness II project result in significantly enhancing the overall computational productivity of high-end scientific applications by enabling robust, failure-resilient computations on cooperatively pooled resource collections.

Cooperative and noncooperative magnetization reversal in alnicos

DOE PAGES

Skomski, Ralph; Ke, Liqin; Kramer, Matthew J.; ...

2017-02-08

Here, we investigate how magnetostatic interactions affect the coercivity of alnico-type magnets. Starting from exact micromagnetic relations, we also analyze two limits, namely cooperative reversal processes operative on short lengths scales and noncooperative reversal processes on long length scales. Furthermore, in alnicos, intrawire interactions are predominantly cooperative, whereas interwire effects are typically noncooperative. However, the transition between the regimes depends on feature size and hysteresis-loop shape, and interwire cooperative effects are largest for nearly rectangular loops. Our analysis revises the common shape-anisotropy interpretation of alnicos.

Pitfalls and Prospects for IT Cooperation Between the Republic of Korea and Japan

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-08-01

Mansourov 314 distribution of knowledge become the major sources of added value and social dynamism. Japan is aimed at “becoming the world’s...Subscriptions Mobile Internet In order to facilitate rapid growth in the B2B (B2C) e- commerce market, in addition to the improvements in the information and...central government, and local public agencies to be processed online. As a result, the B2B market size increased from ¥8.62 trillion in 1998 to ¥34.03

NASA/DOD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project. Report 9: Summary report to phase 3 faculty and student respondents including frequency distributions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pinelli, Thomas E.; Kennedy, John M.; White, Terry F.

1991-01-01

This project is designed to explore the diffusion of scientific and technical information (STI) throughout the aerospace industry. The increased international competition and cooperation in the industry promises to significantly affect the STI standards of U.S. aerospace engineers and scientists. Therefore, it is important to understand the aerospace knowledge diffusion process itself and its implications at the individual, organizational, national, and international levels. Examined here is the role of STI in the academic aerospace community.

Students' Ideas on Cooperative Learning Method

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yoruk, Abdulkadir

2016-01-01

Aim of this study is to investigate students' ideas on cooperative learning method. For that purpose students who are studying at elementary science education program are distributed into two groups through an experimental design. Factors threaten the internal validity are either eliminated or reduced to minimum value. Data analysis is done…

Collaborative Control of Media Playbacks in SCDNs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fortino, Giancarlo; Russo, Wilma; Palau, Carlos E.

2006-01-01

In this paper we present a CDN-based system, namely the COMODIN system, which is a media on-demand platform for synchronous cooperative work which supports an explicitly-formed cooperative group of distributed users with the following integrated functionalities: request of an archived multimedia session, sharing of its playback, and collaboration…

Networked Experiments and Scientific Resource Sharing in Cooperative Knowledge Spaces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cikic, Sabine; Jeschke, Sabina; Ludwig, Nadine; Sinha, Uwe; Thomsen, Christian

2007-01-01

Cooperative knowledge spaces create new potentials for the experimental fields in natural sciences and engineering because they enhance the accessibility of experimental setups through virtual laboratories and remote technology, opening them for collaborative and distributed usage. A concept for extending existing virtual knowledge spaces for the…

Cooperative Alaska Forest Inventory

Treesearch

Thomas Malone; Jingjing Liang; Edmond C. Packee

2009-01-01

The Cooperative Alaska Forest Inventory (CAFI) is a comprehensive database of boreal forest conditions and dynamics in Alaska. The CAFI consists of field-gathered information from numerous permanent sample plots distributed across interior and south-central Alaska including the Kenai Peninsula. The CAFI currently has 570 permanent sample plots on 190 sites...

Television for Deaf People: Selected Projects.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freebairn, Thomas

Television projects for the deaf are described with special focus on activities by the Deafness Research and Training Center to develop a cable television cooperative to produce and distribute programs for the deaf. The chapter on cable television considers principles of cable television, the model for a cable television cooperative, steps in…

Informal Learning Processes in a Worker Co-Operative. NALL Working Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Quarter, Jack; Midha, Harish

A study was conducted to understand the informal learning processes of the members of a worker natural foods store cooperative, The Big Carrot, in Toronto. Eight members with central roles in the natural foods retailer were interviewed. In addition, key documents and other writings on the cooperative were examined. The data indicate that members…

36 CFR 1010.16 - Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... TRUST ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY § 1010.16 Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process. Consistent with 40 CFR 1501.6, the Trust may request the NPS to be a cooperating agency for actions or projects significantly affecting the quality of the Presidio. In addition, upon request of the Trust, any...

Intuition, deliberation, and the evolution of cooperation.

PubMed

Bear, Adam; Rand, David G

2016-01-26

Humans often cooperate with strangers, despite the costs involved. A long tradition of theoretical modeling has sought ultimate evolutionary explanations for this seemingly altruistic behavior. More recently, an entirely separate body of experimental work has begun to investigate cooperation's proximate cognitive underpinnings using a dual-process framework: Is deliberative self-control necessary to reign in selfish impulses, or does self-interested deliberation restrain an intuitive desire to cooperate? Integrating these ultimate and proximate approaches, we introduce dual-process cognition into a formal game-theoretic model of the evolution of cooperation. Agents play prisoner's dilemma games, some of which are one-shot and others of which involve reciprocity. They can either respond by using a generalized intuition, which is not sensitive to whether the game is one-shot or reciprocal, or pay a (stochastically varying) cost to deliberate and tailor their strategy to the type of game they are facing. We find that, depending on the level of reciprocity and assortment, selection favors one of two strategies: intuitive defectors who never deliberate, or dual-process agents who intuitively cooperate but sometimes use deliberation to defect in one-shot games. Critically, selection never favors agents who use deliberation to override selfish impulses: Deliberation only serves to undermine cooperation with strangers. Thus, by introducing a formal theoretical framework for exploring cooperation through a dual-process lens, we provide a clear answer regarding the role of deliberation in cooperation based on evolutionary modeling, help to organize a growing body of sometimes-conflicting empirical results, and shed light on the nature of human cognition and social decision making.

40 CFR 35.362 - Competitive process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Environmental Program Grants Water Quality Cooperative Agreements (section 104(b)(3)) § 35.362 Competitive process. EPA will award Water Quality Cooperative Agreement funds...

40 CFR 35.362 - Competitive process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Environmental Program Grants Water Quality Cooperative Agreements (section 104(b)(3)) § 35.362 Competitive process. EPA will award Water Quality Cooperative Agreement funds...

Intellectual Property Rights for Digital Design and Manufacturing: Issues and Recommendations

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-30

for Public Release, Distribution Unlimited. iv This page intentionally left blank. Distribution A: Approved for...Distribution A: Approved for Public Release, Distribution Unlimited. viii This page intentionally left blank...challenges requires an analysis of intellectual property management and recommendations for its use in a cooperative as well as competitive market

Doing It Yourself: A Handbook on Independent Film Distribution.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reichert, Julia

Written by filmmakers with five years experience as part of a cooperative for the distribution of feminist films, this handbook is designed primarily to instruct filmmakers on how to distribute their films and to assess whether self-distribution is advisable. Mainly non-theatrical use of 16mm films is discussed, with emphasis on educational…

A Scheduling Algorithm for the Distributed Student Registration System in Transaction-Intensive Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Wenhao

2011-01-01

Distributed workflow technology has been widely used in modern education and e-business systems. Distributed web applications have shown cross-domain and cooperative characteristics to meet the need of current distributed workflow applications. In this paper, the author proposes a dynamic and adaptive scheduling algorithm PCSA (Pre-Calculated…

Signaling emotion and reason in cooperation.

PubMed

Levine, Emma E; Barasch, Alixandra; Rand, David; Berman, Jonathan Z; Small, Deborah A

2018-05-01

We explore the signal value of emotion and reason in human cooperation. Across four experiments utilizing dyadic prisoner dilemma games, we establish three central results. First, individuals infer prosocial feelings and motivations from signals of emotion. As a result, individuals believe that a reliance on emotion signals that one will cooperate more so than a reliance on reason. Second, these beliefs are generally accurate-those who act based on emotion are more likely to cooperate than those who act based on reason. Third, individuals' behavioral responses towards signals of emotion and reason depend on their own decision mode: those who rely on emotion tend to conditionally cooperate (that is, cooperate only when they believe that their partner has cooperated), whereas those who rely on reason tend to defect regardless of their partner's signal. These findings shed light on how different decision processes, and lay theories about decision processes, facilitate and impede cooperation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Simultaneously selecting appropriate partners for gaming and strategy adaptation to enhance network reciprocity in the prisoner's dilemma

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanimoto, Jun

2014-01-01

Network reciprocity is one mechanism for adding social viscosity, which leads to cooperative equilibrium in 2 × 2 prisoner's dilemma games. Previous studies have shown that cooperation can be enhanced by using a skewed, rather than a random, selection of partners for either strategy adaptation or the gaming process. Here we show that combining both processes for selecting a gaming partner and an adaptation partner further enhances cooperation, provided that an appropriate selection rule and parameters are adopted. We also show that this combined model significantly enhances cooperation by reducing the degree of activity in the underlying network; we measure the degree of activity with a quantity called effective degree. More precisely, during the initial evolutionary stage in which the global cooperation fraction declines because initially allocated cooperators becoming defectors, the model shows that weak cooperative clusters perish and only a few strong cooperative clusters survive. This finding is the most important key to attaining significant network reciprocity.

An Evaluation of the Cooperative Learning Process by Sixth-Grade Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Genç, Murat

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of cooperative learning on the science lessons achievement of primary school students and to designate their views on cooperative learning process. 135 sixth-grade students attending the same school took part in the study. The model of this study was the Solomon four-group model. In the…

36 CFR § 1010.16 - Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... cooperation early in the NEPA process. § 1010.16 Section § 1010.16 Parks, Forests, and Public Property PRESIDIO TRUST ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY § 1010.16 Actions to encourage agency cooperation early in the NEPA... Trust, any other Federal, State, local, or tribal agency that has jurisdiction by law or special...

The Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning on the Reading Comprehension Skills in Turkish as a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bolukbas, Fatma; Keskin, Funda; Polat, Mustafa

2011-01-01

Cooperative learning is a process through which students with various abilities, gender, nationalities and different level of social skills carry out their learning process by working in small groups and helping each other. Cooperative learning is a pedagogical use of small groups which enable students to maximize both their own and others'…

Cooperation between referees and authors increases peer review accuracy.

PubMed

Leek, Jeffrey T; Taub, Margaret A; Pineda, Fernando J

2011-01-01

Peer review is fundamentally a cooperative process between scientists in a community who agree to review each other's work in an unbiased fashion. Peer review is the foundation for decisions concerning publication in journals, awarding of grants, and academic promotion. Here we perform a laboratory study of open and closed peer review based on an online game. We show that when reviewer behavior was made public under open review, reviewers were rewarded for refereeing and formed significantly more cooperative interactions (13% increase in cooperation, P = 0.018). We also show that referees and authors who participated in cooperative interactions had an 11% higher reviewing accuracy rate (P = 0.016). Our results suggest that increasing cooperation in the peer review process can lead to a decreased risk of reviewing errors.

Hierarchy is Detrimental for Human Cooperation.

PubMed

Cronin, Katherine A; Acheson, Daniel J; Hernández, Penélope; Sánchez, Angel

2015-12-22

Studies of animal behavior consistently demonstrate that the social environment impacts cooperation, yet the effect of social dynamics has been largely excluded from studies of human cooperation. Here, we introduce a novel approach inspired by nonhuman primate research to address how social hierarchies impact human cooperation. Participants competed to earn hierarchy positions and then could cooperate with another individual in the hierarchy by investing in a common effort. Cooperation was achieved if the combined investments exceeded a threshold, and the higher ranked individual distributed the spoils unless control was contested by the partner. Compared to a condition lacking hierarchy, cooperation declined in the presence of a hierarchy due to a decrease in investment by lower ranked individuals. Furthermore, hierarchy was detrimental to cooperation regardless of whether it was earned or arbitrary. These findings mirror results from nonhuman primates and demonstrate that hierarchies are detrimental to cooperation. However, these results deviate from nonhuman primate findings by demonstrating that human behavior is responsive to changing hierarchical structures and suggests partnership dynamics that may improve cooperation. This work introduces a controlled way to investigate the social influences on human behavior, and demonstrates the evolutionary continuity of human behavior with other primate species.

Hierarchy is Detrimental for Human Cooperation

PubMed Central

Cronin, Katherine A.; Acheson, Daniel J.; Hernández, Penélope; Sánchez, Angel

2015-01-01

Studies of animal behavior consistently demonstrate that the social environment impacts cooperation, yet the effect of social dynamics has been largely excluded from studies of human cooperation. Here, we introduce a novel approach inspired by nonhuman primate research to address how social hierarchies impact human cooperation. Participants competed to earn hierarchy positions and then could cooperate with another individual in the hierarchy by investing in a common effort. Cooperation was achieved if the combined investments exceeded a threshold, and the higher ranked individual distributed the spoils unless control was contested by the partner. Compared to a condition lacking hierarchy, cooperation declined in the presence of a hierarchy due to a decrease in investment by lower ranked individuals. Furthermore, hierarchy was detrimental to cooperation regardless of whether it was earned or arbitrary. These findings mirror results from nonhuman primates and demonstrate that hierarchies are detrimental to cooperation. However, these results deviate from nonhuman primate findings by demonstrating that human behavior is responsive to changing hierarchical structures and suggests partnership dynamics that may improve cooperation. This work introduces a controlled way to investigate the social influences on human behavior, and demonstrates the evolutionary continuity of human behavior with other primate species. PMID:26692287

Cooperative high-performance storage in the accelerated strategic computing initiative

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gary, Mark; Howard, Barry; Louis, Steve; Minuzzo, Kim; Seager, Mark

1996-01-01

The use and acceptance of new high-performance, parallel computing platforms will be impeded by the absence of an infrastructure capable of supporting orders-of-magnitude improvement in hierarchical storage and high-speed I/O (Input/Output). The distribution of these high-performance platforms and supporting infrastructures across a wide-area network further compounds this problem. We describe an architectural design and phased implementation plan for a distributed, Cooperative Storage Environment (CSE) to achieve the necessary performance, user transparency, site autonomy, communication, and security features needed to support the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). ASCI is a Department of Energy (DOE) program attempting to apply terascale platforms and Problem-Solving Environments (PSEs) toward real-world computational modeling and simulation problems. The ASCI mission must be carried out through a unified, multilaboratory effort, and will require highly secure, efficient access to vast amounts of data. The CSE provides a logically simple, geographically distributed, storage infrastructure of semi-autonomous cooperating sites to meet the strategic ASCI PSE goal of highperformance data storage and access at the user desktop.

Cooperating Expert Systems For Space Station Power Distribution Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nguyen, T. A.; Chiou, W. C.

1987-02-01

In a complex system such as the manned Space Station, it is deem necessary that many expert systems must perform tasks in a concurrent and cooperative manner. An important question arise is: what cooperative-task-performing models are appropriate for multiple expert systems to jointly perform tasks. The solution to this question will provide a crucial automation design criteria for the Space Station complex systems architecture. Based on a client/server model for performing tasks, we have developed a system that acts as a front-end to support loosely-coupled communications between expert systems running on multiple Symbolics machines. As an example, we use two ART*-based expert systems to demonstrate the concept of parallel symbolic manipulation for power distribution management and dynamic load planner/scheduler in the simulated Space Station environment. This on-going work will also explore other cooperative-task-performing models as alternatives which can evaluate inter and intra expert system communication mechanisms. It will be served as a testbed and a bench-marking tool for other Space Station expert subsystem communication and information exchange.

Distributed, cooperating knowledge-based systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Truszkowski, Walt

1991-01-01

Some current research in the development and application of distributed, cooperating knowledge-based systems technology is addressed. The focus of the current research is the spacecraft ground operations environment. The underlying hypothesis is that, because of the increasing size, complexity, and cost of planned systems, conventional procedural approaches to the architecture of automated systems will give way to a more comprehensive knowledge-based approach. A hallmark of these future systems will be the integration of multiple knowledge-based agents which understand the operational goals of the system and cooperate with each other and the humans in the loop to attain the goals. The current work includes the development of a reference model for knowledge-base management, the development of a formal model of cooperating knowledge-based agents, the use of testbed for prototyping and evaluating various knowledge-based concepts, and beginning work on the establishment of an object-oriented model of an intelligent end-to-end (spacecraft to user) system. An introductory discussion of these activities is presented, the major concepts and principles being investigated are highlighted, and their potential use in other application domains is indicated.

Research Update. Rethinking Youth Sports.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramsey, Georgianna; Rank, Bryan

1997-01-01

Youth sports need to defocus competitiveness and aggression and encourage cooperative games that involve cooperative efforts toward a goal and emphasize the process, not the outcome. This paper examines the New Games Movement, describes the benefits of cooperative games, presents examples of cooperative games, and notes the place for cooperative…

Competency Based Competitive Events. Integrating DECA into the DE Instructional Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cosgrove, Glenna; Moore, Harold W.

Designed to be integrated into a competency-based distributive education program, these competitive DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) events were developed, utilized, and evaluated by distributive education and cooperative education coordinators in Arkansas. These events are organized under the following occupational categories: food…

An Institutional Mechanism for Assortment in an Ecology of Games

PubMed Central

Smaldino, Paul E.; Lubell, Mark

2011-01-01

Recent research has revived Long's “ecology of games” model to analyze how social actors cooperate in the context of multiple political and social games. However, there is still a paucity of theoretical work that considers the mechanisms by which large-scale cooperation can be promoted in a dynamic institutional landscape, in which actors can join new games and leave old ones. This paper develops an agent-based model of an ecology of games where agents participate in multiple public goods games. In addition to contribution decisions, the agents can leave and join different games, and these processes are de-coupled. We show that the payoff for cooperation is greater than for defection when limits to the number of actors per game (“capacity constraints”) structure the population in ways that allow cooperators to cluster, independent of any complex individual-level mechanisms such as reputation or punishment. Our model suggests that capacity constraints are one effective mechanism for producing positive assortment and increasing cooperation in an ecology of games. The results suggest an important trade-off between the inclusiveness of policy processes and cooperation: Fully inclusive policy processes reduce the chances of cooperation. PMID:21850249

Fuel Cells Provide Reliable Power to U.S. Postal Service Facility in Anchorage, Alaska

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Parker, Steven

2003-01-01

Working together, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and Chugach Electric Association, partnering with the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Energy (DOE), US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratories (USA CERL), Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), developed and installed one of the largest fuel cell installations in the world. The one-megawatt fuel cell combined heat and power plant sits behind the Anchorage U.S. Postal Service Mail Processing and Distribution Facility. Chugach Electric owns, operates, and maintains the fuel cell power plant, which provides clean, reliable power to the USPS facility. Inmore » addition, heat recovered from the fuel cells, in the form of hot water, is used to heat the USPS Mail Processing and Distribution Facility. By taking a leadership role, the USPS will save over $800,000 in electricity and natural gas costs over the 5 1/2-year contract term with Chugach Electric.« less

The BaBar Data Reconstruction Control System

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ceseracciu, A

2005-04-20

The BaBar experiment is characterized by extremely high luminosity and very large volume of data produced and stored, with increasing computing requirements each year. To fulfill these requirements a Control System has been designed and developed for the offline distributed data reconstruction system. The control system described in this paper provides the performance and flexibility needed to manage a large number of small computing farms, and takes full benefit of OO design. The infrastructure is well isolated from the processing layer, it is generic and flexible, based on a light framework providing message passing and cooperative multitasking. The system ismore » distributed in a hierarchical way: the top-level system is organized in farms, farms in services, and services in subservices or code modules. It provides a powerful Finite State Machine framework to describe custom processing models in a simple regular language. This paper describes the design and evolution of this control system, currently in use at SLAC and Padova on {approx}450 CPUs organized in 9 farms.« less

The BaBar Data Reconstruction Control System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ceseracciu, A.; Piemontese, M.; Tehrani, F. S.; Pulliam, T. M.; Galeazzi, F.

2005-08-01

The BaBar experiment is characterized by extremely high luminosity and very large volume of data produced and stored, with increasing computing requirements each year. To fulfill these requirements a control system has been designed and developed for the offline distributed data reconstruction system. The control system described in this paper provides the performance and flexibility needed to manage a large number of small computing farms, and takes full benefit of object oriented (OO) design. The infrastructure is well isolated from the processing layer, it is generic and flexible, based on a light framework providing message passing and cooperative multitasking. The system is distributed in a hierarchical way: the top-level system is organized in farms, farms in services, and services in subservices or code modules. It provides a powerful finite state machine framework to describe custom processing models in a simple regular language. This paper describes the design and evolution of this control system, currently in use at SLAC and Padova on /spl sim/450 CPUs organized in nine farms.

Creating Shared Mental Models: The Support of Visual Language

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Landman, Renske B.; van den Broek, Egon L.; Gieskes, José F. B.

Cooperative design involves multiple stakeholders that often hold different ideas of the problem, the ways to solve it, and to its solutions (i.e., mental models; MM). These differences can result in miscommunication, misunderstanding, slower decision making processes, and less chance on cooperative decisions. In order to facilitate the creation of a shared mental model (sMM), visual languages (VL) are often used. However, little scientific foundation is behind this choice. To determine whether or not this gut feeling is justified, a research was conducted in which various stakeholders had to cooperatively redesign a process chain, with and without VL. To determine whether or not a sMM was created, scores on agreement in individual MM, communication, and cooperation were analyzed. The results confirmed the assumption that VL can indeed play an important role in the creation of sMM and, hence, can aid the processes of cooperative design and engineering.

Modeling the cooperative and competitive contagions in online social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhuang, Yun-Bei; Chen, J. J.; Li, Zhi-hong

2017-10-01

The wide adoption of social media has increased the interaction among different pieces of information, and this interaction includes cooperation and competition for our finite attention. While previous research focus on fully competition, this paper extends the interaction to be both "cooperation" and "competition", by employing an IS1S2 R model. To explore how two different pieces of information interact with each other, the IS1S2 R model splits the agents into four parts-(Ignorant-Spreader I-Spreader II-Stifler), based on SIR epidemic spreading model. Using real data from Weibo.com, a social network site similar to Twitter, we find some parameters, like decaying rates, can both influence the cooperative diffusion process and the competitive process, while other parameters, like infectious rates only have influence on the competitive diffusion process. Besides, the parameters' effect are more significant in the competitive diffusion than in the cooperative diffusion.

Development and Operation of the Americas ALOS Data Node

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arko, S. A.; Marlin, R. H.; La Belle-Hamer, A. L.

2004-12-01

In the spring of 2005, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will launch the next generation in advanced, remote sensing satellites. The Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) includes three sensors, two visible imagers and one L-band polarimetric SAR, providing high-quality remote sensing data to the scientific and commercial communities throughout the world. Focusing on remote sensing and scientific pursuits, ALOS will image nearly the entire Earth using all three instruments during its expected three-year lifetime. These data sets offer the potential for data continuation of older satellite missions as well as new products for the growing user community. One of the unique features of the ALOS mission is the data distribution approach. JAXA has created a worldwide cooperative data distribution network. The data nodes are NOAA /ASF representing the Americas ALOS Data Node (AADN), ESA representing the ALOS European and African Node (ADEN), Geoscience Australia representing Oceania and JAXA representing the Asian continent. The AADN is the sole agency responsible for archival, processing and distribution of L0 and L1 products to users in both North and South America. In support of this mission, AADN is currently developing a processing and distribution infrastructure to provide easy access to these data sets. Utilizing a custom, grid-based process controller and media generation system, the overall infrastructure has been designed to provide maximum throughput while requiring a minimum of operator input and maintenance. This paper will present an overview of the ALOS system, details of each sensor's capabilities and of the processing and distribution system being developed by AADN to provide these valuable data sets to users throughout North and South America.

Cooperative spreading processes in multiplex networks.

PubMed

Wei, Xiang; Chen, Shihua; Wu, Xiaoqun; Ning, Di; Lu, Jun-An

2016-06-01

This study is concerned with the dynamic behaviors of epidemic spreading in multiplex networks. A model composed of two interacting complex networks is proposed to describe cooperative spreading processes, wherein the virus spreading in one layer can penetrate into the other to promote the spreading process. The global epidemic threshold of the model is smaller than the epidemic thresholds of the corresponding isolated networks. Thus, global epidemic onset arises in the interacting networks even though an epidemic onset does not arise in each isolated network. Simulations verify the analysis results and indicate that cooperative spreading processes in multiplex networks enhance the final infection fraction.

Patterns of Local Intergovernmental Cooperation in Illinois School Districts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilkey, Kathleen M.

2014-01-01

This study identified the use of intergovernmental cooperatives in Illinois school districts as a resource to improve the budget process. More specifically, the study focused on the types of intergovernmental cooperatives in Illinois school districts and the reason for entering into the cooperatives. The results of this research suggest that…

Audio-Visual Aids for Cooperative Education and Training.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Botham, C. N.

Within the context of cooperative education, audiovisual aids may be used for spreading the idea of cooperatives and helping to consolidate study groups; for the continuous process of education, both formal and informal, within the cooperative movement; for constant follow up purposes; and for promoting loyalty to the movement. Detailed…

Evolution of cooperation through adaptive interaction in a spatial prisoner's dilemma game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pan, Qiuhui; Liu, Xuesong; Bao, Honglin; Su, Yu; He, Mingfeng

2018-02-01

In this paper, we study the effect of adaptive interaction on the evolution of cooperation in a spatial prisoner's dilemma game. The connections of players are co-evolutionary with cooperation; whether adjacent players can play the prisoner's dilemma game is associated with the strategies they took in the preceding round. If a player defected in the preceding round, his neighbors will refuse to play the prisoner's dilemma game with him in accordance with a certain probability distribution. We use the disconnecting strength to represent this probability. We discuss the evolution of cooperation with different values of temptation to defect, sucker's payoff and disconnecting strength. The simulation results show that cooperation can be significantly enhanced through increasing the value of the disconnecting strength. In addition, the increase in disconnecting strength can improve the cooperators' ability to resist the increase in temptation and the decrease in reward. We study the parameter ranges for three different evolutionary results: cooperators extinction, defectors extinction, cooperator and defector co-existence. Meanwhile, we recruited volunteers and designed a human behavioral experiment to verify the theoretical simulation results. The punishment of disconnection has a positive effect on cooperation. A higher disconnecting strength will enhance cooperation more significantly. Our research findings reveal some significant insights into efficient mechanisms of the evolution of cooperation.

Chemical Denaturants Smoothen Ruggedness on the Free Energy Landscape of Protein Folding.

PubMed

Malhotra, Pooja; Jethva, Prashant N; Udgaonkar, Jayant B

2017-08-08

To characterize experimentally the ruggedness of the free energy landscape of protein folding is challenging, because the distributed small free energy barriers are usually dominated by one, or a few, large activation free energy barriers. This study delineates changes in the roughness of the free energy landscape by making use of the observation that a decrease in ruggedness is accompanied invariably by an increase in folding cooperativity. Hydrogen exchange (HX) coupled to mass spectrometry was used to detect transient sampling of local energy minima and the global unfolded state on the free energy landscape of the small protein single-chain monellin. Under native conditions, local noncooperative openings result in interconversions between Boltzmann-distributed intermediate states, populated on an extremely rugged "uphill" energy landscape. The cooperativity of these interconversions was increased by selectively destabilizing the native state via mutations, and further by the addition of a chemical denaturant. The perturbation of stability alone resulted in seven backbone amide sites exchanging cooperatively. The size of the cooperatively exchanging and/or unfolding unit did not depend on the extent of protein destabilization. Only upon the addition of a denaturant to a destabilized mutant variant did seven additional backbone amide sites exchange cooperatively. Segmentwise analysis of the HX kinetics of the mutant variants further confirmed that the observed increase in cooperativity was due to the smoothing of the ruggedness of the free energy landscape of folding of the protein by the chemical denaturant.

A simple model of bipartite cooperation for ecological and organizational networks.

PubMed

Saavedra, Serguei; Reed-Tsochas, Felix; Uzzi, Brian

2009-01-22

In theoretical ecology, simple stochastic models that satisfy two basic conditions about the distribution of niche values and feeding ranges have proved successful in reproducing the overall structural properties of real food webs, using species richness and connectance as the only input parameters. Recently, more detailed models have incorporated higher levels of constraint in order to reproduce the actual links observed in real food webs. Here, building on previous stochastic models of consumer-resource interactions between species, we propose a highly parsimonious model that can reproduce the overall bipartite structure of cooperative partner-partner interactions, as exemplified by plant-animal mutualistic networks. Our stochastic model of bipartite cooperation uses simple specialization and interaction rules, and only requires three empirical input parameters. We test the bipartite cooperation model on ten large pollination data sets that have been compiled in the literature, and find that it successfully replicates the degree distribution, nestedness and modularity of the empirical networks. These properties are regarded as key to understanding cooperation in mutualistic networks. We also apply our model to an extensive data set of two classes of company engaged in joint production in the garment industry. Using the same metrics, we find that the network of manufacturer-contractor interactions exhibits similar structural patterns to plant-animal pollination networks. This surprising correspondence between ecological and organizational networks suggests that the simple rules of cooperation that generate bipartite networks may be generic, and could prove relevant in many different domains, ranging from biological systems to human society.

