Modelling negotiated decision making in environmental and natural resource management : A multilateral, multiple issues, non-cooperative bargaining model with uncertainty

The relevance of bargaining to everyday life can easily be ascertained, yet the study of any bargaining process is extremely hard, involving a multiplicity of questions and complex issues. The objective of this paper is to provide new insights on some dimensions of the bargaining process-asymmetries and uncertainties in particular-by using a non-cooperative game theory approach. We develop a computational model which simulates the process of negotiation among more than two players, who bargain over the sharing of more than one pie. Through numerically simulating several multiple issues negotiation games among multiple players, we identify the main features of players’ optimal strategies and equilibrium agreements. As in most economic situations, uncertainty crucially affects also bargaining processes. Therefore, in our analysis, we introduce uncertainty over the size of the pies to be shared and assess the impact on players’ strategic behaviour. Our results confirm that uncertainty affects players’ behaviour and modify the likelihood of a self-enforcing agreement to emerge. The model proposed here can have several applications, in particular in the field of natural resource and environmental management at the national or local level, where conflicts over how to share a resource of a finite size are increasing.     

求解梯形模糊矩阵对策的线性规划方法

针对传统模糊支付矩阵对策求解方法不能保证局中人的模糊值始终相同且求解复杂的问题,通过引入??-矩阵对策的概念,提出一种求解支付为梯形模糊数的矩阵对策线性规划方法。该方法中局中人双方的对策值始终相同,且此对策值的任意??-截集的上下界和局中人的最优策略容易通过求解导出的4个线性规划问题获得,特别地,可得到模糊对策值的显式表示。通过与其他方法的比较,表明了所提出的方法更具有效性和实用性。     

Falling in love with online games: The uses and gratifications perspective

Playing online games is experience-oriented but few studies have explored the user’s initial (trial) reaction to game playing and how this further influences a player’s behavior. Drawing upon the Uses and Gratifications theory, we investigated players’ multiple gratifications for playing (i.e. achievement, enjoyment and social interaction) and their experience with the service mechanisms offered after they had played an online game. This study explores the important antecedents of players’ proactive “stickiness” to a specific online game and examines the relationships among these antecedents. The results show that both the gratifications and service mechanisms significantly affect a player’s continued motivation to play, which is crucial to a player’s proactive stickiness to an online game.     

Effects of screen size,viewing angle,and players’ immersion tendencies on game experience

This study investigated the effects of viewing angle manipulated through screen size and the moderating role of players’ immersion tendencies on presence experience in the context of computer game playing. Thirty participants played a third-person computer game, Tomb Raider 2, in two screen size conditions: a 12.7-in. and an 81-in. display. ANCOVA analyses showed that playing in front of a large screen led to a more favorable impression on the game character, a more positive mood change, and significantly higher feelings of both physical and self-presence, confirming previous research. Our findings also revealed that individuals’ intrinsic immersion tendencies have a positive moderating effect on the sensation of physical and self-presence, above and beyond the influence of screen size. The results suggest that feeling of presence as well as overall game experience is determined by the interaction between technological factors and human influence.     

Evaluation of atmospheric correction models and Landsat surface reflectance product in an urban coastal environment

Precise atmospheric correction is important for applications where small differences in surface reflectance (SR) are significant, such as biomass estimation, crop phenology, and retrieval of water quality parameters. It also enables direct comparison between different image dates and different sensors. As a precursor to monitoring different parameters of water quality around the coastline of Hong Kong using medium-resolution sensors Landsat TM/ETM, and HJ-1A/B, this study evaluated the performance of five atmospheric correction methods. The estimated SR of the first four reflective bands of Landsat 7 ETM+ and of the identical bands of the HJ-1A/B satellites was compared with in situ multispectral radiometer (MSR) SR measurements over sand, artificial turf, grass, and water surfaces for the five atmospheric correction methods – second simulation of the satellite signal in the solar spectrum (6S), fast line-of-sight atmospheric analysis of spectral hypercubes (FLAASH), atmospheric correction (ATCOR), dark object subtraction (DOS), and the empirical line method (ELM). Among the five methods, 6S was observed to be consistently more precise for SR estimation, with significantly less difference from the in-situ-measured SR, especially over lower reflective water surfaces. Of the two image-based methods, DOS performed well over the darker surfaces of water and artificial turf, although still inferior to 6S, while ELM worked well for grass sites as compared to the DOS and equalled the good performance of 6S over the high reflective sand surfaces.

The study also evaluated the new standard Landsat SR product Landsat ecosystem disturbance adaptive processing system (LEDAPS) using the in situ measured SR data for the three land surface types – sand, artificial turf, and grass. For the highly and moderately reflecting bright sand and artificial turf, LEDAPS performed poorly, while for the darker grass site it performed better, although still inferior to 6S and ELM methods. This is probably due to the variable aerosol types and atmospheric conditions of Hong Kong, as LEDAPS was mainly compiled with reference to larger continental landmass areas.     

Pure Nash equilibria in player-specific and weighted congestion games

Unlike standard congestion games, weighted congestion games and congestion games with player-specific delay functions do not necessarily possess pure Nash equilibria. It is known, however, that there exist pure equilibria for both of these variants in the case of singleton congestion games, i.e., if the players’ strategy spaces contain only sets of cardinality one. In this paper, we investigate how far such a property on the players’ strategy spaces guaranteeing the existence of pure equilibria can be extended. We show that both weighted and player-specific congestion games admit pure equilibria in the case of matroid congestion games, i.e., if the strategy space of each player consists of the bases of a matroid on the set of resources. We also show that the matroid property is the maximal property that guarantees pure equilibria without taking into account how the strategy spaces of different players are interweaved.     

Optimal climate control of a storage facility using local weather forecasts

In this paper, the problem of optimal climate control of a potato storage facility exploiting favourable weather conditions is considered. A receding horizon optimal controller, allowing incorporation of real-time weather forecasts and input/state constraints and based on a reduced-order model, is chosen to evaluate the strategy in simulation. From the results, given the real-time weather forecasts from the Dutch weather office HWS, it appears that a significant reduction of ventilation costs and costs related to the constraint violation is possible when anticipating on future weather conditions.     

特殊天气条件下的目标检测