Research on distributed virtual reality system in electronic commerce

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xue, Qiang; Wang, Jiening; Sun, Jizhou

2004-03-01

In this paper, Distributed Virtual Reality (DVR) technology applied in Electronical Commerce (EC) is discussed. DVR has the capability of providing a new means for human being to recognize, analyze and resolve the large scale, complex problems, which makes it develop quickly in EC fields. The technology of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) and middleware is introduced into the development of EC-DVR system to meet the need of a platform which can provide the necessary cooperation and communication services to avoid developing the basic module repeatedly. Finally, the paper gives a platform structure of EC-DVR system.

Intuition, deliberation, and the evolution of cooperation

PubMed Central

Bear, Adam; Rand, David G.

2016-01-01

Humans often cooperate with strangers, despite the costs involved. A long tradition of theoretical modeling has sought ultimate evolutionary explanations for this seemingly altruistic behavior. More recently, an entirely separate body of experimental work has begun to investigate cooperation’s proximate cognitive underpinnings using a dual-process framework: Is deliberative self-control necessary to reign in selfish impulses, or does self-interested deliberation restrain an intuitive desire to cooperate? Integrating these ultimate and proximate approaches, we introduce dual-process cognition into a formal game-theoretic model of the evolution of cooperation. Agents play prisoner’s dilemma games, some of which are one-shot and others of which involve reciprocity. They can either respond by using a generalized intuition, which is not sensitive to whether the game is one-shot or reciprocal, or pay a (stochastically varying) cost to deliberate and tailor their strategy to the type of game they are facing. We find that, depending on the level of reciprocity and assortment, selection favors one of two strategies: intuitive defectors who never deliberate, or dual-process agents who intuitively cooperate but sometimes use deliberation to defect in one-shot games. Critically, selection never favors agents who use deliberation to override selfish impulses: Deliberation only serves to undermine cooperation with strangers. Thus, by introducing a formal theoretical framework for exploring cooperation through a dual-process lens, we provide a clear answer regarding the role of deliberation in cooperation based on evolutionary modeling, help to organize a growing body of sometimes-conflicting empirical results, and shed light on the nature of human cognition and social decision making. PMID:26755603

Distribution and Marketing Syllabus.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

New York State Education Dept., Albany. Bureau of Secondary Curriculum Development.

The distributive education program for grades 7 to 12 is organized around three career education phases: the career education phase (grades 7-10), the distributive phase (grade 11), and the competency cluster phase (grade 12). The grade 11 syllabus provides a six-page introduction which covers scheduling, cooperative work experience, the school…

First Among Equals: Interagency Cooperation in Stability Operations

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-05-26

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188 The public reporting burden for...11. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S REPORT NUMBER(S) 12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited 13... publication or sale of copyrighted images is not permissible ii

Social distance influences the outcome evaluation of cooperation and conflict: Evidence from event-related potentials.

PubMed

Chen, Yezi; Lu, Jiamei; Wang, Yiwen; Feng, Zhouqi; Yuan, Bo

2017-04-24

Previous research shows that social distance plays an important role in promoting cooperation and that subtle cues that reduce social distance increase the tendency to cooperate. However, it is unclear how social distance influences our outcome evaluation of cooperative and conflict feedback. The present study investigated the influence of social distance on cooperative and conflict behavior and the evaluation process of the cooperative and conflict outcomes, using the event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. We recorded ERPs from 14 normal adults playing a social game task against a friend and a stranger. The results showed that the FRN (Feedback Related Negativity) and P300 were affected by the opponent's choice to cooperate or aggress; however, only the P300 was affected by social distance. Specifically, when the opponent chose to cooperate, the feedback elicited a smaller FRN and a larger P300 amplitude; and compared with playing against friends, the P300 had a larger amplitude when participants gaming with strangers. Our results indicate that at the early stage of the evaluation of cooperation and conflict outcomes, individuals may initially and quickly encode the valence of outcomes, judging whether an outcome is consistent with their expectations. However, at the late stage, which involves a top-down cognitive appraisal process, some social factors, such as social distance, may moderate processing of attention resource allocation of feedback about outcomes, and of higher-level motivation/affective appraisal. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cooperative processing data bases

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hasta, Juzar

1991-01-01

Cooperative processing for the 1990's using client-server technology is addressed. The main theme is concepts of downsizing from mainframes and minicomputers to workstations on a local area network (LAN). This document is presented in view graph form.

Discussion on joint operation of wind farm and pumped-storage hydroplant

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Caifang; Wu, Yichun; Liang, Hao; Li, Miao

2017-12-01

Due to the random fluctuations in wind power, large amounts of grid integration will have a negative impact on grid operation and the consumers. The joint operation with pumped-storage hydroplant with good peak shaving performance can effectively reduce the negative impact on the safety and economic operation of power grid, and improve the utilization of wind power. In addition, joint operation can achieve the optimization of green power and improve the comprehensive economic benefits. Actually, the rational profit distribution of joint operation is the premise of sustainable and stable cooperation. This paper focuses on the profit distribution of joint operation, and applies improved shapely value method, which taking the investments and the contributions of each participant in the cooperation into account, to determine the profit distribution. Moreover, the distribution scheme can provide an effective reference for the actual joint operation of wind farm and pumped-storage hydroplant.

Deciphering the Interdependence between Ecological and Evolutionary Networks.

PubMed

Melián, Carlos J; Matthews, Blake; de Andreazzi, Cecilia S; Rodríguez, Jorge P; Harmon, Luke J; Fortuna, Miguel A

2018-05-24

Biological systems consist of elements that interact within and across hierarchical levels. For example, interactions among genes determine traits of individuals, competitive and cooperative interactions among individuals influence population dynamics, and interactions among species affect the dynamics of communities and ecosystem processes. Such systems can be represented as hierarchical networks, but can have complex dynamics when interdependencies among levels of the hierarchy occur. We propose integrating ecological and evolutionary processes in hierarchical networks to explore interdependencies in biological systems. We connect gene networks underlying predator-prey trait distributions to food webs. Our approach addresses longstanding questions about how complex traits and intraspecific trait variation affect the interdependencies among biological levels and the stability of meta-ecosystems. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Update on GPS Modernization Efforts

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-06-02

Bilateral Agreements • Adjacent Band Interference • International Committee On Global Navigation Satellite Systems ( GNSS ) Department of...Receivers • Distribute PRNs for the World - 120 for US and 90 for GNSS International Cooperation • 57 Authorized Allied Users - 25+ Years of...Cooperation • GNSS -Europe - Galilee - China - COMPASS -Russia - GLONASS - Japan - QZSS - India- IRNSS 5 GPS Modernization Program SPACE AND MISSILE

Technologies for network-centric C4ISR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dunkelberger, Kirk A.

2003-07-01

Three technologies form the heart of any network-centric command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system: distributed processing, reconfigurable networking, and distributed resource management. Distributed processing, enabled by automated federation, mobile code, intelligent process allocation, dynamic multiprocessing groups, check pointing, and other capabilities creates a virtual peer-to-peer computing network across the force. Reconfigurable networking, consisting of content-based information exchange, dynamic ad-hoc routing, information operations (perception management) and other component technologies forms the interconnect fabric for fault tolerant inter processor and node communication. Distributed resource management, which provides the means for distributed cooperative sensor management, foe sensor utilization, opportunistic collection, symbiotic inductive/deductive reasoning and other applications provides the canonical algorithms for network-centric enterprises and warfare. This paper introduces these three core technologies and briefly discusses a sampling of their component technologies and their individual contributions to network-centric enterprises and warfare. Based on the implied requirements, two new algorithms are defined and characterized which provide critical building blocks for network centricity: distributed asynchronous auctioning and predictive dynamic source routing. The first provides a reliable, efficient, effective approach for near-optimal assignment problems; the algorithm has been demonstrated to be a viable implementation for ad-hoc command and control, object/sensor pairing, and weapon/target assignment. The second is founded on traditional dynamic source routing (from mobile ad-hoc networking), but leverages the results of ad-hoc command and control (from the contributed auctioning algorithm) into significant increases in connection reliability through forward prediction. Emphasis is placed on the advantages gained from the closed-loop interaction of the multiple technologies in the network-centric application environment.

Educational Cooperation between Thailand and Cambodia: Outcomes on Human Development, International Understanding and Future Prospect

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kijtorntham, Wichuda; Ruangdej, Phumjit; Saisuwan, Chatchanog

2015-01-01

Thailand and Cambodia set up educational cooperation since 1996, before signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Promotion of Education in 2003. This research aimed to investigate outcomes of educational cooperation projects on Cambodia human development and international understanding, process of participatory learning and…

Games people play-toward an enactive view of cooperation in social neuroscience.

PubMed

Engemann, Denis A; Bzdok, Danilo; Eickhoff, Simon B; Vogeley, Kai; Schilbach, Leonhard

2012-01-01

The field of social neuroscience has made considerable progress in unraveling the neural correlates of human cooperation by making use of brain imaging methods. Within this field, neuroeconomic research has drawn on paradigms from experimental economics, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) and the Trust Game. These paradigms capture the topic of conflict in cooperation, while focusing strongly on outcome-related decision processes. Cooperation, however, does not equate with that perspective, but relies on additional psychological processes and events, including shared intentions and mutually coordinated joint action. These additional facets of cooperation have been successfully addressed by research in developmental psychology, cognitive science, and social philosophy. Corresponding neuroimaging data, however, is still sparse. Therefore, in this paper, we present a juxtaposition of these mutually related but mostly independent trends in cooperation research. We propose that the neuroscientific study of cooperation could benefit from paradigms and concepts employed in developmental psychology and social philosophy. Bringing both to a neuroimaging environment might allow studying the neural correlates of cooperation by using formal models of decision-making as well as capturing the neural responses that underlie joint action scenarios, thus, promising to advance our understanding of the nature of human cooperation.

Games people play—toward an enactive view of cooperation in social neuroscience

PubMed Central

Engemann, Denis A.; Bzdok, Danilo; Eickhoff, Simon B.; Vogeley, Kai; Schilbach, Leonhard

2012-01-01

The field of social neuroscience has made considerable progress in unraveling the neural correlates of human cooperation by making use of brain imaging methods. Within this field, neuroeconomic research has drawn on paradigms from experimental economics, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) and the Trust Game. These paradigms capture the topic of conflict in cooperation, while focusing strongly on outcome-related decision processes. Cooperation, however, does not equate with that perspective, but relies on additional psychological processes and events, including shared intentions and mutually coordinated joint action. These additional facets of cooperation have been successfully addressed by research in developmental psychology, cognitive science, and social philosophy. Corresponding neuroimaging data, however, is still sparse. Therefore, in this paper, we present a juxtaposition of these mutually related but mostly independent trends in cooperation research. We propose that the neuroscientific study of cooperation could benefit from paradigms and concepts employed in developmental psychology and social philosophy. Bringing both to a neuroimaging environment might allow studying the neural correlates of cooperation by using formal models of decision-making as well as capturing the neural responses that underlie joint action scenarios, thus, promising to advance our understanding of the nature of human cooperation. PMID:22675293

Fuselets: an agent based architecture for fusion of heterogeneous information and data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beyerer, Jürgen; Heizmann, Michael; Sander, Jennifer

2006-04-01

A new architecture for fusing information and data from heterogeneous sources is proposed. The approach takes criminalistics as a model. In analogy to the work of detectives, who attempt to investigate crimes, software agents are initiated that pursue clues and try to consolidate or to dismiss hypotheses. Like their human pendants, they can, if questions beyond their competences arise, consult expert agents. Within the context of a certain task, region, and time interval, specialized operations are applied to each relevant information source, e.g. IMINT, SIGINT, ACINT,..., HUMINT, data bases etc. in order to establish hit lists of first clues. Each clue is described by its pertaining facts, uncertainties, and dependencies in form of a local degree-of-belief (DoB) distribution in a Bayesian sense. For each clue an agent is initiated which cooperates with other agents and experts. Expert agents support to make use of different information sources. Consultations of experts, capable to access certain information sources, result in changes of the DoB of the pertaining clue. According to the significance of concentration of their DoB distribution clues are abandoned or pursued further to formulate task specific hypotheses. Communications between the agents serve to find out whether different clues belong to the same cause and thus can be put together. At the end of the investigation process, the different hypotheses are evaluated by a jury and a final report is created that constitutes the fusion result. The approach proposed avoids calculating global DoB distributions by adopting a local Bayesian approximation and thus reduces the complexity of the exact problem essentially. Different information sources are transformed into DoB distributions using the maximum entropy paradigm and considering known facts as constraints. Nominal, ordinal and cardinal quantities can be treated within this framework equally. The architecture is scalable by tailoring the number of agents according to the available computer resources, to the priority of tasks, and to the maximum duration of the fusion process. Furthermore, the architecture allows cooperative work of human and automated agents and experts, as long as not all subtasks can be accomplished automatically.

Development of Distributed Research Center for monitoring and projecting regional climatic and environmental changes: first results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gordov, Evgeny; Shiklomanov, Alexander; Okladinikov, Igor; Prusevich, Alex; Titov, Alexander

2016-04-01

Description and first results of the cooperative project "Development of Distributed Research Center for monitoring and projecting of regional climatic and environmental changes" recently started by SCERT IMCES and ESRC UNH are reported. The project is aimed at development of hardware and software platform prototype of Distributed Research Center (DRC) for monitoring and projecting regional climatic and environmental changes over the areas of mutual interest and demonstration the benefits of such collaboration that complements skills and regional knowledge across the northern extratropics. In the framework of the project, innovative approaches of "cloud" processing and analysis of large geospatial datasets will be developed on the technical platforms of two U.S. and Russian leading institutions involved in research of climate change and its consequences. Anticipated results will create a pathway for development and deployment of thematic international virtual research centers focused on interdisciplinary environmental studies by international research teams. DRC under development will comprise best features and functionality of earlier developed by the cooperating teams' information-computational systems RIMS (http://rims.unh.edu) and CLIMATE(http://climate.scert.ru/), which are widely used in Northern Eurasia environment studies. The project includes several major directions of research (Tasks) listed below. 1. Development of architecture and defining major hardware and software components of DRC for monitoring and projecting of regional environmental changes. 2. Development of an information database and computing software suite for distributed processing and analysis of large geospatial data hosted at ESRC and IMCES SB RAS. 3. Development of geoportal, thematic web client and web services providing international research teams with an access to "cloud" computing resources at DRC; two options will be executed: access through a basic graphical web browser and using geographic information systems - (GIS). 4. Using the output of the first three tasks, compilation of the DRC prototype, its validation, and testing the DRC feasibility for analyses of the recent regional environmental changes over Northern Eurasia and North America. Results of the first stage of the Project implementation are presented. This work is supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Agreement № 14.613.21.0037.

Cooperative outcome interdependence, task reflexivity, and team effectiveness: a motivated information processing perspective.

PubMed

De Dreu, Carsten K W

2007-05-01

A motivated information processing perspective (C. K. W. De Dreu & P. J. D. Carnevale, 2003; see also V. B. Hinsz, R. S. Tindale, & D. A. Vollrath, 1997) was used to predict that perceived cooperative outcome interdependence interacts with team-level reflexivity to predict information sharing, learning, and team effectiveness. A cross-sectional field study involving management and cross-functional teams (N = 46) performing nonroutine, complex tasks corroborated predictions: The more team members perceived cooperative outcome interdependence, the better they shared information, the more they learned and the more effective they were, especially when task reflexivity was high. When task reflexivity was low, no significant relationship was found between cooperative outcome interdependence and team processes and performance. The author concludes that the motivated information processing perspective is valid outside the confines of the laboratory and can be extended toward teamwork in organizations. 2007 APA, all rights reserved

Non-Equilibrium Cytoquake Dynamics in Cytoskeletal Remodeling and Stabilization

PubMed Central

Alencar, Adriano Mesquita; Ferraz, Mariana Sacrini Ayres; Park, Chan Young; Millet, Emil; Trepat, Xavier; Butler, James P.; Fredberg, Jeffrey J.

2016-01-01

The cytoskeleton (CSK) is a tensed fiber framework that supports, shapes and stabilizes the cell. The CSK is in a constant state of remodeling, moreover, which is an active non-equilibrium thermodynamic process. We report here that cytoskeletal remodeling involves reconfigurations that are not only sudden but also are transmitted to great distances within the cell in a fashion reminiscent of quakes in the Earth's crust. Remarkably, these events in the cell conform both qualitatively and quantitatively to empirical laws typical of earthquakes, including hierarchical fault structures, cumulative energy distributions following the Gutenberg-Richter law, and rate of after-shocks following Omori's law. While it is well-established that remodeling and stabilization of the cytoskeleton are non-equilibrium process, these new unanticipated observations establish that these processes are also remarkably non-local and strongly cooperative. PMID:27722665

The Life Cycles of Intense Cyclonic and Anticyclonic Circulation Systems Observed over Oceans

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Phillip J.

1996-01-01

This report presents a summary of research accomplished over the past four years under the sponsorship of NASA grant #NAG8-915. Building on previously funded NASA grants, this part of the project focused on the following specific goals relative to cyclone/anticyclone systems: the jet streak link between block formation and upstream cyclone activity; the role of northward warm air advection in block formation; the importance of cooperative participation of several forcing mechanisms during explosive cyclone development; and the significance of the vertical distribution of forcing processes during cyclone/anticyclone development.

Social rank and social cooperation: Impact of social comparison processes on cooperative decision-making

PubMed Central

Sanfey, Alan G.

2017-01-01

Successful navigation of our complex social world requires the capability to recognize and judge the relative status of others. Hence, social comparison processes are of great importance in our interactions, informing us of our relative standing and in turn potentially motivating our behavior. However, so far few studies have examined in detail how social comparison can influence interpersonal decision-making. One aspect of social decision-making that is of particular importance is cooperative behavior, and identifying means of maintaining and promoting cooperation in the provision of public goods is of vital interest to society. Here, we manipulated social comparison by grading performance rankings on a reaction time task, and then measured cooperative decisions via a modified Public Goods Game (PGG). Findings revealed that individuals ranked highest tended to be more cooperative as compared to those who placed in the bottom rank. Interestingly, this effect was regardless of whether the comparison group members were the subsequent players in the PGG or not, and this effect was stronger in those with higher social orientation. In summary, the present research shows how different social comparison processes (assessed via social rankings) can operate in our daily interaction with others, demonstrating an important effect on cooperative behavior. PMID:28388684

Age structure and cooperation in coevolutionary games on dynamic network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qin, Zilong; Hu, Zhenhua; Zhou, Xiaoping; Yi, Jingzhang

2015-04-01

Our proposed model imitates the growth of a population and describes the age structure and the level of cooperation in games on dynamic network with continuous changes of structure and topology. The removal of nodes and links caused by age-dependent attack, together with the nodes addition standing for the newborns of population, badly ruins Matthew effect in this coevolutionary process. Though the network is generated by growth and preferential attachment, it degenerates into random network and it is no longer heterogeneous. When the removal of nodes and links is equal to the addition of nodes and links, the size of dynamic network is maintained in steady-state, so is the low level of cooperation. Severe structure variation, homogeneous topology and continuous invasion of new defection jointly make dynamic network unsuitable for the survival of cooperator even when the probability with which the newborn players initially adopt the strategy cooperation is high, while things change slightly when the connections of newborn players are restricted. Fortunately, moderate interactions in a generation trigger an optimal recovering process to encourage cooperation. The model developed in this paper outlines an explanation of the cohesion changes in the development process of an organization. Some suggestions for cooperative behavior improvement are given in the end.

Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas on Complex Networks

PubMed Central

Iyer, Swami; Killingback, Timothy

2016-01-01

Cooperation in social dilemmas is essential for the functioning of systems at multiple levels of complexity, from the simplest biological organisms to the most sophisticated human societies. Cooperation, although widespread, is fundamentally challenging to explain evolutionarily, since natural selection typically favors selfish behavior which is not socially optimal. Here we study the evolution of cooperation in three exemplars of key social dilemmas, representing the prisoner’s dilemma, hawk-dove and coordination classes of games, in structured populations defined by complex networks. Using individual-based simulations of the games on model and empirical networks, we give a detailed comparative study of the effects of the structural properties of a network, such as its average degree, variance in degree distribution, clustering coefficient, and assortativity coefficient, on the promotion of cooperative behavior in all three classes of games. PMID:26928428

Art-technology Collaboration and Motivation Sources in Technologically Supported Artwork Buildup Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Happonen, Ari; Stepanov, Alexander; Hirvimäki, Marika; Manninen, Matti; Dennisuk, William; Piili, Heidi; Salminen, Antti

This study is based on observed outcomes of motivation sources and collaboration elements from a living lab style co-operation project. In this project, researchers of engineering science and an individual artist co-operated closely. The goal was to create an artwork made from corrugated board by utilizing laser cutting technology. In the context of this study, the scientist and the artist participated in the whole process and the research was done in living lab style arrangement. The research process integrated multiple experts from different scientific fields and experts from practical contexts to develop a new art design and art forming process with utilization of laser cutting technology. The purpose of this study was to find out and discuss about the key elements for high motivation to work together and then reveal the best practice findings in this co-operative development process. Elements were studied from three different points of view: artists view, collaboration motivation view and practical cutting point of view. The elements were analysed by utilizing an active documentation collection methodology, during the whole process, and by using story-telling methodology. The documents were used to reflect facts and feelings from the co-operation, the work process and the challenges encountered within collaboration. This article contributes to research methodology and best practice context by revealing the key elements, which build the motivation compelling (as personal inner motivation) the participant to work out of office hours as well as on weekends. Furthermore, as the artist-engineer co-operation is not frequently reported in scientific literature, this study reveals valuable information for practitioners and co-operation researchers.

Native Amazonian Children Forego Egalitarianism in Merit-Based Tasks When They Learn to Count

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jara-Ettinger, Julian; Gibson, Edward; Kidd, Celeste; Piantadosi, Steve

2016-01-01

Cooperation often results in a final material resource that must be shared, but deciding how to distribute that resource is not straightforward. A distribution could count as fair if all members receive an equal reward ("egalitarian distributions"), or if each member's reward is proportional to their merit ("merit-based…

New Cooperative Mechanisms of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Using Super Low-Energy External Field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gareev, F. A.; Zhidkova, I. E.

We propose a new mechanism of LENR: cooperative processes in the whole system, nuclei + atoms + condensed matter, can occur at a smaller threshold energies than the corresponding ones on free constituents. The cooperative processes can be induced and enhanced by low-energy external fields. The excess heat is the emission of internal energy and transmutations at LENR are the result of redistribution of inner energy of the whole system.

The Effects of Visual Degradation on Attended Objects and the Ability to Process Unattended Objects within the Visual Array

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-09-01

field at once (e.g., Biederman , Blickle, Teitelbaum, & Klatsky, 1988), and objects of interest typically receive the attention required to recognize them...field ( Biederman & Cooper, 1991) and image size changes ( Biederman & Cooper, 1992). Yet, only attended objects are recognized when mirror images...left-right reversals) occur ( Biederman & Cooper, 1991). Due to these results, Hummel (2001) proposed that attended images are processed by both

Global Education and the Cooperation of NGOs and Schools: A German Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bergmüller, Claudia

2016-01-01

In recent years, there has been growing pressure but also an increase of possibilities for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to cooperate with schools in the field of global education. However, especially in cases of more continuous forms of cooperation, difficulties in process management are noted and the intended cooperation impacts often…

Promotion of cooperation in evolutionary game dynamics with local information.

PubMed

Liu, Xuesong; Pan, Qiuhui; He, Mingfeng

2018-01-21

In this paper, we propose a strategy-updating rule driven by local information, which is called Local process. Unlike the standard Moran process, the Local process does not require global information about the strategic environment. By analyzing the dynamical behavior of the system, we explore how the local information influences the fixation of cooperation in two-player evolutionary games. Under weak selection, the decreasing local information leads to an increase of the fixation probability when natural selection does not favor cooperation replacing defection. In the limit of sufficiently large selection, the analytical results indicate that the fixation probability increases with the decrease of the local information, irrespective of the evolutionary games. Furthermore, for the dominance of defection games under weak selection and for coexistence games, the decreasing of local information will lead to a speedup of a single cooperator taking over the population. Overall, to some extent, the local information is conducive to promoting the cooperation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A mutualistic approach to morality: the evolution of fairness by partner choice.

PubMed

Baumard, Nicolas; André, Jean-Baptiste; Sperber, Dan

2013-02-01

What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate “how” question or as an ultimate “why” question. The “how” question is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments and interactions, and has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists. The “why” question is about the fitness consequences that explain why humans have morality, and has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the context of the evolution of cooperation. Our goal here is to contribute to a fruitful articulation of such proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality. We develop an approach to morality as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions. In this environment, the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally. Those who offer less than others will be left out of cooperation; conversely, those who offer more will be exploited by their partners. In line with this mutualistic approach, the study of a range of economic games involving property rights, collective actions, mutual help and punishment shows that participants’ distributions aim at sharing the costs and benefits of interactions in an impartial way. In particular, the distribution of resources is influenced by effort and talent, and the perception of each participant’s rights on the resources to be distributed.

Milk Processing Plant Employee. Agricultural Cooperative Training. Vocational Agriculture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blaschke, Nolan; Page, Foy

This course of study is designed for the vocational agricultural student enrolled in an agricultural cooperative part-time training program in the area of milk processing occupations. The course consists of 11 units, each with 4 to 13 individual topics that milk processing plant employees should know. Subjects covered by the units are the…

Tackling the Anglophones' Free Ride: Fair Linguistic Cooperation with a Global Lingua Franca

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Parijs, Philippe

2007-01-01

In science and in all other domains that require communication across borders, we need one lingua franca, and this lingua franca will be English. The adoption of the native language of some as everyone's lingua franca unavoidably raises a problem of justice in various senses. One of these is cooperative justice, the fair distribution of the cost…

GUIDELINES FOR PLANNING AND CONDUCTING COOPERATIVE WORK EXPERIENCE PROGRAMS IN VOCATIONAL AGRICULTURE, A DIGEST OF A PH.D. DISSERTATION. RESEARCH SERIES IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

ANDERSON, B. HAROLD; BENDER, RALPH E.

THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY WERE TO--(1) IDENTIFY AND EVALUATE GUIDELINES, (2) COMPARE TEACHER AND PROGRAM CHARACTERISTICS IN DISTRIBUTIVE, TRADE AND INDUSTRIAL, AND AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION WITH COOPERATIVE WORK EXPERIENCE PROGRAMS, (3) DETERMINE SITUATIONAL FACTORS AND CHARACTERISTICS THAT INFLUENCE THE IMPORTANCE ASSIGNED TO GUIDELINES,…

Large deviations in the presence of cooperativity and slow dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whitelam, Stephen

2018-06-01

We study simple models of intermittency, involving switching between two states, within the dynamical large-deviation formalism. Singularities appear in the formalism when switching is cooperative or when its basic time scale diverges. In the first case the unbiased trajectory distribution undergoes a symmetry breaking, leading to a change in shape of the large-deviation rate function for a particular dynamical observable. In the second case the symmetry of the unbiased trajectory distribution remains unbroken. Comparison of these models suggests that singularities of the dynamical large-deviation formalism can signal the dynamical equivalent of an equilibrium phase transition but do not necessarily do so.

Research on mixed network architecture collaborative application model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jing, Changfeng; Zhao, Xi'an; Liang, Song

2009-10-01

When facing complex requirements of city development, ever-growing spatial data, rapid development of geographical business and increasing business complexity, collaboration between multiple users and departments is needed urgently, however conventional GIS software (such as Client/Server model or Browser/Server model) are not support this well. Collaborative application is one of the good resolutions. Collaborative application has four main problems to resolve: consistency and co-edit conflict, real-time responsiveness, unconstrained operation, spatial data recoverability. In paper, application model called AMCM is put forward based on agent and multi-level cache. AMCM can be used in mixed network structure and supports distributed collaborative. Agent is an autonomous, interactive, initiative and reactive computing entity in a distributed environment. Agent has been used in many fields such as compute science and automation. Agent brings new methods for cooperation and the access for spatial data. Multi-level cache is a part of full data. It reduces the network load and improves the access and handle of spatial data, especially, in editing the spatial data. With agent technology, we make full use of its characteristics of intelligent for managing the cache and cooperative editing that brings a new method for distributed cooperation and improves the efficiency.

Effectiveness of a web-based automated cell distribution system.

PubMed

Niland, Joyce C; Stiller, Tracey; Cravens, James; Sowinski, Janice; Kaddis, John; Qian, Dajun

2010-01-01

In recent years, industries have turned to the field of operations research to help improve the efficiency of production and distribution processes. Largely absent is the application of this methodology to biological materials, such as the complex and costly procedure of human pancreas procurement and islet isolation. Pancreatic islets are used for basic science research and in a promising form of cell replacement therapy for a subset of patients afflicted with severe type 1 diabetes mellitus. Having an accurate and reliable system for cell distribution is therefore crucial. The Islet Cell Resource Center Consortium was formed in 2001 as the first and largest cooperative group of islet production and distribution facilities in the world. We previously reported on the development of a Matching Algorithm for Islet Distribution (MAID), an automated web-based tool used to optimize the distribution of human pancreatic islets by matching investigator requests to islet characteristics. This article presents an assessment of that algorithm and compares it to the manual distribution process used prior to MAID. A comparison was done using an investigator's ratio of the number of islets received divided by the number requested pre- and post-MAID. Although the supply of islets increased between the pre- versus post-MAID period, the median received-to-requested ratio remained around 60% due to an increase in demand post-MAID. A significantly smaller variation in the received-to-requested ratio was achieved in the post- versus pre-MAID period. In particular, the undesirable outcome of providing users with more islets than requested, ranging up to four times their request, was greatly reduced through the algorithm. In conclusion, this analysis demonstrates, for the first time, the effectiveness of using an automated web-based cell distribution system to facilitate efficient and consistent delivery of human pancreatic islets by enhancing the islet matching process.

Randomly biased investments and the evolution of public goods on interdependent networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Wei; Wu, Te; Li, Zhiwu; Wang, Long

2017-08-01

Deciding how to allocate resources between interdependent systems is significant to optimize efficiency. We study the effects of heterogeneous contribution, induced by such interdependency, on the evolution of cooperation, through implementing the public goods games on two-layer networks. The corresponding players on different layers try to share a fixed amount of resources as the initial investment properly. The symmetry breaking of investments between players located on different layers is able to either prevent investments from, or extract them out of the deadlock. Results show that a moderate investment heterogeneity is best favorable for the evolution of cooperation, and random allocation of investment bias suppresses the cooperators at a wide range of the investment bias and the enhancement effect. Further studies on time evolution with different initial strategy configurations show that the non-interdependent cooperators along the interface of interdependent cooperators also are an indispensable factor in facilitating cooperative behavior. Our main results are qualitatively unchanged even diversifying investment bias that is subject to uniform distribution. Our study may shed light on the understanding of the origin of cooperative behavior on interdependent networks.

Applying Planning Algorithms to Argue in Cooperative Work

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Monteserin, Ariel; Schiaffino, Silvia; Amandi, Analía

Negotiation is typically utilized in cooperative work scenarios for solving conflicts. Anticipating possible arguments in this negotiation step represents a key factor since we can take decisions about our participation in the cooperation process. In this context, we present a novel application of planning algorithms for argument generation, where the actions of a plan represent the arguments that a person might use during the argumentation process. In this way, we can plan how to persuade the other participants in cooperative work for reaching an expected agreement in terms of our interests. This approach allows us to take advantages since we can test anticipated argumentative solutions in advance.

Multi-agent systems design for aerospace applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Waslander, Steven L.

2007-12-01

Engineering systems with independent decision makers are becoming increasingly prevalent and present many challenges in coordinating actions to achieve systems goals. In particular, this work investigates the applications of air traffic flow control and autonomous vehicles as motivation to define algorithms that allow agents to agree to safe, efficient and equitable solutions in a distributed manner. To ensure system requirements will be satisfied in practice, each method is evaluated for a specific model of agent behavior, be it cooperative or non-cooperative. The air traffic flow control problem is investigated from the point of view of the airlines, whose costs are directly affected by resource allocation decisions made by the Federal Aviation Administration in order to mitigate traffic disruptions caused by weather. Airlines are first modeled as cooperative, and a distributed algorithm is presented with various global cost metrics which balance efficient and equitable use of resources differently. Next, a competitive airline model is assumed and two market mechanisms are developed for allocating contested airspace resources. The resource market mechanism provides a solution for which convergence to an efficient solution can be guaranteed, and each airline will improve on the solution that would occur without its inclusion in the decision process. A lump-sum market is then introduced as an alternative mechanism, for which efficiency loss bounds exist if airlines attempt to manipulate prices. Initial convergence results for lump-sum markets are presented for simplified problems with a single resource. To validate these algorithms, two air traffic flow models are developed which extend previous techniques, the first a convenient convex model made possible by assuming constant velocity flow, and the second a more complex flow model with full inflow, velocity and rerouting control. Autonomous vehicle teams are envisaged for many applications including mobile sensing and search and rescue. To enable these high-level applications, multi-vehicle collision avoidance is solved using a cooperative, decentralized algorithm. For the development of coordination algorithms for autonomous vehicles, the Stanford Testbed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent Control (STARMAC) is presented. This testbed provides significant advantages over other aerial testbeds due to its small size and low maintenance requirements.

Computational Unification: a Vision for Connecting Researchers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Troy, R. M.; Kingrey, O. J.

2002-12-01

Computational Unification of science, once only a vision, is becoming a reality. This technology is based upon a scientifically defensible, general solution for Earth Science data management and processing. The computational unification of science offers a real opportunity to foster inter and intra-discipline cooperation, and the end of 're-inventing the wheel'. As we move forward using computers as tools, it is past time to move from computationally isolating, "one-off" or discipline-specific solutions into a unified framework where research can be more easily shared, especially with researchers in other disciplines. The author will discuss how distributed meta-data, distributed processing and distributed data objects are structured to constitute a working interdisciplinary system, including how these resources lead to scientific defensibility through known lineage of all data products. Illustration of how scientific processes are encapsulated and executed illuminates how previously written processes and functions are integrated into the system efficiently and with minimal effort. Meta-data basics will illustrate how intricate relationships may easily be represented and used to good advantage. Retrieval techniques will be discussed including trade-offs of using meta-data versus embedded data, how the two may be integrated, and how simplifying assumptions may or may not help. This system is based upon the experience of the Sequoia 2000 and BigSur research projects at the University of California, Berkeley, whose goals were to find an alternative to the Hughes EOS-DIS system and is presently offered by Science Tools corporation, of which the author is a principal.

Using Cooperative Learning Structures in Physical Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dyson, Ben; Grineski, Steve

2001-01-01

Research has determined that cooperative learning has positive effects in physical education. This article presents five important components of cooperative learning to help physical educators maximize learning (team formation, positive interdependence, individual accountability, positive social interaction, and group processing), describing five…

Critical mass of public goods and its coevolution with cooperation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shi, Dong-Mei; Wang, Bing-Hong

2017-07-01

In this study, the enhancing parameter represented the value of the public goods to the public in public goods game, and was rescaled to a Fermi-Dirac distribution function of critical mass. Public goods were divided into two categories, consumable and reusable public goods, and their coevolution with cooperative behavior was studied. We observed that for both types of public goods, cooperation was promoted as the enhancing parameter increased when the value of critical mass was not very large. An optimal value of critical mass which led to the best cooperation was identified. We also found that cooperations emerged earlier for reusable public goods, and defections became extinct earlier for the consumable public goods. Moreover, we observed that a moderate depreciation rate for public goods resulted in an optimal cooperation, and this range became wider as the enhancing parameter increased. The noise influence on cooperation was studied, and it was shown that cooperation density varied non-monotonically as noise amplitude increased for reusable public goods, whereas decreased monotonically for consumable public goods. Furthermore, existence of the optimal critical mass was also identified in other three regular networks. Finally, simulation results were utilized to analyze the provision of public goods in detail.

A generalized public goods game with coupling of individual ability and project benefit

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhong, Li-Xin; Xu, Wen-Juan; He, Yun-Xin; Zhong, Chen-Yang; Chen, Rong-Da; Qiu, Tian; Shi, Yong-Dong; Ren, Fei

2017-08-01

Facing a heavy task, any single person can only make a limited contribution and team cooperation is needed. As one enjoys the benefit of the public goods, the potential benefits of the project are not always maximized and may be partly wasted. By incorporating individual ability and project benefit into the original public goods game, we study the coupling effect of the four parameters, the upper limit of individual contribution, the upper limit of individual benefit, the needed project cost and the upper limit of project benefit on the evolution of cooperation. Coevolving with the individual-level group size preferences, an increase in the upper limit of individual benefit promotes cooperation while an increase in the upper limit of individual contribution inhibits cooperation. The coupling of the upper limit of individual contribution and the needed project cost determines the critical point of the upper limit of project benefit, where the equilibrium frequency of cooperators reaches its highest level. Above the critical point, an increase in the upper limit of project benefit inhibits cooperation. The evolution of cooperation is closely related to the preferred group-size distribution. A functional relation between the frequency of cooperators and the dominant group size is found.

A hierarchical model of the evolution of cooperation in cultural systems.

PubMed

Savatsky, K; Reynolds, R G

1989-01-01

In this paper the following problem is addressed: "Under what conditions can a collection of individual organisms learn to cooperate when cooperation appears to outwardly degrade individual performance at the outset. In order to attempt a theoretical solution to this problem, data from a real world problem in anthropology is used. A distributed simulation model of this system was developed to assess its long term behavior using using an approach suggested by Zeigler (Zeigler, B.P., 1984, Multifaceted Modelling and Discrete Event Simulation (Academic Press, London)). The results of the simulation are used to show that although cooperation degrades the performance potential of each individual, it enhances the persistence of the individual's partial solution to the problem in certain situations."

Preschoolers value those who sanction non-cooperators.

PubMed

Vaish, Amrisha; Herrmann, Esther; Markmann, Christiane; Tomasello, Michael

2016-08-01

Large-scale human cooperation among unrelated individuals requires the enforcement of social norms. However, such enforcement poses a problem because non-enforcers can free ride on others' costly and risky enforcement. One solution is that enforcers receive benefits relative to non-enforcers. Here we show that this solution becomes functional during the preschool years: 5-year-old (but not 4-year-old) children judged enforcers of norms more positively, preferred enforcers, and distributed more resources to enforcers than to non-enforcers. The ability to sustain not only first-order but also second-order cooperation thus emerges quite early in human ontogeny, providing a viable solution to the problem of higher-order cooperation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Distributed cooperative control of AC microgrids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bidram, Ali

In this dissertation, the comprehensive secondary control of electric power microgrids is of concern. Microgrid technical challenges are mainly realized through the hierarchical control structure, including primary, secondary, and tertiary control levels. Primary control level is locally implemented at each distributed generator (DG), while the secondary and tertiary control levels are conventionally implemented through a centralized control structure. The centralized structure requires a central controller which increases the reliability concerns by posing the single point of failure. In this dissertation, the distributed control structure using the distributed cooperative control of multi-agent systems is exploited to increase the secondary control reliability. The secondary control objectives are microgrid voltage and frequency, and distributed generators (DGs) active and reactive powers. Fully distributed control protocols are implemented through distributed communication networks. In the distributed control structure, each DG only requires its own information and the information of its neighbors on the communication network. The distributed structure obviates the requirements for a central controller and complex communication network which, in turn, improves the system reliability. Since the DG dynamics are nonlinear and non-identical, input-output feedback linearization is used to transform the nonlinear dynamics of DGs to linear dynamics. Proposed control frameworks cover the control of microgrids containing inverter-based DGs. Typical microgrid test systems are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control protocols.

Nonlinear dynamic evolution and control in CCFN with mixed attachment mechanisms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jianrong; Wang, Jianping; Han, Dun

2017-01-01

In recent years, wireless communication plays an important role in our lives. Cooperative communication, is used by a mobile station with single antenna to share with each other forming a virtual MIMO antenna system, will become a development with a diversity gain for wireless communication in tendency future. In this paper, a fitness model of evolution network based on complex networks with mixed attachment mechanisms is devised in order to study an actual network-CCFN (cooperative communication fitness network). Firstly, the evolution of CCFN is given by four cases with different probabilities, and the rate equations of nodes degree are presented to analyze the evolution of CCFN. Secondly, the degree distribution is analyzed by calculating the rate equation and numerical simulation with the examples of four fitness distributions such as power law, uniform fitness distribution, exponential fitness distribution and Rayleigh fitness distribution. Finally, the robustness of CCFN is studied by numerical simulation with four fitness distributions under random attack and intentional attack to analyze the effects of degree distribution, average path length and average degree. The results of this paper offers insights for building CCFN systems in order to program communication resources.

Primary Five Pupils' Cooperative Behaviours and Perceptions of the Use of Cooperative Learning in Social Studies Classes in Singapore.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hing, Tey Sau; Lee, Christine Kim-Eng; Ng, Maureen; Chew, Joy

A study recorded the experiences of elementary school students with cooperative learning in two schools in Singapore. The students worked cooperatively in various assigned social studies tasks through the process of social interaction and sharing with their peers. One school was used as the experimental school while the other served as the…

Group Solutions, Too! More Cooperative Logic Activities for Grades K-4. Teacher's Guide. LHS GEMS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodman, Jan M.; Kopp, Jaine

There is evidence that structured cooperative logic is an effective way to introduce or reinforce mathematics concepts, explore thinking processes basic to both math and science, and develop the important social skills of cooperative problem-solving. This book contains a number of cooperative logic activities for grades K-4 in order to improve…

Demography, life history, and the evolution of age-dependent social behaviour.

PubMed

Rodrigues, António M M

2018-06-14

Since the inception of modern social evolution theory, a vast majority of studies have sought to explain cooperation using relatedness-driven hypotheses. Natural populations, however, show a substantial amount of variation in social behaviour that is uncorrelated with relatedness. Age offers a major alternative explanation for variation in behaviour that remains unaccounted for. Most natural populations are structured into age-classes, with ageing being a nearly universal feature of most major taxa, including eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms. Despite this, the theoretical underpinnings of age-dependent social behaviour remain limited. Here, we investigate how group age-composition, demography, and life history shape trajectories of age-dependent behaviours that are expressed conditionally on an actor and recipient's age. We show that demography introduces novel age-dependent selective pressures acting on social phenotypes. Furthermore, we find that life history traits influence the costs and benefits of cooperation directly, but also indirectly. Life history has a strong impact not only on the genetic structure of the population but also on the distribution of group age-compositions, with both of these processes influencing the expression of age-dependent cooperation. Age of peak reproductive performance, in particular, is of chief importance for the evolution of cooperation, as this will largely determine the age and relatedness of social partners. Moreover, our results suggest that later-life reproductive senescence may occur because of demographic effects alone, which opens new vistas on the evolution of menopause and related phenomena. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

40 CFR 35.603 - Competitive process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Environmental Program Grants for Tribes Water Quality Cooperative Agreements (section 104(b)(3)) § 35.603 Competitive process. EPA will award water quality cooperative agreement funds... a Performance Partnership Grant, the water quality work plan commitments must be included in the...

40 CFR 35.603 - Competitive process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... a Performance Partnership Grant, the water quality work plan commitments must be included in the... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Environmental Program Grants for Tribes Water Quality Cooperative Agreements (section 104(b)(3)) § 35.603 Competitive process. EPA will award water quality cooperative agreement funds...

40 CFR 35.603 - Competitive process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... a Performance Partnership Grant, the water quality work plan commitments must be included in the... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Environmental Program Grants for Tribes Water Quality Cooperative Agreements (section 104(b)(3)) § 35.603 Competitive process. EPA will award water quality cooperative agreement funds...

40 CFR 35.603 - Competitive process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... a Performance Partnership Grant, the water quality work plan commitments must be included in the... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Environmental Program Grants for Tribes Water Quality Cooperative Agreements (section 104(b)(3)) § 35.603 Competitive process. EPA will award water quality cooperative agreement funds...

40 CFR 35.603 - Competitive process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... a Performance Partnership Grant, the water quality work plan commitments must be included in the... STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE Environmental Program Grants for Tribes Water Quality Cooperative Agreements (section 104(b)(3)) § 35.603 Competitive process. EPA will award water quality cooperative agreement funds...

Distributed sounding of the boundary layer using multiple unmanned aerial systems during the ScaleX campaign 2016

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Philipp, Andreas; Petersen, Erik; Groos, Alexander; Ferenci, Pia; Engerer, Stefan; Fiedler, Benedikt; Emeis, Stefan; Schäfer, Klaus; Brosy, Caroline; Zeeman, Matthias; Jacobeit, Jucundus

2017-04-01

In order to observe and better understand micro scale processes of interaction between the surface and the atmosphere and to relate them to meso and macro scale processes, an intensive measurement campaign at the TERENO (Terrestrial Environmental Observatories) site Fendt in southern Germany was organized in summer 2016 by IMK-IFU (Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research - Atmospheric Environmental Research) / KIT (Karlsruher Institute for Technology) under participation of a large number of cooperation partners. While several ground based remote sensing systems were implemented beside already installed long-term observing instruments for turbulence, soil moisture, trace gas emission etc., several flight campaigns with unmanned aerial systems took place. IGUA (Institute for Geography at the Universiy of Augsburg) contributed with spiral profile flights up to 1000 meters above ground level simultaneously at five locations, covering an 1 km x 1 km large area, corresponding to a WRF (Weather and Research Forecast model) grid box. Starting in the afternoon of 6th of July and ending in the morning of 7th of July each full hour an ascent was launched. While there were several technical problems leading to missing values, an all together useful dataset was produced covering the distribution of temperature, humidity and wind for the diurnal cycle. The contribution presents the interpretation of the profiles in respect to stratification of the planetary boundary layer and comparison to the cooperated instruments. An interesting aspect of the observation data is the modification of the wind field by an nearby terrain step which also influences cold air flow near the ground. These observations are compared to mesoscale model data (METRAS and later WRF) in order to check whether the principle mechanisms can be simulated.

Folding behavior of ribosomal protein S6 studied by modified Go¯ -like model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, L.; Zhang, J.; Wang, J.; Li, W. F.; Wang, W.

2007-03-01

Recent experimental and theoretical studies suggest that, although topology is the determinant factor in protein folding, especially for small single-domain proteins, energetic factors also play an important role in the folding process. The ribosomal protein S6 has been subjected to intensive studies. A radical change of the transition state in its circular permutants has been observed, which is believed to be caused by a biased distribution of contact energies. Since the simplistic topology-only Gō -like model is not able to reproduce such an observation, we modify the model by introducing variable contact energies between residues based on their physicochemical properties. The modified Gō -like model can successfully reproduce the Φ -value distributions, folding nucleus, and folding pathways of both the wild-type and circular permutants of S6. Furthermore, by comparing the results of the modified and the simplistic models, we find that the hydrophobic effect constructs the major force that balances the loop entropies. This may indicate that nature maintains the folding cooperativity of this protein by carefully arranging the location of hydrophobic residues in the sequence. Our study reveals a strategy or mechanism used by nature to get out of the dilemma when the native structure, possibly required by biological function, conflicts with folding cooperativity. Finally, the possible relationship between such a design of nature and amyloidosis is also discussed.

The Use of Cooperative Procedures in Teacher Education and Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, David W.; Johnson, Roger T.

2017-01-01

Two aspects of teacher education for cooperative learning are the content taught and the processes used to teach the content. Of the two, the processes used may have the most powerful influences on the desired outcomes. One important theory related to the processes of learning is social interdependence theory. It posits that there are three ways…

Regional Higher Education Reform Initiatives in Africa: A Comparative Analysis with the Bologna Process

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Woldegiorgis, Emnet Tadesse; Jonck, Petronella; Goujon, Anne

2015-01-01

Europe's Bologna Process has been identified as a pioneering approach in regional cooperation with respect to the area of higher education. To address the challenges of African higher education, policymakers are recommending regional cooperation that uses the Bologna Process as a model. Based on these recommendations, the African Union Commission…

Learning Computers, Speaking English: Cooperative Activities for Learning English and Basic Word Processing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Quann, Steve; Satin, Diana

This textbook leads high-beginning and intermediate English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students through cooperative computer-based activities that combine language learning with training in basic computer skills and word processing. Each unit concentrates on a basic concept of word processing while also focusing on a grammar topic. Skills are…

Costly Advertising and the Evolution of Cooperation

PubMed Central

Brede, Markus

2013-01-01

In this paper, I investigate the co-evolution of fast and slow strategy spread and game strategies in populations of spatially distributed agents engaged in a one off evolutionary dilemma game. Agents are characterized by a pair of traits, a game strategy (cooperate or defect) and a binary ‘advertising’ strategy (advertise or don’t advertise). Advertising, which comes at a cost , allows investment into faster propagation of the agents’ traits to adjacent individuals. Importantly, game strategy and advertising strategy are subject to the same evolutionary mechanism. Via analytical reasoning and numerical simulations I demonstrate that a range of advertising costs exists, such that the prevalence of cooperation is significantly enhanced through co-evolution. Linking costly replication to the success of cooperators exposes a novel co-evolutionary mechanism that might contribute towards a better understanding of the origins of cooperation-supporting heterogeneity in agent populations. PMID:23861752

Costly advertising and the evolution of cooperation.

PubMed

Brede, Markus

2013-01-01

In this paper, I investigate the co-evolution of fast and slow strategy spread and game strategies in populations of spatially distributed agents engaged in a one off evolutionary dilemma game. Agents are characterized by a pair of traits, a game strategy (cooperate or defect) and a binary 'advertising' strategy (advertise or don't advertise). Advertising, which comes at a cost [Formula: see text], allows investment into faster propagation of the agents' traits to adjacent individuals. Importantly, game strategy and advertising strategy are subject to the same evolutionary mechanism. Via analytical reasoning and numerical simulations I demonstrate that a range of advertising costs exists, such that the prevalence of cooperation is significantly enhanced through co-evolution. Linking costly replication to the success of cooperators exposes a novel co-evolutionary mechanism that might contribute towards a better understanding of the origins of cooperation-supporting heterogeneity in agent populations.

An Energy Efficient Cooperative Hierarchical MIMO Clustering Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

PubMed Central

Nasim, Mehwish; Qaisar, Saad; Lee, Sungyoung

2012-01-01

In this work, we present an energy efficient hierarchical cooperative clustering scheme for wireless sensor networks. Communication cost is a crucial factor in depleting the energy of sensor nodes. In the proposed scheme, nodes cooperate to form clusters at each level of network hierarchy ensuring maximal coverage and minimal energy expenditure with relatively uniform distribution of load within the network. Performance is enhanced by cooperative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication ensuring energy efficiency for WSN deployments over large geographical areas. We test our scheme using TOSSIM and compare the proposed scheme with cooperative multiple-input multiple-output (CMIMO) clustering scheme and traditional multihop Single-Input-Single-Output (SISO) routing approach. Performance is evaluated on the basis of number of clusters, number of hops, energy consumption and network lifetime. Experimental results show significant energy conservation and increase in network lifetime as compared to existing schemes. PMID:22368459

Cooperation and the evolution of intelligence

PubMed Central

McNally, Luke; Brown, Sam P.; Jackson, Andrew L.

2012-01-01

The high levels of intelligence seen in humans, other primates, certain cetaceans and birds remain a major puzzle for evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and psychologists. It has long been held that social interactions provide the selection pressures necessary for the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities (the ‘social intelligence hypothesis’), and in recent years decision-making in the context of cooperative social interactions has been conjectured to be of particular importance. Here we use an artificial neural network model to show that selection for efficient decision-making in cooperative dilemmas can give rise to selection pressures for greater cognitive abilities, and that intelligent strategies can themselves select for greater intelligence, leading to a Machiavellian arms race. Our results provide mechanistic support for the social intelligence hypothesis, highlight the potential importance of cooperative behaviour in the evolution of intelligence and may help us to explain the distribution of cooperation with intelligence across taxa. PMID:22496188

1 CFR 15.1 - Cooperation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 1 General Provisions 1 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Cooperation. 15.1 Section 15.1 General Provisions ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER PREPARATION, TRANSMITTAL, AND PROCESSING OF DOCUMENTS SERVICES TO FEDERAL AGENCIES General § 15.1 Cooperation. The Director of the Federal Register...

1 CFR 15.1 - Cooperation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 1 General Provisions 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Cooperation. 15.1 Section 15.1 General Provisions ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER PREPARATION, TRANSMITTAL, AND PROCESSING OF DOCUMENTS SERVICES TO FEDERAL AGENCIES General § 15.1 Cooperation. The Director of the Federal Register...

1 CFR 15.1 - Cooperation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 1 General Provisions 1 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Cooperation. 15.1 Section 15.1 General Provisions ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER PREPARATION, TRANSMITTAL, AND PROCESSING OF DOCUMENTS SERVICES TO FEDERAL AGENCIES General § 15.1 Cooperation. The Director of the Federal Register...

1 CFR 15.1 - Cooperation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 1 General Provisions 1 2013-01-01 2012-01-01 true Cooperation. 15.1 Section 15.1 General Provisions ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER PREPARATION, TRANSMITTAL, AND PROCESSING OF DOCUMENTS SERVICES TO FEDERAL AGENCIES General § 15.1 Cooperation. The Director of the Federal Register...

1 CFR 15.1 - Cooperation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 1 General Provisions 1 2014-01-01 2012-01-01 true Cooperation. 15.1 Section 15.1 General Provisions ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FEDERAL REGISTER PREPARATION, TRANSMITTAL, AND PROCESSING OF DOCUMENTS SERVICES TO FEDERAL AGENCIES General § 15.1 Cooperation. The Director of the Federal Register...

How the workload impacts on cognitive cooperation: A pilot study.

PubMed

Sciaraffa, Nicolina; Borghini, Gianluca; Arico, Pietro; Di Flumeri, Gianluca; Toppi, Jlenia; Colosimo, Alfredo; Bezerianos, Anastatios; Thakor, Nitish V; Babiloni, Fabio

2017-07-01

Cooperation degradation can be seen as one of the main causes of human errors. Poor cooperation could arise from aberrant mental processes, such as mental overload, that negatively affect the user's performance. Using different levels of difficulty in a cooperative task, we combined behavioural, subjective and neurophysiological data with the aim to i) quantify the mental workload under which the crew was operating, ii) evaluate the degree of their cooperation, and iii) assess the impact of the workload demands on the cooperation levels. The combination of such data showed that high workload demand impacted significantly on the performance, workload perception, and degree of cooperation.

Cooperation based dynamic team formation in multi-agent auctions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pippin, Charles E.; Christensen, Henrik

2012-06-01

Auction based methods are often used to perform distributed task allocation on multi-agent teams. Many existing approaches to auctions assume fully cooperative team members. On in-situ and dynamically formed teams, reciprocal collaboration may not always be a valid assumption. This paper presents an approach for dynamically selecting auction partners based on observed team member performance and shared reputation. In addition, we present the use of a shared reputation authority mechanism. Finally, experiments are performed in simulation on multiple UAV platforms to highlight situations in which it is better to enforce cooperation in auctions using this approach.

Competitive and Cooperative Effects during Nickel Adsorption to Iron Oxides in the Presence of Oxalate

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Flynn, Elaine D.; Catalano, Jeffrey G.

Iron oxides are ubiquitous in soils and sediments and play a critical role in the geochemical distribution of trace elements and heavy metals via adsorption and coprecipitation. The presence of organic acids may potentially alter how metals associate with iron oxide minerals through a series of cooperative or competitive processes: solution complexation, ternary surface complexation, and surface site competition. The macroscopic and molecular-scale effects of these processes were investigated for Ni adsorption to hematite and goethite at pH 7 in the presence of oxalate. The addition of this organic acid suppresses Ni uptake on both minerals. Aqueous speciation suggests thatmore » this is dominantly the result of oxalate complexing and solubilizing Ni. Comparison of the Ni surface coverage to the concentration of free (uncomplexed) Ni 2+ in solution suggests that the oxalate also alters Ni adsorption affinity. EXAFS and ATR-FTIR spectroscopies indicate that these changes in binding affinity are due to the formation of Ni–oxalate ternary surface complexes. These observations demonstrate that competition between dissolved oxalate and the mineral surface for Ni overwhelms the enhancement in adsorption associated with ternary complexation. Oxalate thus largely enhances Ni mobility, thereby increasing micronutrient bioavailability and inhibiting contaminant sequestration.« less

We can work it out: an enactive look at cooperation

PubMed Central

Fantasia, Valentina; De Jaegher, Hanne; Fasulo, Alessandra

2014-01-01

The past years have seen an increasing debate on cooperation and its unique human character. Philosophers and psychologists have proposed that cooperative activities are characterized by shared goals to which participants are committed through the ability to understand each other’s intentions. Despite its popularity, some serious issues arise with this approach to cooperation. First, one may challenge the assumption that high-level mental processes are necessary for engaging in acting cooperatively. If they are, then how do agents that do not possess such ability (preverbal children, or children with autism who are often claimed to be mind-blind) engage in cooperative exchanges, as the evidence suggests? Secondly, to define cooperation as the result of two de-contextualized minds reading each other’s intentions may fail to fully acknowledge the complexity of situated, interactional dynamics and the interplay of variables such as the participants’ relational and personal history and experience. In this paper we challenge such accounts of cooperation, calling for an embodied approach that sees cooperation not only as an individual attitude toward the other, but also as a property of interaction processes. Taking an enactive perspective, we argue that cooperation is an intrinsic part of any interaction, and that there can be cooperative interaction before complex communicative abilities are achieved. The issue then is not whether one is able or not to read the other’s intentions, but what it takes to participate in joint action. From this basic account, it should be possible to build up more complex forms of cooperation as needed. Addressing the study of cooperation in these terms may enhance our understanding of human social development, and foster our knowledge of different ways of engaging with others, as in the case of autism. PMID:25152745

Joint Combined Exchange Training Evaluation Framework: A Crucial Tool in Security Cooperation Assessment

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-12-01

DOD, joint, or armed service component’s manuals , and other publications . Obviously, JCETs fall under the broader spectrum of security cooperation...NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited JOINT COMBINED...No. 0704–0188 Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing

Equity of Access to Higher Education in the Context of South-South Cooperation in Latin America: A Pluri-Scalar Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Muhr, Thomas

2016-01-01

This article draws from an education governance approach to conduct a pluri-scalar analysis of equity of access to tertiary education in the context of South-South cooperation. An account of distributional justice in access to tertiary education in the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is integrated with a…

Multi-Objective Optimization for Trustworthy Tactical Networks: A Survey and Insights

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-06-01

existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed , and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding...problems: using repeated cooperative games [12], hedonic games [25], and nontransferable utility cooperative games [27]. It should be noted that trust...examined an optimal task allocation problem in a distributed computing system where program modules need to be allocated to different processors to

[Potential of cooperative learning in project development : Relevance of cooperative participation procedure for the further development of generation-appropriate accomodation in structurally weak rural areas].

PubMed

Kaufmann, Gerd; Frankenberg, Olga; Sommer, Ralf-Rüdiger; Jost, Annemarie

2017-04-01

A joint initiative of existing senior care organizations, the municipality of Meyenburg and the state of Brandenburg was further developed by affiliation of an institute of the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (ABV) in cooperation with members of the architecture and social work departments in 2014. A cooperative process between different players was central to create an appropriate structure of services for this region. Cooperative projects are necessary to establish new forms of generation-appropriate living and care concepts in rural areas. Cooperative learning methods are needed to develop new forms of generation-appropriate living and care concepts in rural areas, which take the diversity of elderly people, the rural context, intergenerational residential arrangements and affordable accommodation that meets the requirements of the social security system into account. Furthermore, the project had to reflect the recent developments of the German care insurance. The article describes the participatory methods, the coordination process and the resulting concept.

Conformation of viroids.

PubMed Central

Henco, K; Riesner, D; Sanger, H L

1977-01-01

Viroids are uncoated infectious RNA molecules (MW 107 000-127 000) known as pathogens of certain higher plants. Thermodynamic and kinetic studies were carried out on highly purified viroid preparations by applying UV-absorption melting analysis and temperature jump methods. The thermal denaturation of viroids is characterized by high thermal stability, high cooperativity and a high degree of base pairing. Two relaxation processes could be resolved; a process in the sec range could be evaluated as an independent all-or-none-transition with the following properties: reaction enthalpy= 550 kcal/mol, activation enthalpy of the dissociation = 470 kcal/mol; G : C content = 72 %. These data indicate the existence of an uninterrupted double helix of 52 base pairs. A process in the msec range involves 15 - 25 base pairs which are most probably distributed over several short double helical stretches. A tentative model for the secondary structure of viroids isproposed and the possible functional implications of their physicochemical properties are discussed. PMID:866174

Distributed cooperating processes in a mobile robot control system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Skillman, Thomas L., Jr.

1988-01-01

A mobile inspection robot has been proposed for the NASA Space Station. It will be a free flying autonomous vehicle that will leave a berthing unit to accomplish a variety of inspection tasks around the Space Station, and then return to its berth to recharge, refuel, and transfer information. The Flying Eye robot will receive voice communication to change its attitude, move at a constant velocity, and move to a predefined location along a self generated path. This mobile robot control system requires integration of traditional command and control techniques with a number of AI technologies. Speech recognition, natural language understanding, task and path planning, sensory abstraction and pattern recognition are all required for successful implementation. The interface between the traditional numeric control techniques and the symbolic processing to the AI technologies must be developed, and a distributed computing approach will be needed to meet the real time computing requirements. To study the integration of the elements of this project, a novel mobile robot control architecture and simulation based on the blackboard architecture was developed. The control system operation and structure is discussed.

Federated Giovanni: A Distributed Web Service for Analysis and Visualization of Remote Sensing Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lynnes, Chris

2014-01-01

The Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Interface (Giovanni) is a popular tool for users of the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) and has been in use for over a decade. It provides a wide variety of algorithms and visualizations to explore large remote sensing datasets without having to download the data and without having to write readers and visualizers for it. Giovanni is now being extended to enable its capabilities at other data centers within the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). This Federated Giovanni will allow four other data centers to add and maintain their data within Giovanni on behalf of their user community. Those data centers are the Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC), MODIS Adaptive Processing System (MODAPS), Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG), and Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC). Three tiers are supported: Tier 1 (GES DISC-hosted) gives the remote data center a data management interface to add and maintain data, which are provided through the Giovanni instance at the GES DISC. Tier 2 packages Giovanni up as a virtual machine for distribution to and deployment by the other data centers. Data variables are shared among data centers by sharing documents from the Solr database that underpins Giovanni's data management capabilities. However, each data center maintains their own instance of Giovanni, exposing the variables of most interest to their user community. Tier 3 is a Shared Source model, in which the data centers cooperate to extend the infrastructure by contributing source code.

[Influence of physicians' subspecialty and training history on CKD management and medical cooperation: from the results of a nationwide questionnaire survey for primary care physicians].

PubMed

Naito, Takero; Ohtani, Haruhisa; Kobayashi, Kazuo; Miyazaki, Masanobu; Yamada, Kouji; Sugawara, Masahiro; Naka, Yoshikazu; Saruta, Takao

2013-01-01

The goal of this study was to elucidate how the subspecialty and training history of primary care physicians(PCPs) influence CKD management and medical cooperation in Japan. We conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey on CKD management for PCPs from December 2012 to March 2013. The questionnaire included 32 items about CKD management and medical cooperation. PCPs' subspecialties were categorized as follows: general internal medicine, nephrology, cardiology, diabetology/endocrinology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, neurology, neurosurgery, hematology, collagen disease/rheumatology, allergology. The PCPs' training history of nephrology was classified into three categories: none, experienced, active-nephrologist. Response distributions for each question were compared between the PCPs' subspecialties and the three categories of training history. 2,287 out of 28,200 PCPs (8.1%) of all 47 prefectures responded. The majority (86.5%) of responders were PCPs at clinics, and 90.9% were non-nephrologists. The PCPs' subspecialty influenced the response distributions in the following questions: utilization of the CKD guidebook, urinalysis at the first and follow-up examinations, frequency of blood testing, counselling with eGFR, self-monitoring of blood pressure, prescription and cessation of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors, anemia treatment with erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESA). The PCPs' training history of nephrology had a strong impact on various aspects of CKD management. The PCPs' subspecialties also influenced the responses regarding medical cooperation of CKD: relationship with nephrologists, utilization of critical path, criterion of patient referral, requests for nephrologists, discontent with the nephrologists' response. We elucidated that the PCPs' subspecialty and training history of nephrology substantially influenced CKD management and medical cooperation in Japan. Effective promotion activities to improve CKD management and medical cooperation should be proposed on the basis of these data.

Behavioral evidence for inter-hemispheric cooperation during a lexical decision task: a divided visual field experiment.

PubMed

Perrone-Bertolotti, Marcela; Lemonnier, Sophie; Baciu, Monica

2013-01-01

HIGHLIGHTSThe redundant bilateral visual presentation of verbal stimuli decreases asymmetry and increases the cooperation between the two hemispheres.The increased cooperation between the hemispheres is related to semantic information during lexical processing.The inter-hemispheric interaction is represented by both inhibition and cooperation. This study explores inter-hemispheric interaction (IHI) during a lexical decision task by using a behavioral approach, the bilateral presentation of stimuli within a divided visual field experiment. Previous studies have shown that compared to unilateral presentation, the bilateral redundant (BR) presentation decreases the inter-hemispheric asymmetry and facilitates the cooperation between hemispheres. However, it is still poorly understood which type of information facilitates this cooperation. In the present study, verbal stimuli were presented unilaterally (left or right visual hemi-field successively) and bilaterally (left and right visual hemi-field simultaneously). Moreover, during the bilateral presentation of stimuli, we manipulated the relationship between target and distractors in order to specify the type of information which modulates the IHI. Thus, three types of information were manipulated: perceptual, semantic, and decisional, respectively named pre-lexical, lexical and post-lexical processing. Our results revealed left hemisphere (LH) lateralization during the lexical decision task. In terms of inter-hemisphere interaction, the perceptual and decision-making information increased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting the inhibition of one hemisphere upon the other. In contrast, semantic information decreased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting cooperation between the hemispheres. We discussed our results according to current models of IHI and concluded that cerebral hemispheres interact and communicate according to various excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms, all which depend on specific processes and various levels of word processing.

Behavioral evidence for inter-hemispheric cooperation during a lexical decision task: a divided visual field experiment

PubMed Central

Perrone-Bertolotti, Marcela; Lemonnier, Sophie; Baciu, Monica

2013-01-01

HIGHLIGHTS The redundant bilateral visual presentation of verbal stimuli decreases asymmetry and increases the cooperation between the two hemispheres.The increased cooperation between the hemispheres is related to semantic information during lexical processing.The inter-hemispheric interaction is represented by both inhibition and cooperation. This study explores inter-hemispheric interaction (IHI) during a lexical decision task by using a behavioral approach, the bilateral presentation of stimuli within a divided visual field experiment. Previous studies have shown that compared to unilateral presentation, the bilateral redundant (BR) presentation decreases the inter-hemispheric asymmetry and facilitates the cooperation between hemispheres. However, it is still poorly understood which type of information facilitates this cooperation. In the present study, verbal stimuli were presented unilaterally (left or right visual hemi-field successively) and bilaterally (left and right visual hemi-field simultaneously). Moreover, during the bilateral presentation of stimuli, we manipulated the relationship between target and distractors in order to specify the type of information which modulates the IHI. Thus, three types of information were manipulated: perceptual, semantic, and decisional, respectively named pre-lexical, lexical and post-lexical processing. Our results revealed left hemisphere (LH) lateralization during the lexical decision task. In terms of inter-hemisphere interaction, the perceptual and decision-making information increased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting the inhibition of one hemisphere upon the other. In contrast, semantic information decreased the inter-hemispheric asymmetry, suggesting cooperation between the hemispheres. We discussed our results according to current models of IHI and concluded that cerebral hemispheres interact and communicate according to various excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms, all which depend on specific processes and various levels of word processing. PMID:23818879

Self-organized cooperative behavior and critical penalty in an evolving population

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Chen; Hui, P. M.; Yu, You-Yang; Gu, Guo-Qing

2009-10-01

The emergence of cooperation and the effectiveness of penalties among competing agents are studied via a model of evolutionary game incorporating adaptive behavior and penalties for illegal acts. For initially identical agents, a phase diagram is obtained via an analytic approach, with results in good agreement with numerical simulations. The results show that there exists a critical penalty for achieving a completely honest population and a sufficiently well-behaved initial population requires no penalty. Self-organized segregation to extreme actions emerges in the dynamics for a system with uniformly distributed initial tendencies for cooperation. After training, the penalty can be relaxed without ruining the adapted cooperative behavior. Results of our model in a population taking on the form of a 2D square lattice are also reported.

Healthcare information system approaches based on middleware concepts.

PubMed

Holena, M; Blobel, B

1997-01-01

To meet the challenges for efficient and high-level quality, health care systems must implement the "Shared Care" paradigm of distributed co-operating systems. To this end, both the newly developed and legacy applications must be fully integrated into the care process. These requirements can be fulfilled by information systems based on middleware concepts. In the paper, the middleware approaches HL7, DHE, and CORBA are described. The relevance of those approaches to the healthcare domain is documented. The description presented here is complemented through two other papers in this volume, concentrating on the evaluation of the approaches, and on their security threats and solutions.

Design & implementation of distributed spatial computing node based on WPS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Liping; Li, Guoqing; Xie, Jibo

2014-03-01

Currently, the research work of SIG (Spatial Information Grid) technology mostly emphasizes on the spatial data sharing in grid environment, while the importance of spatial computing resources is ignored. In order to implement the sharing and cooperation of spatial computing resources in grid environment, this paper does a systematical research of the key technologies to construct Spatial Computing Node based on the WPS (Web Processing Service) specification by OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium). And a framework of Spatial Computing Node is designed according to the features of spatial computing resources. Finally, a prototype of Spatial Computing Node is implemented and the relevant verification work under the environment is completed.

Crowd Computing as a Cooperation Problem: An Evolutionary Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Christoforou, Evgenia; Fernández Anta, Antonio; Georgiou, Chryssis; Mosteiro, Miguel A.; Sánchez, Angel

2013-05-01

Cooperation is one of the socio-economic issues that has received more attention from the physics community. The problem has been mostly considered by studying games such as the Prisoner's Dilemma or the Public Goods Game. Here, we take a step forward by studying cooperation in the context of crowd computing. We introduce a model loosely based on Principal-agent theory in which people (workers) contribute to the solution of a distributed problem by computing answers and reporting to the problem proposer (master). To go beyond classical approaches involving the concept of Nash equilibrium, we work on an evolutionary framework in which both the master and the workers update their behavior through reinforcement learning. Using a Markov chain approach, we show theoretically that under certain----not very restrictive—conditions, the master can ensure the reliability of the answer resulting of the process. Then, we study the model by numerical simulations, finding that convergence, meaning that the system reaches a point in which it always produces reliable answers, may in general be much faster than the upper bounds given by the theoretical calculation. We also discuss the effects of the master's level of tolerance to defectors, about which the theory does not provide information. The discussion shows that the system works even with very large tolerances. We conclude with a discussion of our results and possible directions to carry this research further.

Cooper Screening of Information Processing (C-SIP). Administrator's Manual.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper, Richard

This document is designed to assist individuals administering the Cooper Screening of Information Processing (C-SIP), which is intended as a diagnostic teaching tool that allows teachers or others to determine, in a conversational setting, whether a person manifests any common characteristics of learning problems. After a brief introduction, a…

Food Distribution. The Supermarket Entry Occupations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

South Carolina State Dept. of Education, Columbia. Office of Vocational Education.

This guide is designed to assist the coordinator of the Marketing and Distributive Education Cooperative Education Program in improving and expanding the instructional activities needed to prepare individuals to function in the food industry's entry-level jobs. The instructional material provides information about what is expected of a student…

Distributed polar-coded OFDM based on Plotkin's construction for half duplex wireless communication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Umar, Rahim; Yang, Fengfan; Mughal, Shoaib; Xu, HongJun

2018-07-01

A Plotkin-based polar-coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (P-PC-OFDM) scheme is proposed and its bit error rate (BER) performance over additive white gaussian noise (AWGN), frequency selective Rayleigh, Rician and Nakagami-m fading channels has been evaluated. The considered Plotkin's construction possesses a parallel split in its structure, which motivated us to extend the proposed P-PC-OFDM scheme in a coded cooperative scenario. As the relay's effective collaboration has always been pivotal in the design of cooperative communication therefore, an efficient selection criterion for choosing the information bits has been inculcated at the relay node. To assess the BER performance of the proposed cooperative scheme, we have also upgraded conventional polar-coded cooperative scheme in the context of OFDM as an appropriate bench marker. The Monte Carlo simulated results revealed that the proposed Plotkin-based polar-coded cooperative OFDM scheme convincingly outperforms the conventional polar-coded cooperative OFDM scheme by 0.5 0.6 dBs over AWGN channel. This prominent gain in BER performance is made possible due to the bit-selection criteria and the joint successive cancellation decoding adopted at the relay and the destination nodes, respectively. Furthermore, the proposed coded cooperative schemes outperform their corresponding non-cooperative schemes by a gain of 1 dB under an identical condition.

40 CFR 1501.6 - Cooperating agencies.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Cooperating agencies. The purpose of this section is to emphasize agency cooperation early in the NEPA process. Upon request of the lead agency, any other Federal agency which has jurisdiction by law shall be a... jurisdiction by law or special expertise, to the maximum extent possible consistent with its responsibility as...

40 CFR 1501.6 - Cooperating agencies.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... Cooperating agencies. The purpose of this section is to emphasize agency cooperation early in the NEPA process. Upon request of the lead agency, any other Federal agency which has jurisdiction by law shall be a... jurisdiction by law or special expertise, to the maximum extent possible consistent with its responsibility as...

Labor-Management Cooperation in Schools: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Woods-Houston, Michelle; Miller, Rima

This paper presents information useful to educational leaders considering a labor-management cooperation (LMC) process. LMC is a mechanism for changing attitudes and building an atmosphere of trust between two traditionally adversarial groups. The first section outlines categories and provides examples of LMC cooperative efforts, highlighting the…

Teaching Economics: A Cooperative Learning Model.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caropreso, Edward J.; Haggerty, Mark

2000-01-01

Describes an alternative approach to introductory economics based on a cooperative learning model, "Learning Together." Discussion of issues in economics education and cooperative learning in higher education leads to explanation of how to adapt the Learning Together Model to lesson planning in economics. A flow chart illustrates the process for a…

Evaluating Cooperative Education Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alvir, Howard P.

This document defines cooperative education as any form of occupational or professional activity that required the cooperation of both school and the labor market. In some cases, this might be the school and industry or business. In this process, evaluation is defined as the improvement of learner success through measurement of program components.…

Helping Children Cooperate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pica, Rae

2011-01-01

There are occasions in life when the competitive process is appropriate. But when people consider the relationships in their lives--with friends, family members, coworkers, and the larger community--they realize the value of cooperation. When adults give children the chance to cooperate, to work together toward a solution or a common goal like…

Conscious Cooperation with the Individuating Adult Learner

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spear, Stephen B.

2014-01-01

Fundamental to the process of Jungian individuation is the integration of ego consciousness and unconsciousness. For this to occur, the ego must be willing to consciously cooperate with the unconscious, acknowledging and nonjudgmentally accepting the imaginal communications that flow from it. The ego's decision to cooperate with the unconscious is…

Diesel production from lignocellulosic feed: the bioCRACK process

PubMed Central

Ritzberger, J.; Schwaiger, N.; Pucher, P.; Siebenhofer, M.

2017-01-01

The bioCRACK process is a promising technology for the production of second generation biofuels. During this process, biomass is pyrolized in vacuum gas oil and converted into gaseous, liquid and solid products. In cooperation with the Graz University of Technology, the liquid phase pyrolysis process was investigated by BDI – BioEnergy International AG at an industrial pilot plant, fully integrated in the OMV refinery in Vienna/Schwechat. The influence of various biogenous feedstocks and the influence of the temperature on the product distribution in the temperature range of 350°C to 390°C was studied. It was shown that the temperature has a major impact on the product formation. With rising temperature, the fraction of liquid products, namely liquid CHO-products, reaction water and hydrocarbons, increases and the fraction of biochar decreases. At 390°C, 39.8 wt% of biogenous carbon was transferred into a crude hydrocarbon fractions. The type of lignocellulosic feedstock has a minor impact on the process. The biomass liquefaction concept of the bioCRACK process was in pilot scale compatible with oil refinery processes. PMID:29291098

Low Probability of Intercept Waveforms via Intersymbol Dither Performance Under Multiple Conditions

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-01

United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States Government . AFIT/GE/ENG/09-23 Low Probability of Intercept Waveforms via...21 D random variable governing the distribution of dither values 21 p (ct) D (t) probability density function of the...potential performance loss of a non-cooperative receiver compared to a cooperative receiver designed to account for ISI and multipath. 1.3 Thesis

Low Probability of Intercept Waveforms via Intersymbol Dither Performance Under Multipath Conditions

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-01

United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States Government . AFIT/GE/ENG/09-23 Low Probability of Intercept Waveforms via...21 D random variable governing the distribution of dither values 21 p (ct) D (t) probability density function of the...potential performance loss of a non-cooperative receiver compared to a cooperative receiver designed to account for ISI and multipath. 1.3 Thesis

Crowd-Funding: A New Resource Cooperation Mode for Mobile Cloud Computing.

PubMed

Zhang, Nan; Yang, Xiaolong; Zhang, Min; Sun, Yan

2016-01-01

Mobile cloud computing, which integrates the cloud computing techniques into the mobile environment, is regarded as one of the enabler technologies for 5G mobile wireless networks. There are many sporadic spare resources distributed within various devices in the networks, which can be used to support mobile cloud applications. However, these devices, with only a few spare resources, cannot support some resource-intensive mobile applications alone. If some of them cooperate with each other and share their resources, then they can support many applications. In this paper, we propose a resource cooperative provision mode referred to as "Crowd-funding", which is designed to aggregate the distributed devices together as the resource provider of mobile applications. Moreover, to facilitate high-efficiency resource management via dynamic resource allocation, different resource providers should be selected to form a stable resource coalition for different requirements. Thus, considering different requirements, we propose two different resource aggregation models for coalition formation. Finally, we may allocate the revenues based on their attributions according to the concept of the "Shapley value" to enable a more impartial revenue share among the cooperators. It is shown that a dynamic and flexible resource-management method can be developed based on the proposed Crowd-funding model, relying on the spare resources in the network.

Crowd-Funding: A New Resource Cooperation Mode for Mobile Cloud Computing

PubMed Central

Zhang, Min; Sun, Yan

2016-01-01

Mobile cloud computing, which integrates the cloud computing techniques into the mobile environment, is regarded as one of the enabler technologies for 5G mobile wireless networks. There are many sporadic spare resources distributed within various devices in the networks, which can be used to support mobile cloud applications. However, these devices, with only a few spare resources, cannot support some resource-intensive mobile applications alone. If some of them cooperate with each other and share their resources, then they can support many applications. In this paper, we propose a resource cooperative provision mode referred to as "Crowd-funding", which is designed to aggregate the distributed devices together as the resource provider of mobile applications. Moreover, to facilitate high-efficiency resource management via dynamic resource allocation, different resource providers should be selected to form a stable resource coalition for different requirements. Thus, considering different requirements, we propose two different resource aggregation models for coalition formation. Finally, we may allocate the revenues based on their attributions according to the concept of the "Shapley value" to enable a more impartial revenue share among the cooperators. It is shown that a dynamic and flexible resource-management method can be developed based on the proposed Crowd-funding model, relying on the spare resources in the network. PMID:28030553

Cooperative Control for A Hybrid Rehabilitation System Combining Functional Electrical Stimulation and Robotic Exoskeleton

PubMed Central

Zhang, Dingguo; Ren, Yong; Gui, Kai; Jia, Jie; Xu, Wendong

2017-01-01

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) and robotic exoskeletons are two important technologies widely used for physical rehabilitation of paraplegic patients. We developed a hybrid rehabilitation system (FEXO Knee) that combined FES and an exoskeleton for swinging movement control of human knee joints. This study proposed a novel cooperative control strategy, which could realize arbitrary distribution of torque generated by FES and exoskeleton, and guarantee harmonic movements. The cooperative control adopted feedfoward control for FES and feedback control for exoskeleton. A parameter regulator was designed to update key parameters in real time to coordinate FES controller and exoskeleton controller. Two muscle groups (quadriceps and hamstrings) were stimulated to generate active torque for knee joint in synchronization with torque compensation from exoskeleton. The knee joint angle and the interactive torque between exoskeleton and shank were used as feedback signals for the control system. Central pattern generator (CPG) was adopted that acted as a phase predictor to deal with phase confliction of motor patterns, and realized synchronization between the two different bodies (shank and exoskeleton). Experimental evaluation of the hybrid FES-exoskeleton system was conducted on five healthy subjects and four paraplegic patients. Experimental results and statistical analysis showed good control performance of the cooperative control on torque distribution, trajectory tracking, and phase synchronization. PMID:29311798

Cooperative Control for A Hybrid Rehabilitation System Combining Functional Electrical Stimulation and Robotic Exoskeleton.

PubMed

Zhang, Dingguo; Ren, Yong; Gui, Kai; Jia, Jie; Xu, Wendong

2017-01-01

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) and robotic exoskeletons are two important technologies widely used for physical rehabilitation of paraplegic patients. We developed a hybrid rehabilitation system (FEXO Knee) that combined FES and an exoskeleton for swinging movement control of human knee joints. This study proposed a novel cooperative control strategy, which could realize arbitrary distribution of torque generated by FES and exoskeleton, and guarantee harmonic movements. The cooperative control adopted feedfoward control for FES and feedback control for exoskeleton. A parameter regulator was designed to update key parameters in real time to coordinate FES controller and exoskeleton controller. Two muscle groups (quadriceps and hamstrings) were stimulated to generate active torque for knee joint in synchronization with torque compensation from exoskeleton. The knee joint angle and the interactive torque between exoskeleton and shank were used as feedback signals for the control system. Central pattern generator (CPG) was adopted that acted as a phase predictor to deal with phase confliction of motor patterns, and realized synchronization between the two different bodies (shank and exoskeleton). Experimental evaluation of the hybrid FES-exoskeleton system was conducted on five healthy subjects and four paraplegic patients. Experimental results and statistical analysis showed good control performance of the cooperative control on torque distribution, trajectory tracking, and phase synchronization.

An incentive-based distributed mechanism for scheduling divisible loads in tree networks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Carroll, T. E.; Grosu, D.

The underlying assumption of Divisible Load Scheduling (DLS) theory is that the pro-cessors composing the network are obedient, i.e., they do not “cheat” the scheduling algorithm. This assumption is unrealistic if the processors are owned by autonomous, self-interested organizations that have no a priori motivation for cooperation and they will manipulate the algorithm if it is beneficial to do so. In this paper, we address this issue by designing a distributed mechanism for scheduling divisible loads in tree net-works, called DLS-T, which provides incentives to processors for reporting their true processing capacity and executing their assigned load at full processingmore » capacity. We prove that the DLS-T mechanism computes the optimal allocation in an ex post Nash equilibrium. Finally, we simulate and study the mechanism under various network structures and processor parameters.« less

Mapping Systemic Risk: Critical Degree and Failures Distribution in Financial Networks.

PubMed

Smerlak, Matteo; Stoll, Brady; Gupta, Agam; Magdanz, James S

2015-01-01

The financial crisis illustrated the need for a functional understanding of systemic risk in strongly interconnected financial structures. Dynamic processes on complex networks being intrinsically difficult to model analytically, most recent studies of this problem have relied on numerical simulations. Here we report analytical results in a network model of interbank lending based on directly relevant financial parameters, such as interest rates and leverage ratios. We obtain a closed-form formula for the "critical degree" (the number of creditors per bank below which an individual shock can propagate throughout the network), and relate failures distributions to network topologies, in particular scalefree ones. Our criterion for the onset of contagion turns out to be isomorphic to the condition for cooperation to evolve on graphs and social networks, as recently formulated in evolutionary game theory. This remarkable connection supports recent calls for a methodological rapprochement between finance and ecology.

Mapping Systemic Risk: Critical Degree and Failures Distribution in Financial Networks

PubMed Central

Smerlak, Matteo; Stoll, Brady; Gupta, Agam; Magdanz, James S.

2015-01-01

The financial crisis illustrated the need for a functional understanding of systemic risk in strongly interconnected financial structures. Dynamic processes on complex networks being intrinsically difficult to model analytically, most recent studies of this problem have relied on numerical simulations. Here we report analytical results in a network model of interbank lending based on directly relevant financial parameters, such as interest rates and leverage ratios. We obtain a closed-form formula for the “critical degree” (the number of creditors per bank below which an individual shock can propagate throughout the network), and relate failures distributions to network topologies, in particular scalefree ones. Our criterion for the onset of contagion turns out to be isomorphic to the condition for cooperation to evolve on graphs and social networks, as recently formulated in evolutionary game theory. This remarkable connection supports recent calls for a methodological rapprochement between finance and ecology. PMID:26207631

Cooperation in microbial communities and their biotechnological applications

PubMed Central

Cavaliere, Matteo; Feng, Song; Soyer, Orkun S.

2017-01-01

Summary Microbial communities are increasingly utilized in biotechnology. Efficiency and productivity in many of these applications depends on the presence of cooperative interactions between members of the community. Two key processes underlying these interactions are the production of public goods and metabolic cross‐feeding, which can be understood in the general framework of ecological and evolutionary (eco‐evo) dynamics. In this review, we illustrate the relevance of cooperative interactions in microbial biotechnological processes, discuss their mechanistic origins and analyse their evolutionary resilience. Cooperative behaviours can be damaged by the emergence of ‘cheating’ cells that benefit from the cooperative interactions but do not contribute to them. Despite this, cooperative interactions can be stabilized by spatial segregation, by the presence of feedbacks between the evolutionary dynamics and the ecology of the community, by the role of regulatory systems coupled to the environmental conditions and by the action of horizontal gene transfer. Cooperative interactions enrich microbial communities with a higher degree of robustness against environmental stress and can facilitate the evolution of more complex traits. Therefore, the evolutionary resilience of microbial communities and their ability to constraint detrimental mutants should be considered to design robust biotechnological applications. PMID:28447371

Cooperative networks overcoming defectors by social influence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gomez Portillo, Ignacio

2014-01-01

We address the cooperation problem in structured populations by considering the prisoner’s dilemma game as a metaphor of the social interactions between individuals with imitation capacity. We present a new strategy update rule called democratic weighted update where the individual’s behavior is socially influenced by each one of their neighbors. In particular, the capacity of an individual to socially influence other ones is proportional to its accumulated payoff. When in a neighborhood there are cooperators and defectors, the focal player is contradictorily influenced by them and, therefore, the effective social influence is given by the difference of the accumulated payoff of each strategy in its neighborhood. First, by considering the growing process of the network and neglecting mutations, we show the evolution of highly cooperative systems. Then, we broadly show that the social influence allows to overcome the emergence of defectors into highly cooperative systems. In this way, we conclude that in a structured system formed by a growing process, the cooperation evolves if the individuals have an imitation capacity socially influenced by each one of their neighbors. Therefore, here we present a theoretical solution of the cooperation problem among genetically unrelated individuals.

How to build a course in mathematical-biological modeling: content and processes for knowledge and skill.

PubMed

Hoskinson, Anne-Marie

2010-01-01

Biological problems in the twenty-first century are complex and require mathematical insight, often resulting in mathematical models of biological systems. Building mathematical-biological models requires cooperation among biologists and mathematicians, and mastery of building models. A new course in mathematical modeling presented the opportunity to build both content and process learning of mathematical models, the modeling process, and the cooperative process. There was little guidance from the literature on how to build such a course. Here, I describe the iterative process of developing such a course, beginning with objectives and choosing content and process competencies to fulfill the objectives. I include some inductive heuristics for instructors seeking guidance in planning and developing their own courses, and I illustrate with a description of one instructional model cycle. Students completing this class reported gains in learning of modeling content, the modeling process, and cooperative skills. Student content and process mastery increased, as assessed on several objective-driven metrics in many types of assessments.

How to Build a Course in Mathematical–Biological Modeling: Content and Processes for Knowledge and Skill

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Biological problems in the twenty-first century are complex and require mathematical insight, often resulting in mathematical models of biological systems. Building mathematical–biological models requires cooperation among biologists and mathematicians, and mastery of building models. A new course in mathematical modeling presented the opportunity to build both content and process learning of mathematical models, the modeling process, and the cooperative process. There was little guidance from the literature on how to build such a course. Here, I describe the iterative process of developing such a course, beginning with objectives and choosing content and process competencies to fulfill the objectives. I include some inductive heuristics for instructors seeking guidance in planning and developing their own courses, and I illustrate with a description of one instructional model cycle. Students completing this class reported gains in learning of modeling content, the modeling process, and cooperative skills. Student content and process mastery increased, as assessed on several objective-driven metrics in many types of assessments. PMID:20810966

Cooperation, Fast and Slow: Meta-Analytic Evidence for a Theory of Social Heuristics and Self-Interested Deliberation.

PubMed

Rand, David G

2016-09-01

Does cooperating require the inhibition of selfish urges? Or does "rational" self-interest constrain cooperative impulses? I investigated the role of intuition and deliberation in cooperation by meta-analyzing 67 studies in which cognitive-processing manipulations were applied to economic cooperation games (total N = 17,647; no indication of publication bias using Egger's test, Begg's test, or p-curve). My meta-analysis was guided by the social heuristics hypothesis, which proposes that intuition favors behavior that typically maximizes payoffs, whereas deliberation favors behavior that maximizes one's payoff in the current situation. Therefore, this theory predicts that deliberation will undermine pure cooperation (i.e., cooperation in settings where there are few future consequences for one's actions, such that cooperating is not in one's self-interest) but not strategic cooperation (i.e., cooperation in settings where cooperating can maximize one's payoff). As predicted, the meta-analysis revealed 17.3% more pure cooperation when intuition was promoted over deliberation, but no significant difference in strategic cooperation between more intuitive and more deliberative conditions. © The Author(s) 2016.

An effective intervention algorithm for promoting cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game with multiple stable states

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Y. S.; Xu, C.; Hui, P. M.

2018-07-01

Multiple stable states, hysteresis, sensitivity to initial distributions, and a control algorithm for promoting cooperation are studied in an evolutionary prisoner's dilemma with agents connected into a regular random network. A system could evolve into states of different cooperative frequencies xc in different runs, even starting with the same initial cooperative frequency xc(in) and payoff parameters. For a large reward R, some values of xc(in) either take the system to a group of low cooperative frequency (LCF) states or to a few high cooperative frequency (HCF) states. These states differ by their network structures, with cooperative players connected into ring-like structure in LCF states and compact clusters in HCF states. Hysteresis in xc is observed when R is swept down and up, when the final state of the previous R is used as the initial state of the next R. The analysis led us to propose a closed pack cluster algorithm that gives HCF states effectively. The algorithm intervenes the system at some point in time by selectively switching some non-cooperative D-agents into cooperative C-agents at the peripheral of an existing cluster of C-agents. It ensures protection of a small C-cluster from which more cooperation can be induced. Practically, a governing body may first allow a society to evolve freely and then derive suitable policy to promote selected pockets of good practices for attaining a higher level of common good.

Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers.

PubMed

Apicella, Coren L; Marlowe, Frank W; Fowler, James H; Christakis, Nicholas A

2012-01-25

Social networks show striking structural regularities, and both theory and evidence suggest that networks may have facilitated the development of large-scale cooperation in humans. Here, we characterize the social networks of the Hadza, a population of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. We show that Hadza networks have important properties also seen in modernized social networks, including a skewed degree distribution, degree assortativity, transitivity, reciprocity, geographic decay and homophily. We demonstrate that Hadza camps exhibit high between-group and low within-group variation in public goods game donations. Network ties are also more likely between people who give the same amount, and the similarity in cooperative behaviour extends up to two degrees of separation. Social distance appears to be as important as genetic relatedness and physical proximity in explaining assortativity in cooperation. Our results suggest that certain elements of social network structure may have been present at an early point in human history. Also, early humans may have formed ties with both kin and non-kin, based in part on their tendency to cooperate. Social networks may thus have contributed to the emergence of cooperation.

PACS-Graz, 1985-2000: from a scientific pilot to a state-wide multimedia radiological information system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gell, Guenther

2000-05-01

1971/72 began the implementation of a computerized radiological documentation system as the Department of Radiology of the University of Graz, which developed over the years into a full RIS. 1985 started a scientific cooperation with SIEMENS to develop a PACS. The two systems were linked and evolved into a highly integrated RIS-PACS for the state wide hospital system in Styria. During its lifetime the RIS, originally implemented in FORTRAN on a UNIVAC 494 mainframe migrated to a PDP15, on to a PDP11, then VAX and Alphas. The flexible original record structure with variable length fields and the powerful retrieval language were retained. The data acquisition part with the user interface was rewritten several times and many service programs have been added. During our PACS cooperation many ideas like the folder concept or functionalities of the GUI have been designed and tested and were then implemented in the SIENET product. The actual RIS/PACS supports the whole workflow in the Radiology Department. It is installed in a 2.300 bed university hospital and the smaller hospitals of the State of Styria. Modalities from different vendors are connected via DICOM to the RIS (modality worklist) and to the PACS. PACSubsystems from other vendors have been integrated. Images are distributed to referring clinics and for teleconsultation and image processing and reports are available on line to all connected hospitals. We spent great efforts to guarantee optimal support of the workflow and to ensure an enhanced cost/benefit ratio for each user (class). Another special feature is selective image distribution. Using the high level retrieval language individual filters can be constructed easily to implement any image distribution policy agreed upon by radiologists and referring clinicians.

Application of decentralized cooperative problem solving in dynamic flexible scheduling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guan, Zai-Lin; Lei, Ming; Wu, Bo; Wu, Ya; Yang, Shuzi

1995-08-01

The object of this study is to discuss an intelligent solution to the problem of task-allocation in shop floor scheduling. For this purpose, the technique of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) is applied. Intelligent agents (IAs) are used to realize decentralized cooperation, and negotiation is realized by using message passing based on the contract net model. Multiple agents, such as manager agents, workcell agents, and workstation agents, make game-like decisions based on multiple criteria evaluations. This procedure of decentralized cooperative problem solving makes local scheduling possible. And by integrating such multiple local schedules, dynamic flexible scheduling for the whole shop floor production can be realized.

Coexistence of fraternity and egoism for spatial social dilemmas.

PubMed

Szabó, György; Szolnoki, Attila; Czakó, Lilla

2013-01-21

We have studied an evolutionary game with spatially arranged players who can choose one of the two strategies (named cooperation and defection for social dilemmas) when playing with their neighbors. In addition to the application of the usual strategies in the present model the players are also characterized by one of the two extreme personal features representing the egoist or fraternal behavior. During the evolution each player can modify both her own strategy and/or personal feature via a myopic update process in order to improve her utility. The results of numerical simulations and stability analysis are summarized in phase diagrams representing a wide scale of spatially ordered distribution of strategies and personal features when varying the payoff parameters. In most of the cases only two of the four possible options prevail and may form sublattice ordered spatial structure. The evolutionary advantage of the fraternal attitude is demonstrated within a large range of payoff parameters including the region of prisoner's dilemma where egoist defectors and fraternal cooperators form a role-separating chessboard like pattern. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Monitoring amphibians in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

USGS Publications Warehouse

Dodd, C. Kenneth

2003-01-01

This report provides an overview of the Park’s amphibians, the factors affecting their distribution, a review of important areas of biodiversity, and a summary of amphibian life history in the Southern Appalachians. In addition, survey techniques are described as well as examples of how the techniques are set up, a critique of what the results tell the observer, and a discussion of the limitations of the techniques and the data. The report reviews considerations for site selection, outlines steps for biosecurity and for processing diseased or dying animals, and provides resource managers with a decision tree on how to monitor the Park’s amphibians based on different levels of available resources. It concludes with an extensive list of references for inventorying and monitoring amphibians. USGS and Great Smoky Mountains National Park biologists need to establish cooperative efforts and training to ensure that congressionally mandated amphibian surveys are performed in a statistically rigorous and biologically meaningful manner, and that amphibian populations on Federal lands are monitored to ensure their long-term survival. The research detailed in this report will aid these cooperative efforts.

Radiation detector spectrum simulator

DOEpatents

Wolf, Michael A.; Crowell, John M.

1987-01-01

A small battery operated nuclear spectrum simulator having a noise source nerates pulses with a Gaussian distribution of amplitudes. A switched dc bias circuit cooperating therewith generates several nominal amplitudes of such pulses and a spectral distribution of pulses that closely simulates the spectrum produced by a radiation source such as Americium 241.

Radiation detector spectrum simulator

DOEpatents

Wolf, M.A.; Crowell, J.M.

1985-04-09

A small battery operated nuclear spectrum simulator having a noise source generates pulses with a Gaussian distribution of amplitudes. A switched dc bias circuit cooperating therewith to generate several nominal amplitudes of such pulses and a spectral distribution of pulses that closely simulates the spectrum produced by a radiation source such as Americium 241.

MADE 1. Marketing and Distributive Education Competency Based Curriculum Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

New Jersey State Dept. of Education, Trenton. Div. of Vocational Education.

This curriculum guide is one in a series of three competency-based instructional materials dealing with marketing and distributive education (MADE). Covered in the individual sections of the guide are the following topics: job orientation (cooperative education work agreements, personal appearance, career opportunities, job applications, job…

The Influence of Distributed Leadership on Teachers' Organizational Commitment: A Multilevel Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hulpia, Hester; Devos, Geert; Van Keer, Hilde

2009-01-01

In the present study the effects of a cooperative leadership team, distributed leadership, participative decision-making, and context variables on teachers' organizational commitment are investigated. Multilevel analyses on data from 1522 teachers indicated that 9% of the variance in teachers' organizational commitment is attributable to…

'Part of the solution': Developing sustainable energy through co-operatives and learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duguid, Fiona C. B.

After five years of development, WindShare Co-operative in Toronto, Ontario became the first urban wind turbine in North America and the first co-operatively owned and operated wind turbine in Canada. The development of WindShare Co-operative has spurred the growth of a green energy co-operative sector in Ontario. This study, which included 27 interviews and a focus group with members of WindShare Co-operative, focuses on the roles of community-based green energy co-operatives in advancing sustainable energy development and energy literacy. Sustainable energy development is firmly rooted in the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic success, and green energy co-operatives can be a way to help achieve those successes. Green energy co-operatives are structures for providing renewable energy generation or energy conservation practices, both of which have important environmental impacts regarding climate change and pollution levels. Co-operative structures are supported by processes that include local ownership, democracy, participation, community organizing, learning and social change. These processes have a significant social impact by creating a venue for people to be directly involved in the energy industry, by involving learning through participation in a community-based organization, and by advancing energy literacy within the membership and the general public. In regards to the economic impacts, green energy co-operatives foster a local economy and local investment opportunities, which have repercussions regarding building expertise within Ontario's green energy and co-operative development future, and more generally, captures members' interest because they have a direct stake in the co-operative. This thesis shows that green energy co-operatives, like WindShare, play an important role in advancing sustainable energy development, energy literacy and the triple bottom line. Members of WindShare expressed resounding feelings of pride, efficacy and understanding of WindShare's role in sustainable energy. WindShare Co-operative provided the structure whereby members felt a part of the solution in terms of sustainable energy development. Policies and practices at all levels of government should encourage the advancement of green energy co-operatives to support Canada's efforts at public involvement in combating climate change and pollution.

Can cooperative behaviors promote evacuation efficiency?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheng, Yuan; Zheng, Xiaoping

2018-02-01

This study aims to get insight into the question whether cooperative behaviors can promote the evacuation efficiency during an evacuation process. In this work, cooperative behaviors and evacuation efficiency have been examined in detail by using a cellular automata model with behavioral extension. The simulation results show that moderate cooperative behaviors can result in the highest evacuation efficiency. It is found that in a mixture of cooperative and competitive individuals, more cooperative people will lead to relatively high evacuation efficiency, and the larger subgroup will play a leading role. This work can also provide some new insights for the study of cooperative behaviors and evacuation efficiency which can be a scientific decision-making basis for emergency response involving large-scale crowd evacuation in emergencies.

Explaining Cooperation in Groups: Testing Models of Reciprocity and Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biele, Guido; Rieskamp, Jorg; Czienskowski, Uwe

2008-01-01

What are the cognitive processes underlying cooperation in groups? This question is addressed by examining how well a reciprocity model, two learning models, and social value orientation can predict cooperation in two iterated n-person social dilemmas with continuous contributions. In the first of these dilemmas, the public goods game,…

Democratic Teachers Mentoring Novice Teachers: Enacting Democratic Practices and Pedagogy in Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Payne, Katherina A.

2018-01-01

Much like preservice teachers, who cite cooperating teachers as influential to the learning-to-teach process, this study and its findings center the work of cooperating teachers as essential to teacher education for democratic education. The mentoring practices of cooperating teachers often reflect their teaching practices with students in their…

Cooperative-Experiential Learning: Using Student-Developed Games to Increase Knowledge Retention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Camp, Kerri M.; Avery, Sherry; Lirely, Roger

2012-01-01

Previous literature has discussed the use of cooperative and experiential learning as a means of augmenting student involvement in the learning process. Teamwork has been one method of employing cooperative learning and having students play games has been used extensively in experiential learning approaches. Often the two pedagogies are employed…

Ten Strengths of How Teachers Do Cooperative Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jaocbs, George M.

2016-01-01

Cooperative learning involves students in working together with peers to learn, to develop learning skills and to enjoy the learning process. This paper examines ten areas in which the author believes he and other teachers do cooperative learning well. These areas are: (1) keeping group size small, usually four or fewer; (2) encouraging students…

The Effect of Cooperative Learning on Middle School Math Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Remillard, Heather A.

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore cooperative learning and the impact on middle school students overall academic achievement. The study included 47 students from a small private school, ranging from grades sixth through eighth. The researcher examined student perception of cooperative learning, implementation process and the overall impact…

43 CFR 46.230 - Role of cooperating agencies in the NEPA process.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 43 Public Lands: Interior 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Role of cooperating agencies in the NEPA... IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT OF 1969 Initiating the NEPA Process § 46.230 Role of...; (b) Arrange for the collection and/or assembly of necessary resource, environmental, social, economic...

Integrating Action and Reflection through Co-operative Inquiry.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reason, Peter

1999-01-01

Defines co-operative inquiry as a radically participative form of inquiry in which all involved are both co-researchers and co-subjects. Introduces methodology in a layperson's guide. Reflects on the learning process of an inquiry group, especially the process of research cycling, importance of peer group, and the paradoxical self-reflexive…

The Role of Cooperation and Information Exchange in Transnational River Basins: the Zambezi River case

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castelletti, A.; Giuliani, M.; Soncini-Sessa, R.

2012-12-01

The presence of multiple, institutionally independent but physically interconnected decision-makers is a distinctive features of many water resources systems, especially of transnational river basins. The adoption of a centralized approach to study the optimal operation of these systems, as mostly done in the water resources literature, is conceptually interesting to quantify the best achievable performance, but of little practical impact given the real political and institutional setting. Centralized management indeed assumes a cooperative attitude and full information exchange by the involved parties. However, when decision-makers belong to different countries or institutions, it is very likely that they act considering only their local objectives, producing global externalities that negatively impact on other objectives. In this work we adopt a Multi-Agent Systems framework, which naturally allows to represent a set of self-interested agents (decision-makers and/or stakeholders) acting in a distributed decision-making process. According to this agent-based approach, each agent represents a decision-maker, whose decisions are defined by an explicit optimization problem considering only the agent's local interests. In particular, this work assesses the role of information exchange and increasing level of cooperation among originally non-cooperative agents. The Zambezi River basin is used to illustrate the methodology: the four largest reservoirs in the basin (Ithezhithezhi, Kafue-Gorge, Kariba and Cahora Bassa) are mainly operated for maximizing the economic revenue from hydropower energy production with considerably negative effects on the aquatic ecosystem in the Zambezi delta due to the alteration of the natural flow regime. We comparatively analyse the ideal centralized solution and the current situation where all the decision-makers act independently and non-cooperatively. Indeed, although a new basin-level institution called Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCON) should be established in the next future, Zambia recently refused to sign and ratify the ZAMCON Protocol and the road toward a fully cooperative framework is still long. Results show that increasing levels of information exchange can help in mitigating the conflict generated by a non-cooperative setting as it allows the downstream agents, i.e. Mozambique country, to better adapt to the upstream management strategies. Furthermore, the role of information exchange depends on the considered objectives and it is particularly relevant for environmental interests.

Co-operation as a strategy for provision of welfare services--a study of a rehabilitation project in Sweden.

PubMed

Norman, Christina; Axelsson, Runo

2007-10-01

During the past 15 years, there have been many initiatives to improve the integration between different welfare agencies. This study is describing and analysing the co-operation between agencies involved in a rehabilitation project in Sweden, and discussing such inter-agency co-operation as a strategy for provision of complex welfare services. The study is based on a process evaluation, where the co-operation between the agencies was followed and documented during the time of the project. Different kinds of data were collected through interviews, focus groups and diaries. The contents of these data were analysed in order to evaluate the process of co-operation. In addition, there was also an evaluation of the effects of the co-operation, based on official documents, statistics, etc. The evaluation shows that it was possible to co-operate across the organizational boundaries of the different agencies, but there were obstacles related to organizational and cultural differences of the agencies, divided loyalties of the officials and limited resources available to deal with the complex needs of the clients. At the same time, the commitment and the relations between the officials were facilitating the co-operation. Based on the evaluation of this project, it seems that co-operation could be an effective strategy to deal with clients who need services from different welfare agencies. At the same time, however, it is clear that inter-agency co-operation requires a lot of time and energy and should therefore be used with caution.

Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Cooperation (WPEC)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Giuseppe Palmiotti

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is organizing the cooperation between the major nuclear data evaluation projects in the world. The NEA Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Cooperation (WPEC) was established to promote the exchange of information on nuclear data evaluation, measurement, nuclear model calculation, validation, and related topics, and to provide a framework for cooperative activities between the participating projects. The working party assesses nuclear data improvement needs and addresses these needs by initiating joint activities in the framework of dedicated WPEC subgroups. Studies recently completed comprise a number of works related to nuclear data covariance andmore » associated processing issues, as well as more specific studies related to the resonance parameter representation in the unresolved resonance region, the gamma production from fission-product capture reactions, the U-235 capture cross-section, the EXFOR database, and the improvement of nuclear data for advanced reactor systems. Ongoing activities focus on the evaluation of Pu-239 in the resonance region, scattering angular distribution in the fast energy range, and reporting/usage of experimental data for evaluation in the resolved resonance region. New activities include two new subgroups on improved fission product yield evaluation methodologies and on modern nuclear database structures. Future activities under discussion include a pilot project of a Collaborative International Evaluated Library (CIELO) and methods to provide feedback from nuclear and covariance data adjustment for improvement of nuclear data. In addition to the above mentioned short-term, task-oriented subgroups, the WPEC also hosts a longer-term subgroup charged with reviewing and compiling the most important nuclear data requirements in a high priority request list (HPRL).« less

Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Cooperation (WPEC)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dupont, E.; Herman, M.; Dupont, E.

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) organizes cooperation between the major nuclear data evaluation projects in the world. Moreover, the NEA Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Cooperation (WPEC) was established to promote the exchange of information on nuclear data evaluation, measurement, nuclear model calculation, validation, and related topics, and to provide a framework for cooperative activities between the participating projects. The working party assesses nuclear data improvement needs and addresses these needs by initiating joint activities in the framework of dedicated WPEC subgroups. Studies recently completed comprise a number of works related to nuclear data covariance and associatedmore » processing issues, as well as more specific studies related to the resonance parameter representation in the unresolved resonance region, the gamma production from fission product capture reactions, the 235U capture cross section, the EXFOR database, and the improvement of nuclear data for advanced reactor systems. Ongoing activities focus on the evaluation of 239Pu in the resonance region, scattering angular distribution in the fast energy range, and reporting/usage of experimental data for evaluation in the resolved resonance region. New activities include two subgroups on improved fission product yield evaluation methodologies and on modern nuclear database structures. Some future activities under discussion include a pilot project for a Collaborative International Evaluated Library Organization (CIELO) and methods to provide feedback from nuclear and covariance data adjustment for improvement of nuclear data. In addition to the above mentioned short-term task-oriented subgroups, WPEC also hosts a longer-term subgroup charged with reviewing and compiling the most important nuclear data requirements in a high priority request list (HPRL).« less

Cooperative motion of intrinsic and actuated semiflexible swimmers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Llopis, I.; Pagonabarraga, I.; Cosentino Lagomarsino, M.; Lowe, C. P.

2013-03-01

We examine the phenomenon of hydrodynamic-induced cooperativity for pairs of flagellated micro-organism swimmers, of which spermatozoa cells are an example. We consider semiflexible swimmers, where inextensible filaments are driven by an internal intrinsic force and torque-free mechanism (intrinsic swimmers). The velocity gain for swimming cooperatively, which depends on both the geometry and the driving, develops as a result of the near-field coupling of bending and hydrodynamic stresses. We identify the regimes where hydrodynamic cooperativity is advantageous and quantify the change in efficiency. When the filaments' axes are parallel, hydrodynamic interaction induces a directional instability that causes semiflexible swimmers that profit from swimming together to move apart from each other. Biologically, this implies that flagella need to select different synchronized collective states and to compensate for directional instabilities (e.g., by binding) in order to profit from swimming together. By analyzing the cooperative motion of pairs of externally actuated filaments, we assess the impact that stress distribution along the filaments has on their collective displacements.

Effect of Resource Spatial Correlation and Hunter-Fisher-Gatherer Mobility on Social Cooperation in Tierra del Fuego

PubMed Central

Santos, José Ignacio; Pereda, María; Zurro, Débora; Álvarez, Myrian; Caro, Jorge; Galán, José Manuel; Briz i Godino, Ivan

2015-01-01

This article presents an agent-based model designed to explore the development of cooperation in hunter-fisher-gatherer societies that face a dilemma of sharing an unpredictable resource that is randomly distributed in space. The model is a stylised abstraction of the Yamana society, which inhabited the channels and islands of the southernmost part of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina-Chile). According to ethnographic sources, the Yamana developed cooperative behaviour supported by an indirect reciprocity mechanism: whenever someone found an extraordinary confluence of resources, such as a beached whale, they would use smoke signals to announce their find, bringing people together to share food and exchange different types of social capital. The model provides insight on how the spatial concentration of beachings and agents’ movements in the space can influence cooperation. We conclude that the emergence of informal and dynamic communities that operate as a vigilance network preserves cooperation and makes defection very costly. PMID:25853728

Social aggregation as a cooperative game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vilone, Daniele; Guazzini, Andrea

2011-07-01

A new approach for the description of phenomena of social aggregation is suggested. On the basis of psychological concepts (as for instance social norms and cultural coordinates), we deduce a general mechanism for social aggregation in which different clusters of individuals can merge according to cooperation among the agents. In their turn, the agents can cooperate or defect according to the clusters' distribution inside the system. The fitness of an individual increases with the size of its cluster, but decreases with the work the individual had to do in order to join it. In order to test the reliability of such a new approach, we introduce a couple of simple toy models with the features illustrated above. We see, from this preliminary study, how cooperation is the most convenient strategy only in the presence of very large clusters, while on the other hand it is not necessary to have one hundred percent of cooperators for reaching a totally ordered configuration with only one megacluster filling the whole system.

An adaptive grid algorithm for 3-D GIS landform optimization based on improved ant algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Chenhan; Meng, Lingkui; Deng, Shijun

2005-07-01

The key technique of 3-D GIS is to realize quick and high-quality 3-D visualization, in which 3-D roaming system based on landform plays an important role. However how to increase efficiency of 3-D roaming engine and process a large amount of landform data is a key problem in 3-D landform roaming system and improper process of the problem would result in tremendous consumption of system resources. Therefore it has become the key of 3-D roaming system design that how to realize high-speed process of distributed data for landform DEM (Digital Elevation Model) and high-speed distributed modulation of various 3-D landform data resources. In the paper we improved the basic ant algorithm and designed the modulation strategy of 3-D GIS landform resources based on the improved ant algorithm. By initially hypothetic road weights σi , the change of the information factors in the original algorithm would transform from ˜τj to ∆τj+σi and the weights was decided by 3-D computative capacity of various nodes in network environment. So during the course of initial phase of task assignment, increasing the resource information factors of high task-accomplishing rate and decreasing ones of low accomplishing rate would make load accomplishing rate approach the same value as quickly as possible, then in the later process of task assignment, the load balanced ability of the system was further improved. Experimental results show by improving ant algorithm, our system not only decreases many disadvantage of the traditional ant algorithm, but also like ants looking for food effectively distributes the complicated landform algorithm to many computers to process cooperatively and gains a satisfying search result.

On the dynamics of the Ising model of cooperative phenomena

PubMed Central

Montroll, Elliott W.

1981-01-01

A two-dimensional (and to some degree three-dimensional) version of Glauber's one-dimensional spin relaxation model is described. The model is constructed to yield the Ising model of cooperative phenomena at equilibrium. A complete hierarchy of differential equations for multispin correlation functions is constructed. Some remarks are made concerning the solution of them for the initial value problem of determining the relaxation of an initial set of spin distributions. PMID:16592955

Sidescan sonar imagery and surficial geologic interpretation of the sea floor off Branford, Conneticut

USGS Publications Warehouse

Poppe, L.J.; Paskevich, V.F.; Moser, M.S.; DiGiacomo-Cohen, M. L.; Christman, E.B.

2004-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CT DEP), Figure 1 - Map of Study Areahas produced detailed geologic maps of the sea floor in Long Island Sound, a major East Coast estuary surrounded by the most densely populated region of the United States. These studies have built upon cooperative research between the USGS and the State of Connecticut that was initiated in 1982. The current phase of this research program is directed toward studies of sea-floor sediment distribution, processes that control sediment distribution, nearshore environmental concerns, and the relation of benthic community structures to the sea-floor geology. Anthropogenic wastes, toxic chemicals, and changes in land-use patterns resulting from residential, commercial, and recreational development have stressed the environment of the Sound, causing degradation and potential loss of benthic habitats (Koppelman and others, 1976; Long Island Sound Study, 1994). Detailed maps of the sea floor are needed to help evaluate the extent of adverse impacts and to help wisely manage resources in the future. Therefore, in a continuing effort to better understand Long Island Sound, we are constructing and interpreting sidescan sonar mosaics (complete-coverage acoustic images of the sea floor) within specific areas of special interest (Poppe and Polloni, 1998). The mosaic presented herein, which was produced during survey H11043 by NOAA 's Atlantic Hydrographic Branch, covers approximately 41.1 km2 of the sea floor in north-central Long Island Sound off Branford, Connecticut. Shell bed provides shelter for juvenille skate.The mosaic and its interpretation serve many purposes, including: (1) defining the geological variability of the sea floor, which is one of the primary controls of benthic habitat diversity; (2) improving our understanding of the processes that control the distribution and transport of bottom sediments and the distribution of benthic habitats and associated infaunal community structures; and (3) providing a detailed framework for future research, monitoring, and management activities. The sidescan sonar mosaic also serves as a base map for subsequent sedimentological, geochemical, and biological observations, because precise information on environmental setting is important for selection of sampling sites and for appropriate interpretation of point measurements.

Advanced Image Processing for NASA Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

LeMoign, Jacqueline

2007-01-01

The future of space exploration will involve cooperating fleets of spacecraft or sensor webs geared towards coordinated and optimal observation of Earth Science phenomena. The main advantage of such systems is to utilize multiple viewing angles as well as multiple spatial and spectral resolutions of sensors carried on multiple spacecraft but acting collaboratively as a single system. Within this framework, our research focuses on all areas related to sensing in collaborative environments, which means systems utilizing intracommunicating spatially distributed sensor pods or crafts being deployed to monitor or explore different environments. This talk will describe the general concept of sensing in collaborative environments, will give a brief overview of several technologies developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in this area, and then will concentrate on specific image processing research related to that domain, specifically image registration and image fusion.

Parallel processing for scientific computations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Alkhatib, Hasan S.

1991-01-01

The main contribution of the effort in the last two years is the introduction of the MOPPS system. After doing extensive literature search, we introduced the system which is described next. MOPPS employs a new solution to the problem of managing programs which solve scientific and engineering applications on a distributed processing environment. Autonomous computers cooperate efficiently in solving large scientific problems with this solution. MOPPS has the advantage of not assuming the presence of any particular network topology or configuration, computer architecture, or operating system. It imposes little overhead on network and processor resources while efficiently managing programs concurrently. The core of MOPPS is an intelligent program manager that builds a knowledge base of the execution performance of the parallel programs it is managing under various conditions. The manager applies this knowledge to improve the performance of future runs. The program manager learns from experience.

7 CFR 4284.502 - Policy.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

.... Rural cooperative development grants will be used to facilitate the creation or retention of jobs in rural areas through the development of new rural cooperatives, Value-Added processing and rural...

Comparison of Gaussian and non-Gaussian Atmospheric Profile Retrievals from Satellite Microwave Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kliewer, A.; Forsythe, J. M.; Fletcher, S. J.; Jones, A. S.

2017-12-01

The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University has recently developed two different versions of a mixed-distribution (lognormal combined with a Gaussian) based microwave temperature and mixing ratio retrieval system as well as the original Gaussian-based approach. These retrieval systems are based upon 1DVAR theory but have been adapted to use different descriptive statistics of the lognormal distribution to minimize the background errors. The input radiance data is from the AMSU-A and MHS instruments on the NOAA series of spacecraft. To help illustrate how the three retrievals are affected by the change in the distribution we are in the process of creating a new website to show the output from the different retrievals. Here we present initial results from different dynamical situations to show how the tool could be used by forecasters as well as for educators. However, as the new retrieved values are from a non-Gaussian based 1DVAR then they will display non-Gaussian behaviors that need to pass a quality control measure that is consistent with this distribution, and these new measures are presented here along with initial results for checking the retrievals.

Football fever: goal distributions and non-Gaussian statistics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bittner, E.; Nußbaumer, A.; Janke, W.; Weigel, M.

2009-02-01

Analyzing football score data with statistical techniques, we investigate how the not purely random, but highly co-operative nature of the game is reflected in averaged properties such as the probability distributions of scored goals for the home and away teams. As it turns out, especially the tails of the distributions are not well described by the Poissonian or binomial model resulting from the assumption of uncorrelated random events. Instead, a good effective description of the data is provided by less basic distributions such as the negative binomial one or the probability densities of extreme value statistics. To understand this behavior from a microscopical point of view, however, no waiting time problem or extremal process need be invoked. Instead, modifying the Bernoulli random process underlying the Poissonian model to include a simple component of self-affirmation seems to describe the data surprisingly well and allows to understand the observed deviation from Gaussian statistics. The phenomenological distributions used before can be understood as special cases within this framework. We analyzed historical football score data from many leagues in Europe as well as from international tournaments, including data from all past tournaments of the “FIFA World Cup” series, and found the proposed models to be applicable rather universally. In particular, here we analyze the results of the German women’s premier football league and consider the two separate German men’s premier leagues in the East and West during the cold war times as well as the unified league after 1990 to see how scoring in football and the component of self-affirmation depend on cultural and political circumstances.

Distributed pheromone-based swarming control of unmanned air and ground vehicles for RSTA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sauter, John A.; Mathews, Robert S.; Yinger, Andrew; Robinson, Joshua S.; Moody, John; Riddle, Stephanie

2008-04-01

The use of unmanned vehicles in Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA) applications has received considerable attention recently. Cooperating land and air vehicles can support multiple sensor modalities providing pervasive and ubiquitous broad area sensor coverage. However coordination of multiple air and land vehicles serving different mission objectives in a dynamic and complex environment is a challenging problem. Swarm intelligence algorithms, inspired by the mechanisms used in natural systems to coordinate the activities of many entities provide a promising alternative to traditional command and control approaches. This paper describes recent advances in a fully distributed digital pheromone algorithm that has demonstrated its effectiveness in managing the complexity of swarming unmanned systems. The results of a recent demonstration at NASA's Wallops Island of multiple Aerosonde Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) and Pioneer Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) cooperating in a coordinated RSTA application are discussed. The vehicles were autonomously controlled by the onboard digital pheromone responding to the needs of the automatic target recognition algorithms. UAVs and UGVs controlled by the same pheromone algorithm self-organized to perform total area surveillance, automatic target detection, sensor cueing, and automatic target recognition with no central processing or control and minimal operator input. Complete autonomy adds several safety and fault tolerance requirements which were integrated into the basic pheromone framework. The adaptive algorithms demonstrated the ability to handle some unplanned hardware failures during the demonstration without any human intervention. The paper describes lessons learned and the next steps for this promising technology.

Augmentation of the space station module power management and distribution breadboard

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walls, Bryan; Hall, David K.; Lollar, Louis F.

1991-01-01

The space station module power management and distribution (SSM/PMAD) breadboard models power distribution and management, including scheduling, load prioritization, and a fault detection, identification, and recovery (FDIR) system within a Space Station Freedom habitation or laboratory module. This 120 VDC system is capable of distributing up to 30 kW of power among more than 25 loads. In addition to the power distribution hardware, the system includes computer control through a hierarchy of processes. The lowest level consists of fast, simple (from a computing standpoint) switchgear that is capable of quickly safing the system. At the next level are local load center processors, (LLP's) which execute load scheduling, perform redundant switching, and shed loads which use more than scheduled power. Above the LLP's are three cooperating artificial intelligence (AI) systems which manage load prioritizations, load scheduling, load shedding, and fault recovery and management. Recent upgrades to hardware and modifications to software at both the LLP and AI system levels promise a drastic increase in speed, a significant increase in functionality and reliability, and potential for further examination of advanced automation techniques. The background, SSM/PMAD, interface to the Lewis Research Center test bed, the large autonomous spacecraft electrical power system, and future plans are discussed.

75 FR 25294 - Notice Pursuant to the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993-High Definition...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-05-07

... DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Antitrust Division Notice Pursuant to the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993--High Definition Metrology and Process-2 Micron Manufacturing Under ATP Award No... Metrology and Process-2 Micron Manufacturing under ATP Award No. 70NANB7H7041 has filed written...

The Effects of Jigsaw Technique Based on Cooperative Learning on Prospective Science Teachers' Science Process Skill

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karacop, Ataman; Diken, Emine Hatun

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of laboratory approach based on jigsaw method with cooperative learning and confirmatory laboratory approach on university students' cognitive process development in Science teaching laboratory applications, and to determine the opinions of the students on applied laboratory methods. The…

The Rehabilitation Project in Data Processing: A Prototype Demonstration Project of University, State Government and Industrial Cooperation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

White, Robert C.; Cormier, Robert J., Eds.

1986-01-01

In cooperation with the Maine Bureau of Rehabilitation, the University of Maine established the Rehabilitation Project in Data Processing in 1978 to train physically handicapped individuals to become business application computer programmers. Discusses various aspects of the program, considered one of the most successful rehabilitation programs in…

Effects of Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Constructive Controversy on Social Interdependence, Motivation, and Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roseth, Cary J.; Saltarelli, Andy J.; Glass, Chris R.

2011-01-01

Cooperative learning capitalizes on the relational processes by which peers promote learning, yet it remains unclear whether these processes operate similarly in face-to-face and online settings. This study addresses this issue by comparing face-to-face and computer-mediated versions of "constructive controversy", a cooperative learning procedure…

Spontaneous giving and calculated greed.

PubMed

Rand, David G; Greene, Joshua D; Nowak, Martin A

2012-09-20

Cooperation is central to human social behaviour. However, choosing to cooperate requires individuals to incur a personal cost to benefit others. Here we explore the cognitive basis of cooperative decision-making in humans using a dual-process framework. We ask whether people are predisposed towards selfishness, behaving cooperatively only through active self-control; or whether they are intuitively cooperative, with reflection and prospective reasoning favouring 'rational' self-interest. To investigate this issue, we perform ten studies using economic games. We find that across a range of experimental designs, subjects who reach their decisions more quickly are more cooperative. Furthermore, forcing subjects to decide quickly increases contributions, whereas instructing them to reflect and forcing them to decide slowly decreases contributions. Finally, an induction that primes subjects to trust their intuitions increases contributions compared with an induction that promotes greater reflection. To explain these results, we propose that cooperation is intuitive because cooperative heuristics are developed in daily life where cooperation is typically advantageous. We then validate predictions generated by this proposed mechanism. Our results provide convergent evidence that intuition supports cooperation in social dilemmas, and that reflection can undermine these cooperative impulses.

Yosemite Hydroclimate Network: Distributed stream and atmospheric data for the Tuolumne River watershed and surroundings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lundquist, Jessica D.; Roche, James W.; Forrester, Harrison; Moore, Courtney; Keenan, Eric; Perry, Gwyneth; Cristea, Nicoleta; Henn, Brian; Lapo, Karl; McGurk, Bruce; Cayan, Daniel R.; Dettinger, Michael D.

2016-09-01

Regions of complex topography and remote wilderness terrain have spatially varying patterns of temperature and streamflow, but due to inherent difficulties of access, are often very poorly sampled. Here we present a data set of distributed stream stage, streamflow, stream temperature, barometric pressure, and air temperature from the Tuolumne River Watershed in Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, USA, for water years 2002-2015, as well as a quality-controlled hourly meteorological forcing time series for use in hydrologic modeling. We also provide snow data and daily inflow to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir for 1970-2015. This paper describes data collected using low-visibility and low-impact installations for wilderness locations and can be used alone or as a critical supplement to ancillary data sets collected by cooperating agencies, referenced herein. This data set provides a unique opportunity to understand spatial patterns and scaling of hydroclimatic processes in complex terrain and can be used to evaluate downscaling techniques or distributed modeling. The paper also provides an example methodology and lessons learned in conducting hydroclimatic monitoring in remote wilderness.

Yosemite Hydroclimate Network: Distributed stream and atmospheric data for the Tuolumne River watershed and surroundings

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lundquist, Jessica D.; Roche, James W.; Forrester, Harrison; Moore, Courtney; Keenan, Eric; Perry, Gwyneth; Cristea, Nicoleta; Henn, Brian; Lapo, Karl; McGurk, Bruce; Cayan, Daniel R.; Dettinger, Michael D.

2016-01-01

Regions of complex topography and remote wilderness terrain have spatially varying patterns of temperature and streamflow, but due to inherent difficulties of access, are often very poorly sampled. Here we present a data set of distributed stream stage, streamflow, stream temperature, barometric pressure, and air temperature from the Tuolumne River Watershed in Yosemite National Park, Sierra Nevada, California, USA, for water years 2002–2015, as well as a quality-controlled hourly meteorological forcing time series for use in hydrologic modeling. We also provide snow data and daily inflow to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir for 1970–2015. This paper describes data collected using low-visibility and low-impact installations for wilderness locations and can be used alone or as a critical supplement to ancillary data sets collected by cooperating agencies, referenced herein. This data set provides a unique opportunity to understand spatial patterns and scaling of hydroclimatic processes in complex terrain and can be used to evaluate downscaling techniques or distributed modeling. The paper also provides an example methodology and lessons learned in conducting hydroclimatic monitoring in remote wilderness.

Ant system: optimization by a colony of cooperating agents.

PubMed

Dorigo, M; Maniezzo, V; Colorni, A

1996-01-01

An analogy with the way ant colonies function has suggested the definition of a new computational paradigm, which we call ant system (AS). We propose it as a viable new approach to stochastic combinatorial optimization. The main characteristics of this model are positive feedback, distributed computation, and the use of a constructive greedy heuristic. Positive feedback accounts for rapid discovery of good solutions, distributed computation avoids premature convergence, and the greedy heuristic helps find acceptable solutions in the early stages of the search process. We apply the proposed methodology to the classical traveling salesman problem (TSP), and report simulation results. We also discuss parameter selection and the early setups of the model, and compare it with tabu search and simulated annealing using TSP. To demonstrate the robustness of the approach, we show how the ant system (AS) can be applied to other optimization problems like the asymmetric traveling salesman, the quadratic assignment and the job-shop scheduling. Finally we discuss the salient characteristics-global data structure revision, distributed communication and probabilistic transitions of the AS.

A shared-world conceptual model for integrating space station life sciences telescience operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Vicki; Bosley, John

1988-01-01

Mental models of the Space Station and its ancillary facilities will be employed by users of the Space Station as they draw upon past experiences, perform tasks, and collectively plan for future activities. The operational environment of the Space Station will incorporate telescience, a new set of operational modes. To investigate properties of the operational environment, distributed users, and the mental models they employ to manipulate resources while conducting telescience, an integrating shared-world conceptual model of Space Station telescience is proposed. The model comprises distributed users and resources (active elements); agents who mediate interactions among these elements on the basis of intelligent processing of shared information; and telescience protocols which structure the interactions of agents as they engage in cooperative, responsive interactions on behalf of users and resources distributed in space and time. Examples from the life sciences are used to instantiate and refine the model's principles. Implications for transaction management and autonomy are discussed. Experiments employing the model are described which the authors intend to conduct using the Space Station Life Sciences Telescience Testbed currently under development at Ames Research Center.

Exploring the Link between Distributed Leadership and Job Satisfaction of School Leaders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hulpia, Hester; Devos, Geert

2009-01-01

The main purpose of this study was to map school leaders' perceptions concerning the cooperation of the leadership team, the distribution of leadership functions and participative decision-making, and to asses their relative weight in terms of predicting school leaders' job satisfaction. Also, the effect of demographical and structural school…

COMPETENCIES IN AGRICULTURE NEEDED BY MALES EMPLOYED IN WHOLESALE FARM MACHINERY DISTRIBUTION.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MAXWELL, ROBERT HAWORTH

LISTS OF 39 AGRICULTURAL AND 37 NONAGRICULTURAL COMPETENCIES, ABILITIES, AND UNDERSTANDINGS NEEDED BY MALES EMPLOYED IN WHOLESALE FARM MACHINERY DISTRIBUTION WERE DEVELOPED BY 18 SELECTED EMPLOYEES OF WHOLESALE FARM MACHINERY FIRMS AND SENT IN QUESTIONNAIRE FORM TO 180 EMPLOYEES OF WHOLESALE FARM MACHINERY FIRMS THAT WERE COOPERATING MEMBERS OF…

Strengthening Distributive Education: Selections from the Papers of L. T. White.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Danenburg, William P., Ed.; Coakley, Carroll B., Ed.

Beginning with a biographical sketch of L. T. White and comments by his contemporaries, the volume goes on to provide a collection of his writings and speeches on distributive education emphasizing the value of cooperative activity between the marketing and educational communities. Practical suggestions are offered for improving educational…

Interpreted Cooper-Harper for broader use

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Green, David L.; Andrews, Hal; Gallagher, Donald W.

1993-01-01

The current aircraft assessment process typically makes extensive use of operational personnel during simulations and operational evaluations, with increased emphasis on evaluating the many pilot and/or operator/aircraft control loops. The need for a crew assessment in this broader arena has produced a variety of rating scales. The Cooper-Harper Rating Scale is frequently misused and routinely overlooked in the process, for these applications often extend the scale's use beyond its originally intended application. This paper agrees with the broader application of the Cooper-Harper Rating Scale and presents a concept for the development of a 'use unique' Interpreted Cooper-Harper Scale to help achieve this objective. This interpreted scale concept was conceived during efforts to support an FAA evaluation of a night vision enhancement system. It includes descriptive extensions, which are faithful to the intent of the current Cooper-Harper Scale and should provide the kind of detail that has historically been provided by trained test pilots in their explanatory comments.

Emergence of cooperation with self-organized criticality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Sangmin; Jeong, Hyeong-Chai

2012-02-01

Cooperation and self-organized criticality are two main keywords in current studies of evolution. We propose a generalized Bak-Sneppen model and provide a natural mechanism which accounts for both phenomena simultaneously. We use the prisoner's dilemma games to mimic the interactions among the members in the population. Each member is identified by its cooperation probability, and its fitness is given by the payoffs from neighbors. The least fit member with the minimum payoff is replaced by a new member with a random cooperation probability. When the neighbors of the least fit one are also replaced with a non-zero probability, a strong cooperation emerges. The Bak-Sneppen process builds a self-organized structure so that the cooperation can emerge even in the parameter region where a uniform or random population decreases the number of cooperators. The emergence of cooperation is due to the same dynamical correlation that leads to self-organized criticality in replacement activities.

Coevolutionary, coexisting learning and teaching agents model for prisoner’s dilemma games enhancing cooperation with assortative heterogeneous networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanimoto, Jun

2013-07-01

Unlike other natural network systems, assortativity can be observed in most human social networks, although it has been reported that a social dilemma situation represented by the prisoner’s dilemma favors dissortativity to enhance cooperation. We established a new coevolutionary model for both agents’ strategy and network topology, where teaching and learning agents coexist. Remarkably, this model enables agents’ enhancing cooperation more than a learners-only model on a time-frozen scale-free network and produces an underlying assortative network with a fair degree of power-law distribution. The model may imply how and why assortative networks are adaptive in human society.

Landsat classification of surface-water presence during multiple years to assess response of playa wetlands to climatic variability across the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative region

USGS Publications Warehouse

Manier, Daniel J.; Rover, Jennifer R.

2018-02-15

To improve understanding of the distribution of ecologically important, ephemeral wetland habitats across the Great Plains, the occurrence and distribution of surface water in playa wetland complexes were documented for four different years across the Great Plains Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GPLCC) region. This information is important because it informs land and wildlife managers about the timing and location of habitat availability. Data with an accurate timestamp that indicate the presence of water, the percent of the area inundated with water, and the spatial distribution of playa wetlands with water are needed for a host of resource inventory, monitoring, and research applications. For example, the distribution of inundated wetlands forms the spatial pattern of available habitat for resident shorebirds and water birds, stop-over habitats for migratory birds, connectivity and clustering of wetland habitats, and surface waters that recharge the Ogallala aquifer; there is considerable variability in the distribution of playa wetlands holding water through time. Documentation of these spatially and temporally intricate processes, here, provides data required to assess connections between inundation and multiple environmental drivers, such as climate, land use, soil, and topography. Climate drivers are understood to interact with land cover, land use and soil attributes in determining the amount of water that flows overland into playa wetlands. Results indicated significant spatial variability represented by differences in the percent of playas inundated among States within the GPLCC. Further, analysis-of-variance comparison of differences in inundation between years showed significant differences in all cases. Although some connections with seasonal moisture patterns may be observed, the complex spatial-temporal gradients of precipitation, temperature, soils, and land use need to be combined as covariates in multivariate models to effectively account for these patterns. We demonstrate the feasibility of using classification of Landsat satellite imagery to describe playa-wetland inundation across years and seasons. Evaluating classifications representing only 4 years of imagery, we found significant year-to-year and state-to-state differences in inundation rates.

Global perspectives on ensuring the safety of pharmaceutical products in the distribution process
.

PubMed

Jeong, Sohyun; Ji, Eunhee

2018-01-01

The distribution of counterfeit or falsified drugs is increasing worldwide. This can contribute to the high burden of disease and cost to society and is of global concern with the worldwide circulation of pharmaceuticals. The preparation and implementation of good distribution practice should be one of the most important aspects of ensuring safe drug circulation and administration. This research aimed to compare and analyze good distribution practice guidelines from advanced countries and international organizations, and to evaluate the status of the current good distribution practice guidelines in the world. Advanced pharmaceutical countries and international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, European Union, Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme, United States of America, Canada, and Australia, which have stable good distribution practice guidelines and public confidence, were included in the analysis. The World Health Organization and European Union guidelines are models for standardized good distribution practice for nations worldwide. The United States of America has a combination of four different series of distribution practices which have a unique structure and detailed content compared to those of other countries. The Canadian guidelines focus on temperature control during storage and transportation. The Australian guidelines apply to both classes of medicinal products and medical devices and need separate standardization. Transparent information about the Internet chain, international cooperation regarding counterfeiting, a high-standard qualification of sellers and customers, and technology to track and trace the whole life cycle of drugs should be the main focus of future good distribution practice guidelines worldwide.
.

Shapley value redistribution of social wealth fosters cooperation in social dilemmas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krawczyk, Przemysław; Płatkowski, Tadeusz

2018-02-01

We consider multiplayer social dilemma games played in a large population. The members of the population interact in randomly formed coalitions. Each coalition generates a social wealth (value), which is distributed among the coalition members according to their Shapley values. Evolution of the whole population is governed by the replicator equation. We demonstrate that application of the Shapley value fosters the time asymptotic cooperation in populations for various types of multiplayer social dilemmas.

Contribution by Departments of Forensic Medicine to Tissue Donation for Transplant Purposes.

PubMed

Malm, Torsten; Sandgren Åkerman, Åsa; Greby, Jesper; Odö, Björn; Henriksson, Bengt-Åke

2016-12-01

A department of forensic medicine (DFM) can be a valuable source for tissue donation, but logistics can prove difficult to overcome as it pertains to obtaining tissues for donation. This article describes the potential of tissues that can be procured for transplantation. Sweden has 9.7 million inhabitants, with an annual mortality rate of 90 000 and 5500 medicolegal autopsies per year. Cooperation between tissue banking and 2 DFMs began in the mid-1980s. Recently, cooperation has expanded to include all six DFMs. All tissue establishments (TEs) were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning their cooperation with DFMs from 2011 through 2013. A total of 298 actual donors were identified; 1090 tissues were procured including cardiovascular tissue, cornea, sclera, ear bones, and skin for transplantation. Of the tissues distributed, 553 were for transplantation and 72 for other medical purposes. Twenty-three percent of the tissues were discarded. Reasons for tissue rejection included deficient tissue quality (65%), positive serology tests (9%), positive bacteriology tests after decontamination procedures (7%), technical errors (<1%), and other reasons (18%). Nineteen percent of all tissues distributed for transplantation came from donors in DFMs. The cooperation between DFMs and TEs was described as well functioning and excellent. Education and national courses in tissue procurement for employees in DFMs are contributing factors to such positive interactions. The support from the National Board of Forensic Medicine is an important factor for sustainable progress.

Self-Coexistence among IEEE 802.22 Networks: Distributed Allocation of Power and Channel

PubMed Central

Sakin, Sayef Azad; Alamri, Atif; Tran, Nguyen H.

2017-01-01

Ensuring self-coexistence among IEEE 802.22 networks is a challenging problem owing to opportunistic access of incumbent-free radio resources by users in co-located networks. In this study, we propose a fully-distributed non-cooperative approach to ensure self-coexistence in downlink channels of IEEE 802.22 networks. We formulate the self-coexistence problem as a mixed-integer non-linear optimization problem for maximizing the network data rate, which is an NP-hard one. This work explores a sub-optimal solution by dividing the optimization problem into downlink channel allocation and power assignment sub-problems. Considering fairness, quality of service and minimum interference for customer-premises-equipment, we also develop a greedy algorithm for channel allocation and a non-cooperative game-theoretic framework for near-optimal power allocation. The base stations of networks are treated as players in a game, where they try to increase spectrum utilization by controlling power and reaching a Nash equilibrium point. We further develop a utility function for the game to increase the data rate by minimizing the transmission power and, subsequently, the interference from neighboring networks. A theoretical proof of the uniqueness and existence of the Nash equilibrium has been presented. Performance improvements in terms of data-rate with a degree of fairness compared to a cooperative branch-and-bound-based algorithm and a non-cooperative greedy approach have been shown through simulation studies. PMID:29215591

Self-Coexistence among IEEE 802.22 Networks: Distributed Allocation of Power and Channel.

PubMed

Sakin, Sayef Azad; Razzaque, Md Abdur; Hassan, Mohammad Mehedi; Alamri, Atif; Tran, Nguyen H; Fortino, Giancarlo

2017-12-07

Ensuring self-coexistence among IEEE 802.22 networks is a challenging problem owing to opportunistic access of incumbent-free radio resources by users in co-located networks. In this study, we propose a fully-distributed non-cooperative approach to ensure self-coexistence in downlink channels of IEEE 802.22 networks. We formulate the self-coexistence problem as a mixed-integer non-linear optimization problem for maximizing the network data rate, which is an NP-hard one. This work explores a sub-optimal solution by dividing the optimization problem into downlink channel allocation and power assignment sub-problems. Considering fairness, quality of service and minimum interference for customer-premises-equipment, we also develop a greedy algorithm for channel allocation and a non-cooperative game-theoretic framework for near-optimal power allocation. The base stations of networks are treated as players in a game, where they try to increase spectrum utilization by controlling power and reaching a Nash equilibrium point. We further develop a utility function for the game to increase the data rate by minimizing the transmission power and, subsequently, the interference from neighboring networks. A theoretical proof of the uniqueness and existence of the Nash equilibrium has been presented. Performance improvements in terms of data-rate with a degree of fairness compared to a cooperative branch-and-bound-based algorithm and a non-cooperative greedy approach have been shown through simulation studies.

Environmental influences on cooperation in social dilemmas on networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xie, Yunya; Chang, Shuhua; Yan, Ming; Zhang, Zhipeng; Wang, Xinyu

2018-02-01

Environmental influence on cooperation is a classical topic that is widely applicable to social interactions. Here, we introduce a realistic model which depends on both the payoff and the strategy of the environment. As the strategy of the environment rather than the neighbor is imitated with a probability, the model takes more attention on the comprehensive influence of the nearby neighbors. The simulation results show that the cooperation level can be widely enhanced for the prisoner's dilemma game and the snowdrift game with this environment factor. In this environmental model, the mechanism of the survival of cooperators is deeply studied, and the corresponding results can be derived. Although the survival of cooperators also depends on the formation of the cooperator clusters, the enhancement of the cooperation level can be interpreted as the accumulation effect of the transformation of defection into cooperation. Interestingly, there exists a threshold of the initial fraction of the cooperators, and the cooperation increases significantly when this threshold is reached Moreover, the square cooperative cluster is stable, and robust against different levels of the noise parameter and temptation in the strategy adoption process. This work may shed light on the mechanism of cooperation in the real world.

Fairness overrides reputation: the importance of fairness considerations in altruistic cooperation

PubMed Central

Güney, Şule; Newell, Ben R.

2013-01-01

Behavioral findings in several strategic games indicate that people punish others if they think they are being treated unequally, even at the cost of minimizing their own material payoff. We investigated the primary driving force behind such non-self-regarding behavior, so-called, altruistic cooperation. In all of our studies, a mini ultimatum game was played either one-shot (in Experiment 1a and 1b) or repeatedly (Experiment 2), and rejections of inequitable distribution were taken as a measure of altruistic cooperation. In Experiment 1a, we replicated previous findings indicating that the key mechanism contributing to the emergence of altruistic cooperation is fairness considerations. In Experiment 1b, we delved into the relative importance of two aspects of fairness considerations (i.e., outcome fairness and intentions) and showed that both aspects were effective in determining the level of altruistic cooperation, with the contribution of intentions being more important. In Experiment 2, we investigated the effect of the opportunity for reputation building and future interaction on altruistic cooperation. We found that these factors became influential only when fairness considerations were weakened, particularly, as a result of the removal of the possible intentions behind an offer. PMID:23760110

Social diversity promotes the emergence of cooperation in public goods games.

PubMed

Santos, Francisco C; Santos, Marta D; Pacheco, Jorge M

2008-07-10

Humans often cooperate in public goods games and situations ranging from family issues to global warming. However, evolutionary game theory predicts that the temptation to forgo the public good mostly wins over collective cooperative action, and this is often also seen in economic experiments. Here we show how social diversity provides an escape from this apparent paradox. Up to now, individuals have been treated as equivalent in all respects, in sharp contrast with real-life situations, where diversity is ubiquitous. We introduce social diversity by means of heterogeneous graphs and show that cooperation is promoted by the diversity associated with the number and size of the public goods game in which each individual participates and with the individual contribution to each such game. When social ties follow a scale-free distribution, cooperation is enhanced whenever all individuals are expected to contribute a fixed amount irrespective of the plethora of public goods games in which they engage. Our results may help to explain the emergence of cooperation in the absence of mechanisms based on individual reputation and punishment. Combining social diversity with reputation and punishment will provide instrumental clues on the self-organization of social communities and their economical implications.

Development of an International Electric Cooperative Initiative on Energy Efficiency

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Paul Clark; David South

NRECA conceived of the International Electric Cooperative Initiative on Energy Efficiency (IECIEE) in order to provide an ongoing means of contributing voluntary actions on greenhouse gas emissions mitigation as an integral component of its international programs and projects. This required designing the IECIEE to be integrated directly with the core interests and attributes of participating cooperatives in the U.S. and Latin America, which was the initial focus area selected for the IECIEE. In the case of NRECA International, the core interests related to promoting and strengthening the electric cooperative model, which has proved highly successful in maximizing operational efficiencies inmore » electric power generation, distribution and retailing, as compared to government-owned entities. The approach involved three basic components: (i) establishing the IECIEE mechanism, which involved setting up a functioning organizational vehicle providing for investment, management, and emissions credit accounting; (ii) developing a portfolio of projects in countries where NRECA International could effectively implement the broader mandate of cooperative development as energy efficient suppliers and distributors of electrical energy; and (iii) conducting outreach to obtain the commitment of participants and resources from U.S. and Latin American cooperatives and partnering agencies in the development financing community.« less

Social Networks and Cooperation in Hunter-Gatherers

PubMed Central

Apicella, Coren L.; Marlowe, Frank W.; Fowler, James H.; Christakis, Nicholas A.

2011-01-01

Social networks exhibit striking structural regularities1,2, and theory and evidence suggest that they may have played a role in the development of large-scale cooperation in humans3–7. Here, we characterize the social networks of the Hadza, an evolutionarily relevant population of hunter-gatherers8. We show that Hadza networks exhibit important properties also seen in modernized networks, including a skewed degree distribution, degree assortativity, transitivity, reciprocity, geographic decay, and homophily. Moreover, we demonstrate that Hadza camps exhibit high between-group and low within-group variation in public goods game donations. Network ties are also more likely between people who give the same amount, and the similarity in cooperative behaviour extends up to two degrees of separation. Finally, social distance appears to be as important as genetic relatedness and physical proximity in explaining assortativity in cooperation. Our results suggest that certain elements of social network structure may have been present at an early point in human history; that early humans may have formed ties with both kin and non-kin based, in part, on their tendency to cooperate; and that social networks may have contributed to the emergence of cooperation. PMID:22281599

Distribution of cow-calf producers' beliefs regarding gathering and holding their cattle and observing animal movement restrictions during an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

PubMed

Delgado, Amy H; Norby, Bo; Scott, H Morgan; Dean, Wesley; McIntosh, W Alex; Bush, Eric

2014-12-01

The voluntary cooperation of producers with disease control measures such as movement restrictions and gathering cattle for testing, vaccination, or depopulation is critical to the success of many disease control programs. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in Texas in order to determine the distribution of key beliefs about obeying movement restrictions and gathering and holding cattle for disease control purposes. Two questionnaires were developed and distributed to separate representative samples of Texas cow-calf producers, respectively. The context for each behavior was provided through the use of scenarios in the questionnaire. Belief strength was measured using a 7-point Likert-like scale. Producers surveyed were unsure about the possible negative consequences of gathering and holding their cattle when requested by authorities, suggesting a key need for communication in this area during an outbreak. Respondents identified a lack of manpower and/or financial resources to gather and hold cattle as barriers to their cooperation with orders to gather and hold cattle. Producers also expressed uncertainty about the efficacy of movement restrictions to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease and concern about possible feed shortages or animal suffering. However, there are emotional benefits to complying with movement restrictions and strong social expectations of cooperation with any movement bans put in place. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Prototyping a Hybrid Cooperative and Tele-robotic Surgical System for Retinal Microsurgery.

PubMed

Balicki, Marcin; Xia, Tian; Jung, Min Yang; Deguet, Anton; Vagvolgyi, Balazs; Kazanzides, Peter; Taylor, Russell

2011-06-01

This paper presents the design of a tele-robotic microsurgical platform designed for development of cooperative and tele-operative control schemes, sensor based smart instruments, user interfaces and new surgical techniques with eye surgery as the driving application. The system is built using the distributed component-based cisst libraries and the Surgical Assistant Workstation framework. It includes a cooperatively controlled EyeRobot2, a da Vinci Master manipulator, and a remote stereo visualization system. We use constrained optimization based virtual fixture control to provide Virtual Remote-Center-of-Motion (vRCM) and haptic feedback. Such system can be used in a hybrid setup, combining local cooperative control with remote tele-operation, where an experienced surgeon can provide hand-over-hand tutoring to a novice user. In another scheme, the system can provide haptic feedback based on virtual fixtures constructed from real-time force and proximity sensor information.

Statistical fluctuations in cooperative cyclotron radiation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anishchenko, S. V.; Baryshevsky, V. G.

2018-01-01

Shot noise is the cause of statistical fluctuations in cooperative cyclotron radiation generated by an ensemble of electrons oscillating in magnetic field. Autophasing time - the time required for the cooperative cyclotron radiation power to peak - is the critical parameter characterizing the dynamics of electron-oscillators interacting via the radiation field. It is shown that premodulation of charged particles leads to a considerable narrowing of the autophasing time distribution function for which the analytic expression is obtained. When the number of particles Ne exceeds a certain value that depends on the degree to which the particles have been premodulated, the relative root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) of the autophasing time δT changes from a logarithmic dependence on Ne (δT ∼ 1 / lnNe) to square-root (δT ∼ 1 /√{Ne }). A slight energy spread (∼4%) results in a twofold drop of the maximum attainable power of cooperative cyclotron radiation.

Prototyping a Hybrid Cooperative and Tele-robotic Surgical System for Retinal Microsurgery

PubMed Central

Balicki, Marcin; Xia, Tian; Jung, Min Yang; Deguet, Anton; Vagvolgyi, Balazs; Kazanzides, Peter; Taylor, Russell

2013-01-01

This paper presents the design of a tele-robotic microsurgical platform designed for development of cooperative and tele-operative control schemes, sensor based smart instruments, user interfaces and new surgical techniques with eye surgery as the driving application. The system is built using the distributed component-based cisst libraries and the Surgical Assistant Workstation framework. It includes a cooperatively controlled EyeRobot2, a da Vinci Master manipulator, and a remote stereo visualization system. We use constrained optimization based virtual fixture control to provide Virtual Remote-Center-of-Motion (vRCM) and haptic feedback. Such system can be used in a hybrid setup, combining local cooperative control with remote tele-operation, where an experienced surgeon can provide hand-over-hand tutoring to a novice user. In another scheme, the system can provide haptic feedback based on virtual fixtures constructed from real-time force and proximity sensor information. PMID:24398557

Cooperative global optimal preview tracking control of linear multi-agent systems: an internal model approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Yanrong; Liao, Fucheng; Deng, Jiamei; Liu, Huiyang

2017-09-01

This paper investigates the cooperative global optimal preview tracking problem of linear multi-agent systems under the assumption that the output of a leader is a previewable periodic signal and the topology graph contains a directed spanning tree. First, a type of distributed internal model is introduced, and the cooperative preview tracking problem is converted to a global optimal regulation problem of an augmented system. Second, an optimal controller, which can guarantee the asymptotic stability of the augmented system, is obtained by means of the standard linear quadratic optimal preview control theory. Third, on the basis of proving the existence conditions of the controller, sufficient conditions are given for the original problem to be solvable, meanwhile a cooperative global optimal controller with error integral and preview compensation is derived. Finally, the validity of theoretical results is demonstrated by a numerical simulation.

Spatially correlated heterogeneous aspirations to enhance network reciprocity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanimoto, Jun; Nakata, Makoto; Hagishima, Aya; Ikegaya, Naoki

2012-02-01

Perc & Wang demonstrated that aspiring to be the fittest under conditions of pairwise strategy updating enhances network reciprocity in structured populations playing 2×2 Prisoner's Dilemma games (Z. Wang, M. Perc, Aspiring to the fittest and promoted of cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma game, Physical Review E 82 (2010) 021115; M. Perc, Z. Wang, Heterogeneous aspiration promotes cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma game, PLOS one 5 (12) (2010) e15117). Through numerical simulations, this paper shows that network reciprocity is even greater if heterogeneous aspirations are imposed. We also suggest why heterogeneous aspiration fosters network reciprocity. It distributes strategy updating speed among agents in a manner that fortifies the initially allocated cooperators' clusters against invasion. This finding prompted us to further enhance the usual heterogeneous aspiration cases for heterogeneous network topologies. We find that a negative correlation between degree and aspiration level does extend cooperation among heterogeneously structured agents.

Water-resources reports prepared by or in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, Kansas, 1886-1983

USGS Publications Warehouse

Combs, L.J.

1984-01-01

Water-resources data and the results of hydrologic investigations in Kansas are published or released by the U.S. Geological Survey, by cooperating State or Federal agencies, or by technical or scientific journals. This report lists more than 800 water-resources reports prepared by or in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey in Kansas for 1886 through 1983. The reports are listed by author, publication series, year of publication, and subject. The first water-resources investigations by the U.S. Geological Survey in Kansas was completed by A.C. Peale in 1886. The first cooperative program with a State agency was initiated 9 years later in 1895 and included the first stream-gaging stations operated by the Survey in western Kansas. The U.S. Geological Survey continues to investigate the occurrence, quantity, quality, distribution, and movement of surface and ground waters within the State. (USGS)

Probabilistic sharing solves the problem of costly punishment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Xiaojie; Szolnoki, Attila; Perc, Matjaž

2014-08-01

Cooperators that refuse to participate in sanctioning defectors create the second-order free-rider problem. Such cooperators will not be punished because they contribute to the public good, but they also eschew the costs associated with punishing defectors. Altruistic punishers—those that cooperate and punish—are at a disadvantage, and it is puzzling how such behaviour has evolved. We show that sharing the responsibility to sanction defectors rather than relying on certain individuals to do so permanently can solve the problem of costly punishment. Inspired by the fact that humans have strong but also emotional tendencies for fair play, we consider probabilistic sanctioning as the simplest way of distributing the duty. In well-mixed populations the public goods game is transformed into a coordination game with full cooperation and defection as the two stable equilibria, while in structured populations pattern formation supports additional counterintuitive solutions that are reminiscent of Parrondo's paradox.

Meals for the Elderly

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1980-01-01

The aim of Skylab's multi-agency cooperative project was to make simple but nutritious space meals available to handicapped and otherwise homebound senior adults, unable to take advantage of existing meal programs sponsored by federal, state and private organizations. As a spinoff of Meal Systems for the Elderly, commercial food processing firms are now producing astronaut type meals for public distribution. Company offers variety of freeze dried foods which are reconstituted by addition of water, and "retort pouch" meals which need no reconstitution, only heating. The retort pouch is an innovative flexible package that combines the advantage of boil-in bag and metal can. Foods retain their flavor, minerals and vitamins can be stored without refrigeration and are lightweight for easy transportation.

Real Time Flood Alert System (RTFAS) for Puerto Rico

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lopez-Trujillo, Dianne

2010-01-01

The Real Time Flood Alert System is a web-based computer program, developed as a data integration tool, and designed to increase the ability of emergency managers to rapidly and accurately predict flooding conditions of streams in Puerto Rico. The system includes software and a relational database to determine the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall, water levels in streams and reservoirs, and associated storms to determine hazardous and potential flood conditions. The computer program was developed as part of a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Geological Survey Caribbean Water Science Center and the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency, and integrates information collected and processed by these two agencies and the National Weather Service.

Applying Multiagent Simulation to Planetary Surface Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sierhuis, Maarten; Sims, Michael H.; Clancey, William J.; Lee, Pascal; Swanson, Keith (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

This paper describes a multiagent modeling and simulation approach for designing cooperative systems. Issues addressed include the use of multiagent modeling and simulation for the design of human and robotic operations, as a theory for human/robot cooperation on planetary surface missions. We describe a design process for cooperative systems centered around the Brahms modeling and simulation environment being developed at NASA Ames.

Identifying cooperative transcriptional regulations using protein–protein interactions

PubMed Central

Nagamine, Nobuyoshi; Kawada, Yuji; Sakakibara, Yasubumi

2005-01-01

Cooperative transcriptional activations among multiple transcription factors (TFs) are important to understand the mechanisms of complex transcriptional regulations in eukaryotes. Previous studies have attempted to find cooperative TFs based on gene expression data with gene expression profiles as a measure of similarity of gene regulations. In this paper, we use protein–protein interaction data to infer synergistic binding of cooperative TFs. Our fundamental idea is based on the assumption that genes contributing to a similar biological process are regulated under the same control mechanism. First, the protein–protein interaction networks are used to calculate the similarity of biological processes among genes. Second, we integrate this similarity and the chromatin immuno-precipitation data to identify cooperative TFs. Our computational experiments in yeast show that predictions made by our method have successfully identified eight pairs of cooperative TFs that have literature evidences but could not be identified by the previous method. Further, 12 new possible pairs have been inferred and we have examined the biological relevances for them. However, since a typical problem using protein–protein interaction data is that many false-positive data are contained, we propose a method combining various biological data to increase the prediction accuracy. PMID:16126847

Coevolutionary dynamics in large, but finite populations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Traulsen, Arne; Claussen, Jens Christian; Hauert, Christoph

2006-07-01

Coevolving and competing species or game-theoretic strategies exhibit rich and complex dynamics for which a general theoretical framework based on finite populations is still lacking. Recently, an explicit mean-field description in the form of a Fokker-Planck equation was derived for frequency-dependent selection with two strategies in finite populations based on microscopic processes [A. Traulsen, J. C. Claussen, and C. Hauert, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 238701 (2005)]. Here we generalize this approach in a twofold way: First, we extend the framework to an arbitrary number of strategies and second, we allow for mutations in the evolutionary process. The deterministic limit of infinite population size of the frequency-dependent Moran process yields the adjusted replicator-mutator equation, which describes the combined effect of selection and mutation. For finite populations, we provide an extension taking random drift into account. In the limit of neutral selection, i.e., whenever the process is determined by random drift and mutations, the stationary strategy distribution is derived. This distribution forms the background for the coevolutionary process. In particular, a critical mutation rate uc is obtained separating two scenarios: above uc the population predominantly consists of a mixture of strategies whereas below uc the population tends to be in homogeneous states. For one of the fundamental problems in evolutionary biology, the evolution of cooperation under Darwinian selection, we demonstrate that the analytical framework provides excellent approximations to individual based simulations even for rather small population sizes. This approach complements simulation results and provides a deeper, systematic understanding of coevolutionary dynamics.

Formate as a CO surrogate for cascade processes: Rh-catalyzed cooperative decarbonylation and asymmetric Pauson-Khand-type cyclization reactions.

PubMed

Lee, Hang Wai; Chan, Albert S C; Kwong, Fuk Yee

2007-07-07

A rhodium-(S)-xyl-BINAP complex-catalyzed tandem formate decarbonylation and [2 + 2 + 1] carbonylative cyclization is described; this cooperative process utilizes formate as a condensed CO source, and the newly developed cascade protocol can be extended to its enantioselective version, providing up to 94% ee of the cyclopentenone adducts.

Internationalization of Higher Education in China: Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools and the Introduction of High-Quality Foreign Educational Resources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tan, Zhen

2009-01-01

With the acceleration of the internationalization process of higher education in China, the Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools (CFCRS) has been developing at an expeditious pace nowadays. It positively enhances the internationalization process of Chinese higher education and greatly contributes to providing the society with talents.…

ProSens: integrated production control by automated inspection planning and efficient multisensor metrology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glaser, Ulf; Li, Zhichao; Bichmann, Stephan, II; Pfeifer, Tilo

2003-05-01

By China's entry into the WTO, Chinese as well as German companies are facing the question, how to minimize the risk of unfamiliar cooperation partners when developing products. The rise of customer demands concerning quality, product diversity and the reduction of expenses require flexibility and efficiency with reliable component suppliers. In order to build and strengthen sino-german cooperations, a manufacturing control using homogenized and efficient measures to assure high quality is of vital importance. Lack of unifications may cause identical measurements conducted at subcontractors or customers to be carried out with different measurement processes which leads to incomparable results. Rapidly growing company cooperations and simultaneously decreasing of manufacturing scope cause substantial difficulties when coordinating joint quality control activities. "ProSens," a sino-german project consortium consisting of industrial users, technology producers and research institutes, aims at improving selected production processes by: Creation of a homogeneous quality awareness in sino-german cooperations. Sensitization for process accompanying metrology at an early stage of product development. Increase of the process performance by the use of integrated metrology. Reduction of production time and cost. Unification of quality control of complex products by means of efficient measurement strategies and CAD-based inspection planning.

Cognitive Load Does Not Affect the Behavioral and Cognitive Foundations of Social Cooperation.

PubMed

Mieth, Laura; Bell, Raoul; Buchner, Axel

2016-01-01

The present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner's Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate expectations about the future behavior of the partners which were either violated or confirmed by the partners' cheating or cooperation during the game. In a source memory test, participants were required to recognize the partners and to classify them as cheaters or cooperators. A multinomial model was used to disentangle item memory, source memory and guessing processes. We found an expectancy-congruent bias toward guessing that trustworthy-looking partners were more likely to be associated with cooperation than untrustworthy-looking partners. Source memory was enhanced for cheating that violated the participants' positive expectations about trustworthy-looking partners. We were interested in whether or not this expectancy-violation effect-that helps to revise unjustified expectations about trustworthy-looking partners-depends on cognitive load induced via a secondary continuous reaction time task. Although this secondary task interfered with working memory processes in a validation study, both the expectancy-congruent guessing bias as well as the expectancy-violation effect were obtained with and without cognitive load. These findings support the hypothesis that the expectancy-violation effect is due to a simple mechanism that does not rely on demanding elaborative processes. We conclude that most cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation presumably operate automatically so that they remain unaffected by cognitive load.

Cognitive Load Does Not Affect the Behavioral and Cognitive Foundations of Social Cooperation

PubMed Central

Mieth, Laura; Bell, Raoul; Buchner, Axel

2016-01-01

The present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate expectations about the future behavior of the partners which were either violated or confirmed by the partners’ cheating or cooperation during the game. In a source memory test, participants were required to recognize the partners and to classify them as cheaters or cooperators. A multinomial model was used to disentangle item memory, source memory and guessing processes. We found an expectancy-congruent bias toward guessing that trustworthy-looking partners were more likely to be associated with cooperation than untrustworthy-looking partners. Source memory was enhanced for cheating that violated the participants’ positive expectations about trustworthy-looking partners. We were interested in whether or not this expectancy-violation effect—that helps to revise unjustified expectations about trustworthy-looking partners—depends on cognitive load induced via a secondary continuous reaction time task. Although this secondary task interfered with working memory processes in a validation study, both the expectancy-congruent guessing bias as well as the expectancy-violation effect were obtained with and without cognitive load. These findings support the hypothesis that the expectancy-violation effect is due to a simple mechanism that does not rely on demanding elaborative processes. We conclude that most cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation presumably operate automatically so that they remain unaffected by cognitive load. PMID:27630597

Reputation-based partner choice promotes cooperation in social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fu, Feng; Hauert, Christoph; Nowak, Martin A.; Wang, Long

2008-08-01

We investigate the cooperation dynamics attributed to the interplay between the evolution of individual strategies and evolution of individual partnerships. We focus on the effect of reputation on an individual’s partner-switching process. We assume that individuals can either change their strategies by imitating their partners or adjust their partnerships based on local information about reputations. We manipulate the partner switching in two ways; that is, individuals can switch from the lowest reputation partners, either to their partners’ partners who have the highest reputation (i.e., ordering in partnership) or to others randomly chosen from the entire population (i.e., randomness in partnership). We show that when individuals are able to alter their behavioral strategies and their social interaction partnerships on the basis of reputation, cooperation can prevail. We find that the larger temptation to defect and the denser the partner network, the more frequently individuals need to shift their partnerships in order for cooperation to thrive. Furthermore, an increasing tendency of switching to partners’ partners is more likely to lead to a higher level of cooperation. We show that when reputation is absent in such partner-switching processes, cooperation is much less favored than that of the reputation involved. Moreover, we investigate the effect of discounting an individual’s reputation on the evolution of cooperation. Our results highlight the importance of the consideration of reputation (indirect reciprocity) on the promotion of cooperation when individuals can adjust their partnerships.

Time Pressure Increases Cooperation in Competitively Framed Social Dilemmas

PubMed Central

Cone, Jeremy; Rand, David G.

2014-01-01

What makes people willing to pay costs to benefit others? Does such cooperation require effortful self-control, or do automatic, intuitive processes favor cooperation? Time pressure has been shown to increase cooperative behavior in Public Goods Games, implying a predisposition towards cooperation. Consistent with the hypothesis that this predisposition results from the fact that cooperation is typically advantageous outside the lab, it has further been shown that the time pressure effect is undermined by prior experience playing lab games (where selfishness is the more advantageous strategy). Furthermore, a recent study found that time pressure increases cooperation even in a game framed as a competition, suggesting that the time pressure effect is not the result of social norm compliance. Here, we successfully replicate these findings, again observing a positive effect of time pressure on cooperation in a competitively framed game, but not when using the standard cooperative framing. These results suggest that participants' intuitions favor cooperation rather than norm compliance, and also that simply changing the framing of the Public Goods Game is enough to make it appear novel to participants and thus to restore the time pressure effect. PMID:25551386

Time pressure increases cooperation in competitively framed social dilemmas.

PubMed

Cone, Jeremy; Rand, David G

2014-01-01

What makes people willing to pay costs to benefit others? Does such cooperation require effortful self-control, or do automatic, intuitive processes favor cooperation? Time pressure has been shown to increase cooperative behavior in Public Goods Games, implying a predisposition towards cooperation. Consistent with the hypothesis that this predisposition results from the fact that cooperation is typically advantageous outside the lab, it has further been shown that the time pressure effect is undermined by prior experience playing lab games (where selfishness is the more advantageous strategy). Furthermore, a recent study found that time pressure increases cooperation even in a game framed as a competition, suggesting that the time pressure effect is not the result of social norm compliance. Here, we successfully replicate these findings, again observing a positive effect of time pressure on cooperation in a competitively framed game, but not when using the standard cooperative framing. These results suggest that participants' intuitions favor cooperation rather than norm compliance, and also that simply changing the framing of the Public Goods Game is enough to make it appear novel to participants and thus to restore the time pressure effect.

Peace and power: a theory of emancipatory group process.

PubMed

Chinn, Peggy L; Falk-Rafael, Adeline

2015-01-01

To present the theoretical basis for the group process known as "Peace and Power." A dialectic between two dominant forms of power-peace powers and power-over powers-forms the basis for a synthesis that yields an emancipatory group process characterized by praxis, empowerment, awareness, cooperation, and evolvement for individuals and groups. Critical analysis of prevailing competitive group dynamics and the ideals of cooperative group dynamics was conducted to project the potential for achieving group interactions that yield profound changes in the direction of justice, empowerment, and well-being for all. The theoretical framework of "Peace and Power" is consistent with characteristics of emancipatory integrity that are vital for social change. The processes of "Peace and Power" can be used to create peaceful, cooperative interactions among nurses, with other health professionals, with patients and families, and in communities. © 2014 Sigma Theta Tau International.

Mobility, fitness collection, and the breakdown of cooperation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gelimson, Anatolij; Cremer, Jonas; Frey, Erwin

2013-04-01

The spatial arrangement of individuals is thought to overcome the dilemma of cooperation: When cooperators engage in clusters, they might share the benefit of cooperation while being more protected against noncooperating individuals, who benefit from cooperation but save the cost of cooperation. This is paradigmatically shown by the spatial prisoner's dilemma model. Here, we study this model in one and two spatial dimensions, but explicitly take into account that in biological setups, fitness collection and selection are separated processes occurring mostly on vastly different time scales. This separation is particularly important to understand the impact of mobility on the evolution of cooperation. We find that even small diffusive mobility strongly restricts cooperation since it enables noncooperative individuals to invade cooperative clusters. Thus, in most biological scenarios, where the mobility of competing individuals is an irrefutable fact, the spatial prisoner's dilemma alone cannot explain stable cooperation, but additional mechanisms are necessary for spatial structure to promote the evolution of cooperation. The breakdown of cooperation is analyzed in detail. We confirm the existence of a phase transition, here controlled by mobility and costs, which distinguishes between purely cooperative and noncooperative absorbing states. While in one dimension the model is in the class of the voter model, it belongs to the directed percolation universality class in two dimensions.

Eigenvalue distributions for a class of covariance matrices with application to Bienenstock-Cooper-Munro neurons under noisy conditions.

PubMed

Bazzani, Armando; Castellani, Gastone C; Cooper, Leon N

2010-05-01

We analyze the effects of noise correlations in the input to, or among, Bienenstock-Cooper-Munro neurons using the Wigner semicircular law to construct random, positive-definite symmetric correlation matrices and compute their eigenvalue distributions. In the finite dimensional case, we compare our analytic results with numerical simulations and show the effects of correlations on the lifetimes of synaptic strengths in various visual environments. These correlations can be due either to correlations in the noise from the input lateral geniculate nucleus neurons, or correlations in the variability of lateral connections in a network of neurons. In particular, we find that for fixed dimensionality, a large noise variance can give rise to long lifetimes of synaptic strengths. This may be of physiological significance.

Location estimation in wireless sensor networks using spring-relaxation technique.

PubMed

Zhang, Qing; Foh, Chuan Heng; Seet, Boon-Chong; Fong, A C M

2010-01-01

Accurate and low-cost autonomous self-localization is a critical requirement of various applications of a large-scale distributed wireless sensor network (WSN). Due to its massive deployment of sensors, explicit measurements based on specialized localization hardware such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) is not practical. In this paper, we propose a low-cost WSN localization solution. Our design uses received signal strength indicators for ranging, light weight distributed algorithms based on the spring-relaxation technique for location computation, and the cooperative approach to achieve certain location estimation accuracy with a low number of nodes with known locations. We provide analysis to show the suitability of the spring-relaxation technique for WSN localization with cooperative approach, and perform simulation experiments to illustrate its accuracy in localization.

The integrated supplier: key to cost management and multi-franchise capitation contracting.

PubMed

Schuweiler, R C

1996-05-01

Capitation...most healthcare providers do not work under it, comprehend it, or even want it, yet supply capitation contracting seminars are popping up everywhere creating the feeling that the bandwagon is leaving, and it might be time to get on board. Not true. Supply capitation is not for all organizations. Capitation contracting is not easy and there are not many successful models to help the uninitiated. If a panacea is sought for reducing supply costs, capitation is only one component of a systematic strategy to reduce materiel costs. This article suggests a direction using the Group Health Materiel Management (Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, WA) experience as a point of reference. It advocates a systematic approach that focuses on expense reduction in: cost of goods, holding cost of inventory, labor cost associated with all materiel processes, distribution cost (transportation and par stock pick, pack, and replenishment), product utilization, variation in product standards, and waste stream byproducts. At Group Health (GH) these issues are primarily addressed through the use of: information systems, supplier certification/selection processes, group purchasing compliance, supply channel management, supply capitation contracting programs, standardization, and utilization management. Because of managed care organizational structure, Group Health Cooperative supply capitation contracting, as performed at GH, is discussed not as a quick fix solution but in the spirit of sharing our experience with others who may be considering it as a cost savings tactic in the context of a broad-based materiel management strategy. This article highlights the experiences of GH beginning with materiel management's business process assumptions toward multiple-franchise supply capitation.

Dynamic Involvement of Real World Objects in the IoT: A Consensus-Based Cooperation Approach

PubMed Central

Pilloni, Virginia; Atzori, Luigi; Mallus, Matteo

2017-01-01

A significant role in the Internet of Things (IoT) will be taken by mobile and low-cost unstable devices, which autonomously self-organize and introduce highly dynamic and heterogeneous scenarios for the deployment of distributed applications. This entails the devices to cooperate to dynamically find the suitable combination of their involvement so as to improve the system reliability while following the changes in their status. Focusing on the above scenario, we propose a distributed algorithm for resources allocation that is run by devices that can perform the same task required by the applications, allowing for a flexible and dynamic binding of the requested services with the physical IoT devices. It is based on a consensus approach, which maximizes the lifetime of groups of nodes involved and ensures the fulfillment of the requested Quality of Information (QoI) requirements. Experiments have been conducted with real devices, showing an improvement of device lifetime of more than 20%, with respect to a uniform distribution of tasks. PMID:28257030

Distributed ESO based cooperative tracking control for high-order nonlinear multiagent systems with lumped disturbance and application in multi flight simulators systems.

PubMed

Cong, Zhang

2018-03-01

Based on extended state observer, a novel and practical design method is developed to solve the distributed cooperative tracking problem of higher-order nonlinear multiagent systems with lumped disturbance in a fixed communication topology directed graph. The proposed method is designed to guarantee all the follower nodes ultimately and uniformly converge to the leader node with bounded residual errors. The leader node, modeled as a higher-order non-autonomous nonlinear system, acts as a command generator giving commands only to a small portion of the networked follower nodes. Extended state observer is used to estimate the local states and lumped disturbance of each follower node. Moreover, each distributed controller can work independently only requiring the relative states and/or the estimated relative states information between itself and its neighbors. Finally an engineering application of multi flight simulators systems is demonstrated to test and verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2018 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dynamic Involvement of Real World Objects in the IoT: A Consensus-Based Cooperation Approach.

PubMed

Pilloni, Virginia; Atzori, Luigi; Mallus, Matteo

2017-03-01

A significant role in the Internet of Things (IoT) will be taken by mobile and low-cost unstable devices, which autonomously self-organize and introduce highly dynamic and heterogeneous scenarios for the deployment of distributed applications. This entails the devices to cooperate to dynamically find the suitable combination of their involvement so as to improve the system reliability while following the changes in their status. Focusing on the above scenario, we propose a distributed algorithm for resources allocation that is run by devices that can perform the same task required by the applications, allowing for a flexible and dynamic binding of the requested services with the physical IoT devices. It is based on a consensus approach, which maximizes the lifetime of groups of nodes involved and ensures the fulfillment of the requested Quality of Information (QoI) requirements. Experiments have been conducted with real devices, showing an improvement of device lifetime of more than 20 % , with respect to a uniform distribution of tasks.

A distributed predictive control approach for periodic flow-based networks: application to drinking water systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grosso, Juan M.; Ocampo-Martinez, Carlos; Puig, Vicenç

2017-10-01

This paper proposes a distributed model predictive control approach designed to work in a cooperative manner for controlling flow-based networks showing periodic behaviours. Under this distributed approach, local controllers cooperate in order to enhance the performance of the whole flow network avoiding the use of a coordination layer. Alternatively, controllers use both the monolithic model of the network and the given global cost function to optimise the control inputs of the local controllers but taking into account the effect of their decisions over the remainder subsystems conforming the entire network. In this sense, a global (all-to-all) communication strategy is considered. Although the Pareto optimality cannot be reached due to the existence of non-sparse coupling constraints, the asymptotic convergence to a Nash equilibrium is guaranteed. The resultant strategy is tested and its effectiveness is shown when applied to a large-scale complex flow-based network: the Barcelona drinking water supply system.

Electric power scheduling - A distributed problem-solving approach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mellor, Pamela A.; Dolce, James L.; Krupp, Joseph C.

1990-01-01

Space Station Freedom's power system, along with the spacecraft's other subsystems, needs to carefully conserve its resources and yet strive to maximize overall Station productivity. Due to Freedom's distributed design, each subsystem must work cooperatively within the Station community. There is a need for a scheduling tool which will preserve this distributed structure, allow each subsystem the latitude to satisfy its own constraints, and preserve individual value systems while maintaining Station-wide integrity.

Experimental and numerical studies of rotating drum grate furnace

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Basista, Grzegorz; Szubel, Mateusz; Filipowicz, Mariusz; Tomczyk, Bartosz; Krakowiak, Joanna

Waste material from the meat industry can be taken into account as a biofuel. Studies confirm, that calorific value is higher and ash content is lower comparing to some conventional fuels. EU directives regulate details of thermal disposal of the waste material from the meat industry - especially in range of the process temperature and time of the particle presence in area of the combustion zone. The paper describes design of the rotating drum grate stove, dedicated to thermal disposal of the meat wastes as well as solid biomass (pellet, small bricket, wood chips) combustion. Device has been developed in frames of cooperation between AGH University of Science and Technology (Krakow, Poland) and producer focused on technologies of energy utilization of biomass in distributed generation. Results of measurements of selected operational parameters performed during startup of the furnace have been presented and discussed. Furthermore, numerical model of the combustion process has been developed to complement experimental results in range of the temperature and oxygen distribution in the area of the combustion chamber. ANSYS CFX solver has been applied to perform simulations including rotational domain related with specifics of operation of the device. Results of numerical modelling and experimental studies have been summarized and compared.

Proof-of-principle experimental realization of a qubit-like qudit-based quantum key distribution scheme

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Shuang; Yin, Zhen-Qiang; Chau, H. F.; Chen, Wei; Wang, Chao; Guo, Guang-Can; Han, Zheng-Fu

2018-04-01

In comparison to qubit-based protocols, qudit-based quantum key distribution ones generally allow two cooperative parties to share unconditionally secure keys under a higher channel noise. However, it is very hard to prepare and measure the required quantum states in qudit-based protocols in general. One exception is the recently proposed highly error tolerant qudit-based protocol known as the Chau15 (Chau 2015 Phys. Rev. A 92 062324). Remarkably, the state preparation and measurement in this protocol can be done relatively easily since the required states are phase encoded almost like the diagonal basis states of a qubit. Here we report the first proof-of-principle demonstration of the Chau15 protocol. One highlight of our experiment is that its post-processing is based on practical one-way manner, while the original proposal in Chau (2015 Phys. Rev. A 92 062324) relies on complicated two-way post-processing, which is a great challenge in experiment. In addition, by manipulating time-bin qudit and measurement with a variable delay interferometer, our realization is extensible to qudit with high-dimensionality and confirms the experimental feasibility of the Chau15 protocol.

Mapping water consumption for energy production around the Pacific Rim

DOE PAGES

Tidwell, Vincent; Moreland, Barbie

2016-09-07

World energy demand is projected to increase by more than a third by 2035 and with it the use of water to extract and process fuels and generate electricity. Management of this energy-water nexus requires a clear understanding of the inter-related demands of these resources as well as their regional distribution. Toward this need the fresh water consumed for energy production was mapped for almost 12 000 watersheds distributed across the 21-economies comprising the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Fresh water consumption was estimated for ten different sectors including thermoelectric and hydroelectric power; energy extraction including coal, oil, natural gas, uranium andmore » unconventional oil/gas; energy processing including oil and biofuels; and biofuel feedstock irrigation. These measures of water consumption were put in context by drawing comparison with published measures of water risk. In total 791 watersheds (32%) of the 2511 watersheds where energy related water consumption occurred were also characterized by high to extreme water risk, these watersheds were designated as being at energy-water risk. Furthermore, for six economies watersheds at energy-water risk represented half or more of all basins where energy related water consumption occurred, while four additional economies exceeded 30%.« less

Mapping water consumption for energy production around the Pacific Rim

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tidwell, Vincent; Moreland, Barbie

2016-09-01

World energy demand is projected to increase by more than a third by 2035 and with it the use of water to extract and process fuels and generate electricity. Management of this energy-water nexus requires a clear understanding of the inter-related demands of these resources as well as their regional distribution. Toward this need the fresh water consumed for energy production was mapped for almost 12 000 watersheds distributed across the 21-economies comprising the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Fresh water consumption was estimated for ten different sectors including thermoelectric and hydroelectric power; energy extraction including coal, oil, natural gas, uranium and unconventional oil/gas; energy processing including oil and biofuels; and biofuel feedstock irrigation. These measures of water consumption were put in context by drawing comparison with published measures of water risk. In total 791 watersheds (32%) of the 2511 watersheds where energy related water consumption occurred were also characterized by high to extreme water risk, these watersheds were designated as being at energy-water risk. For six economies watersheds at energy-water risk represented half or more of all basins where energy related water consumption occurred, while four additional economies exceeded 30%.

Mapping water consumption for energy production around the Pacific Rim

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tidwell, Vincent; Moreland, Barbie

World energy demand is projected to increase by more than a third by 2035 and with it the use of water to extract and process fuels and generate electricity. Management of this energy-water nexus requires a clear understanding of the inter-related demands of these resources as well as their regional distribution. Toward this need the fresh water consumed for energy production was mapped for almost 12 000 watersheds distributed across the 21-economies comprising the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Fresh water consumption was estimated for ten different sectors including thermoelectric and hydroelectric power; energy extraction including coal, oil, natural gas, uranium andmore » unconventional oil/gas; energy processing including oil and biofuels; and biofuel feedstock irrigation. These measures of water consumption were put in context by drawing comparison with published measures of water risk. In total 791 watersheds (32%) of the 2511 watersheds where energy related water consumption occurred were also characterized by high to extreme water risk, these watersheds were designated as being at energy-water risk. Furthermore, for six economies watersheds at energy-water risk represented half or more of all basins where energy related water consumption occurred, while four additional economies exceeded 30%.« less

Reciprocity in group-living animals: partner control versus partner choice.

PubMed

Schino, Gabriele; Aureli, Filippo

2017-05-01

Reciprocity is probably the most debated of the evolutionary explanations for cooperation. Part of the confusion surrounding this debate stems from a failure to note that two different processes can result in reciprocity: partner control and partner choice. We suggest that the common observation that group-living animals direct their cooperative behaviours preferentially to those individuals from which they receive most cooperation is to be interpreted as the result of the sum of the two separate processes of partner control and partner choice. We review evidence that partner choice is the prevalent process in primates and propose explanations for this pattern. We make predictions that highlight the need for studies that separate the effects of partner control and partner choice in a broader variety of group-living taxa. © 2016 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Distribution of Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) biotypes in Florida - Investigating the "Q" invasion

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

After the 2004 discovery of the Bemisia tabaci Q biotype in the U.S., there was an urgent need to determine its distribution. As part of a coordinated country-wide effort, an extensive survey of B. tabaci biotypes was conducted in Florida, with the cooperation of growers and state agencies, to moni...

Parallel Logic Programming Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-04-01

Section 3.1. 3.1. A STATIC ALLOCATION SCHEME (SAS) Methods that have been used for decomposing distributed problems in artificial intelligence...multiple agents, knowledge organization and allocation, and cooperative parallel execution. These difficulties are common to distributed artificial ...for the following reasons. First, intellegent backtracking requires much more bookkeeping and is therefore more costly during consult-time and during

Point cloud modeling using the homogeneous transformation for non-cooperative pose estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lim, Tae W.

2015-06-01

A modeling process to simulate point cloud range data that a lidar (light detection and ranging) sensor produces is presented in this paper in order to support the development of non-cooperative pose (relative attitude and position) estimation approaches which will help improve proximity operation capabilities between two adjacent vehicles. The algorithms in the modeling process were based on the homogeneous transformation, which has been employed extensively in robotics and computer graphics, as well as in recently developed pose estimation algorithms. Using a flash lidar in a laboratory testing environment, point cloud data of a test article was simulated and compared against the measured point cloud data. The simulated and measured data sets match closely, validating the modeling process. The modeling capability enables close examination of the characteristics of point cloud images of an object as it undergoes various translational and rotational motions. Relevant characteristics that will be crucial in non-cooperative pose estimation were identified such as shift, shadowing, perspective projection, jagged edges, and differential point cloud density. These characteristics will have to be considered in developing effective non-cooperative pose estimation algorithms. The modeling capability will allow extensive non-cooperative pose estimation performance simulations prior to field testing, saving development cost and providing performance metrics of the pose estimation concepts and algorithms under evaluation. The modeling process also provides "truth" pose of the test objects with respect to the sensor frame so that the pose estimation error can be quantified.

Modeling occupancy distribution in large spaces with multi-feature classification algorithm

DOE PAGES

Wang, Wei; Chen, Jiayu; Hong, Tianzhen

2018-04-07

We present that occupancy information enables robust and flexible control of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings. In large spaces, multiple HVAC terminals are typically installed to provide cooperative services for different thermal zones, and the occupancy information determines the cooperation among terminals. However, a person count at room-level does not adequately optimize HVAC system operation due to the movement of occupants within the room that creates uneven load distribution. Without accurate knowledge of the occupants’ spatial distribution, the uneven distribution of occupants often results in under-cooling/heating or over-cooling/heating in some thermal zones. Therefore, the lack of high-resolutionmore » occupancy distribution is often perceived as a bottleneck for future improvements to HVAC operation efficiency. To fill this gap, this study proposes a multi-feature k-Nearest-Neighbors (k-NN) classification algorithm to extract occupancy distribution through reliable, low-cost Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) networks. An on-site experiment was conducted in a typical office of an institutional building to demonstrate the proposed methods, and the experiment outcomes of three case studies were examined to validate detection accuracy. One method based on City Block Distance (CBD) was used to measure the distance between detected occupancy distribution and ground truth and assess the results of occupancy distribution. Finally, the results show the accuracy when CBD = 1 is over 71.4% and the accuracy when CBD = 2 can reach up to 92.9%.« less

Modeling occupancy distribution in large spaces with multi-feature classification algorithm

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, Wei; Chen, Jiayu; Hong, Tianzhen

We present that occupancy information enables robust and flexible control of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings. In large spaces, multiple HVAC terminals are typically installed to provide cooperative services for different thermal zones, and the occupancy information determines the cooperation among terminals. However, a person count at room-level does not adequately optimize HVAC system operation due to the movement of occupants within the room that creates uneven load distribution. Without accurate knowledge of the occupants’ spatial distribution, the uneven distribution of occupants often results in under-cooling/heating or over-cooling/heating in some thermal zones. Therefore, the lack of high-resolutionmore » occupancy distribution is often perceived as a bottleneck for future improvements to HVAC operation efficiency. To fill this gap, this study proposes a multi-feature k-Nearest-Neighbors (k-NN) classification algorithm to extract occupancy distribution through reliable, low-cost Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) networks. An on-site experiment was conducted in a typical office of an institutional building to demonstrate the proposed methods, and the experiment outcomes of three case studies were examined to validate detection accuracy. One method based on City Block Distance (CBD) was used to measure the distance between detected occupancy distribution and ground truth and assess the results of occupancy distribution. Finally, the results show the accuracy when CBD = 1 is over 71.4% and the accuracy when CBD = 2 can reach up to 92.9%.« less

Workshop on Dust on Mars

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, S. (Editor)

1985-01-01

A workshop was organized to stimulate and coordinate research on the properties of Martian dust, its distribution on the planet, and the processes affecting its yearly deposition, erosion, and transport. A great deal of research was carried out to understand local, regional, and global aspects of the Martian dust transport cycle, with the goal being definition of the currently active processes and their relation to those operating over the long term. To date, however, most individual research projects have centered around interpretation of single data sets (visual images, IRTM, radar, etc.), and these many efforts were not coordinated. Many of the details of short and long term dust-related processes, as inferred from the various single data sets, are still not agreed upon. It was the intent of this workshop to encourage the informal exchange of ideas among several researchers currently investigating various aspects of the problem and to investigate cooperative efforts to synthesize the individual approaches into a unified understanding of the present seasonal and yearly Martian sediment transport cycles.

The New BaBar Data Reconstruction Control System

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ceseracciu, Antonio

2003-06-02

The BaBar experiment is characterized by extremely high luminosity, a complex detector, and a huge data volume, with increasing requirements each year. To fulfill these requirements a new control system has been designed and developed for the offline data reconstruction system. The new control system described in this paper provides the performance and flexibility needed to manage a large number of small computing farms, and takes full benefit of OO design. The infrastructure is well isolated from the processing layer, it is generic and flexible, based on a light framework providing message passing and cooperative multitasking. The system is activelymore » distributed, enforces the separation between different processing tiers by using different naming domains, and glues them together by dedicated brokers. It provides a powerful Finite State Machine framework to describe custom processing models in a simple regular language. This paper describes this new control system, currently in use at SLAC and Padova on {approx}450 CPUs organized in 12 farms.« less

48 CFR 52.222-19 - Child Labor-Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... Text of Provisions and Clauses 52.222-19 Child Labor—Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies. As... Contractor uses forced or indentured child labor in its mining, production, or manufacturing processes. (4...

Localization in Self-Healing Autonomous Sensor Networks (SASNet): Studies on Cooperative Localization of Sensor Nodes using Distributed Maps

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-01-01

CCA-MAP algorithm are analyzed. Further, we discuss the design considerations of the discussed cooperative localization algorithms to compare and...MAP and CCA-MAP to compare and evaluate their performance. Then a preliminary design analysis is given to address the implementation requirements and...plus précis, avec un nombre inférieur de nœuds ancres, comparativement aux autres types de schémas de localisation. En réalité, les algorithmes de

Geographical distribution of biomedical publications from the Gulf Corporation Council countries.

PubMed

Deleu, D; Northway, M G; Hanssens, Y

2001-01-01

It was our purpose to perform a geographical analysis for the number of biomedical and clinical research publications from the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council over the past decade (1990-1999). Medline was searched with the aid of the Internet provider PubMed. By using the advanced search option, entries were based on the country name for each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the time period considered. The number of Medline-listed biomedical research papers published in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries over the last 10 years totaled 6,960 and increased by 14% over the past decade. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia followed by Kuwait was by far the most prolific and accounted for 67 and 16% of publications. The research output from the United Arab Emirates and Oman grew steadily over the past decade, while it appeared to plateau for both Bahrain and Qatar. Taking into account that Gulf Cooperation Council countries have a relatively short history of research, the data show that the Gulf Cooperation Council countries are very prolific in terms of Medline-indexed biomedical research publications.

Adaptive selective relaying in cooperative free-space optical systems over atmospheric turbulence and misalignment fading channels.

PubMed

Boluda-Ruiz, Rubén; García-Zambrana, Antonio; Castillo-Vázquez, Carmen; Castillo-Vázquez, Beatriz

2014-06-30

In this paper, a novel adaptive cooperative protocol with multiple relays using detect-and-forward (DF) over atmospheric turbulence channels with pointing errors is proposed. The adaptive DF cooperative protocol here analyzed is based on the selection of the optical path, source-destination or different source-relay links, with a greater value of fading gain or irradiance, maintaining a high diversity order. Closed-form asymptotic bit error-rate (BER) expressions are obtained for a cooperative free-space optical (FSO) communication system with Nr relays, when the irradiance of the transmitted optical beam is susceptible to either a wide range of turbulence conditions, following a gamma-gamma distribution of parameters α and β, or pointing errors, following a misalignment fading model where the effect of beam width, detector size and jitter variance is considered. A greater robustness for different link distances and pointing errors is corroborated by the obtained results if compared with similar cooperative schemes or equivalent multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Simulation results are further demonstrated to confirm the accuracy and usefulness of the derived results.

Interdependency enriches the spatial reciprocity in prisoner's dilemma game on weighted networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meng, Xiaokun; Sun, Shiwen; Li, Xiaoxuan; Wang, Li; Xia, Chengyi; Sun, Junqing

2016-01-01

To model the evolution of cooperation under the realistic scenarios, we propose an interdependent network-based game model which simultaneously considers the difference of individual roles in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game. In our model, the system is composed of two lattices on which an agent designated as a cooperator or defector will be allocated, meanwhile each agent will be endowed as a specific weight taking from three typical distributions on one lattice (i.e., weighted lattice), and set to be 1.0 on the other one (i.e., un-weighted or standard lattice). In addition, the interdependency will be built through the utility coupling between point-to-point partners. Extensive simulations indicate that the cooperation will be continuously elevated for the weighted lattice as the utility coupling strength (α) increases; while the cooperation will take on a nontrivial evolution on the standard lattice as α varies, and will be still greatly promoted when compared to the case of α = 0. At the same time, the full T - K phase diagrams are also explored to illustrate the evolutionary behaviors, and it is powerfully shown that the interdependency drives the defectors to survive within the narrower range, but individual weighting of utility will further broaden the coexistence space of cooperators and defectors, which renders the nontrivial evolution of cooperation in our model. Altogether, the current consequences about the evolution of cooperation will be helpful for us to provide the insights into the prevalent cooperation phenomenon within many real-world systems.

Improving the Effectiveness of Higher Education Institutions through Inter-University Co-Operation: The Case of Peking University. Improving the Managerial Effectiveness of Higher Education Institutions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weifang, Min

This case study on the experience of the University of Peking, China, in inter-university cooperation describes the process of identifying appropriate partner institutions and implementing collaborative programs with them. It also highlights a number of lessons for those managing inter-university cooperation and shows how such initiatives can be…

Integration of domain and resource-based reasoning for real-time control in dynamic environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morgan, Keith; Whitebread, Kenneth R.; Kendus, Michael; Cromarty, Andrew S.

1993-01-01

A real-time software controller that successfully integrates domain-based and resource-based control reasoning to perform task execution in a dynamically changing environment is described. The design of the controller is based on the concept of partitioning the process to be controlled into a set of tasks, each of which achieves some process goal. It is assumed that, in general, there are multiple ways (tasks) to achieve a goal. The controller dynamically determines current goals and their current criticality, choosing and scheduling tasks to achieve those goals in the time available. It incorporates rule-based goal reasoning, a TMS-based criticality propagation mechanism, and a real-time scheduler. The controller has been used to build a knowledge-based situation assessment system that formed a major component of a real-time, distributed, cooperative problem solving system built under DARPA contract. It is also being employed in other applications now in progress.

Cyberspatial mechanics.

PubMed

Bayne, Jay S

2008-06-01

In support of a generalization of systems theory, this paper introduces a new approach in modeling complex distributed systems. It offers an analytic framework for describing the behavior of interactive cyberphysical systems (CPSs), which are networked stationary or mobile information systems responsible for the real-time governance of physical processes whose behaviors unfold in cyberspace. The framework is predicated on a cyberspace-time reference model comprising three spatial dimensions plus time. The spatial domains include geospatial, infospatial, and sociospatial references, the latter describing relationships among sovereign enterprises (rational agents) that choose voluntarily to organize and interoperate for individual and mutual benefit through geospatial (physical) and infospatial (logical) transactions. Of particular relevance to CPSs are notions of timeliness and value, particularly as they relate to the real-time governance of physical processes and engagements with other cooperating CPS. Our overarching interest, as with celestial mechanics, is in the formation and evolution of clusters of cyberspatial objects and the federated systems they form.

Communal Cooperation in Sensor Networks for Situation Management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, Kennie H.; Lodding, Kenneth N.; Olariu, Stephan; Wilson, Larry; Xin,Chunsheng

2006-01-01

Situation management is a rapidly evolving science where managed sources are processed as realtime streams of events and fused in a way that maximizes comprehension, thus enabling better decisions for action. Sensor networks provide a new technology that promises ubiquitous input and action throughout an environment, which can substantially improve information available to the process. Here we describe a NASA program that requires improvements in sensor networks and situation management. We present an approach for massively deployed sensor networks that does not rely on centralized control but is founded in lessons learned from the way biological ecosystems are organized. In this approach, fully distributed data aggregation and integration can be performed in a scalable fashion where individual motes operate based on local information, making local decisions that achieve globally-meaningful results. This exemplifies the robust, fault-tolerant infrastructure required for successful situation management systems.

Integration of clinical practice guidelines into a distributed regional electronic patient record for tumour-patients using XML: a means for standardization of the treatment processes.

PubMed

Mludek, V; Wolff, A C; Drings, P; van der Haak, M; Haux, R; Wannenmacher, M; Zierhut, D

2001-01-01

With the rising efforts to guarantee a high quality treatment in medicine and to reduce the costs in the health care system, Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) have developed into a very important reference in medicine. CPGs are especially useful for the standardization of multi-professional treatment processes like the care for patients with malignant diseases. The Tumour-Centre Heidelberg/Mannheim (Germany) leads a project to build up a regional, virtual distributed Electronic Patient Record (EPR) for patients with malignant diseases in the Rhein-Neckar-Area. Aims of the first stages of the project are the introduction of the distributed EPR to two co-operating pilot-clinics. In this context we intend to provide access for medical professionals not only to the data of the jointly treated patients, but also to relevant existing CPGs and other medical knowledge sources like Medline and Cochrane-Library. Knowledge and Patient data should be interlinked to offer patient-specific views on the CPG-information. As all professions have different information needs, this views should be presented individualized according to the demands of the users. We analysed three relevant CPGs and defined a meta-structure that will be refined to a common meta-structure for CPGs in Oncology. CPGs as well as structured patient-documents will be implemented in the Extensible Markup Language (XML), as this platform-independent technology seems to suit our needs for data exchange and presentation purposes best. The implementation process will be accompanied tightly with evaluations to gain experience for further expansions of the EPR. The vision of the project is, that by integrating CPGs in a shared distributed EPR, the way towards standardized treatment processes in a local, but multi-professional setting, and the efforts to guarantee a high quality treatment in Oncology can sufficiently be supported.

Wearing the Coveted Purple Ribbon: What Students Need To Know About the Cooperative Buying Process and How It Saves Money for Your Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bestler, Laura

1998-01-01

Cooperative buying is a process developed to enable colleges and universities in specific geographic areas to block-book dates for an artist or attraction, resulting in lower costs to schools and more logical routing for artists. A seven-step procedure, beginning before the campus activities convention and continuing through contract completion…

Cooperation in marine affairs: Evidence from the Gulf of Thailand

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harakunarak, Ampai

1998-12-01

This study argues that the evolving process of interstate cooperation based upon power interests could operate regardless of the formal or expressed will of governments to make binding agreements. The study developed a comprehensive model for interstate cooperation in which state interests were part of conditions for the mutual problem-solving process. The model was then tested against three marine issues in the Gulf of Thailand: offshore hydrocarbon development associated with maritime boundary delimitation, marine fisheries, and marine pollution. Literature review, newspapers and periodicals, on-line databases, and unstructured interviews were primary sources of data. The analysis found that consultation accounted for cooperative interaction among the realist Gulf of Thailand states. Evidence from three tested marine issues suggested that frequent contact and subsequent effects of a greater exchange of knowledge and information can at least stabilize relationships between the states. Informality and non-binding nature of the interactive process offered the states the needed flexibility in designing and implementing effective marine management in the Gulf of Thailand. The study discussed a modified realist framework and some implications for a future study of informal regimes and compliance with interstate agreements.

A norm knockout method on indirect reciprocity to reveal indispensable norms

PubMed Central

Yamamoto, Hitoshi; Okada, Isamu; Uchida, Satoshi; Sasaki, Tatsuya

2017-01-01

Although various norms for reciprocity-based cooperation have been suggested that are evolutionarily stable against invasion from free riders, the process of alternation of norms and the role of diversified norms remain unclear in the evolution of cooperation. We clarify the co-evolutionary dynamics of norms and cooperation in indirect reciprocity and also identify the indispensable norms for the evolution of cooperation. Inspired by the gene knockout method, a genetic engineering technique, we developed the norm knockout method and clarified the norms necessary for the establishment of cooperation. The results of numerical investigations revealed that the majority of norms gradually transitioned to tolerant norms after defectors are eliminated by strict norms. Furthermore, no cooperation emerges when specific norms that are intolerant to defectors are knocked out. PMID:28276485

A norm knockout method on indirect reciprocity to reveal indispensable norms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamamoto, Hitoshi; Okada, Isamu; Uchida, Satoshi; Sasaki, Tatsuya

2017-03-01

Although various norms for reciprocity-based cooperation have been suggested that are evolutionarily stable against invasion from free riders, the process of alternation of norms and the role of diversified norms remain unclear in the evolution of cooperation. We clarify the co-evolutionary dynamics of norms and cooperation in indirect reciprocity and also identify the indispensable norms for the evolution of cooperation. Inspired by the gene knockout method, a genetic engineering technique, we developed the norm knockout method and clarified the norms necessary for the establishment of cooperation. The results of numerical investigations revealed that the majority of norms gradually transitioned to tolerant norms after defectors are eliminated by strict norms. Furthermore, no cooperation emerges when specific norms that are intolerant to defectors are knocked out.

Improved Seismic Acquisition System and Data Processing for the Italian National Seismic Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Badiali, L.; Marcocci, C.; Mele, F.; Piscini, A.

2001-12-01

A new system for acquiring and processing digital signals has been developed in the last few years at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). The system makes extensive use of the internet communication protocol standards such as TCP and UDP which are used as the transport highway inside the Italian network, and possibly in a near future outside, to share or redirect data among processes. The Italian National Seismic Network has been working for about 18 years equipped with vertical short period seismometers and transmitting through analog lines, to the computer center in Rome. We are now concentrating our efforts on speeding the migration towards a fully digital network based on about 150 stations equipped with either broad band or 5 seconds sensors connected to the data center partly through wired digital communication and partly through satellite digital communication. The overall process is layered through intranet and/or internet. Every layer gathers data in a simple format and provides data in a processed format, ready to be distributed towards the next layer. The lowest level acquires seismic data (raw waveforms) coming from the remote stations. It handshakes, checks and sends data in LAN or WAN according to a distribution list where other machines with their programs are waiting for. At the next level there are the picking procedures, or "pickers", on a per instrument basis, looking for phases. A picker spreads phases, again through the LAN or WAN and according to a distribution list, to one or more waiting locating machines tuned to generate a seismic event. The event locating procedure itself, the higher level in this stack, can exchange information with other similar procedures. Such a layered and distributed structure with nearby targets allows other seismic networks to join the processing and data collection of the same ongoing event, creating a virtual network larger than the original one. At present we plan to cooperate with other Italian regional and local networks, and with the VBB Mediterranean Network (MedNet) to share waveforms and events detected in real time. The seismic acquisition system at INGV uses a relational database built on standard SQL, for every activity involving the seismic network.

The evolution of human mobility based on the public goods game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Shiqing

2017-07-01

We explore the evolution of human mobility behavior based on public goods game. By using mean field method, the population distribution in different regions is theoretical calculated. Numerical simulation results show that the correlation between the region's degree and its final population is not significant under a larger human migration rate. Human mobility could effectively promote cooperative behavior and the population balance of different regions. Therefore, encouraging individuals to migrate may increase the total benefits of the whole society. Moreover, increasing the cooperation cost could reduce the number of cooperators, and that would happen to the correlation between the region's degree and its final population. The results indicate the total population could not dramatically rise with the region's degree under an unfair society.

Effect of heterogeneous investments on the evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods game.

PubMed

Huang, Keke; Wang, Tao; Cheng, Yuan; Zheng, Xiaoping

2015-01-01

Understanding the emergence of cooperation in spatial public goods game remains a grand challenge across disciplines. In most previous studies, it is assumed that the investments of all the cooperators are identical, and often equal to 1. However, it is worth mentioning that players are diverse and heterogeneous when choosing actions in the rapidly developing modern society and researchers have shown more interest to the heterogeneity of players recently. For modeling the heterogeneous players without loss of generality, it is assumed in this work that the investment of a cooperator is a random variable with uniform distribution, the mean value of which is equal to 1. The results of extensive numerical simulations convincingly indicate that heterogeneous investments can promote cooperation. Specifically, a large value of the variance of the random variable can decrease the two critical values for the result of behavioral evolution effectively. Moreover, the larger the variance is, the better the promotion effect will be. In addition, this article has discussed the impact of heterogeneous investments when the coevolution of both strategy and investment is taken into account. Comparing the promotion effect of coevolution of strategy and investment with that of strategy imitation only, we can conclude that the coevolution of strategy and investment decreases the asymptotic fraction of cooperators by weakening the heterogeneity of investments, which further demonstrates that heterogeneous investments can promote cooperation in spatial public goods game.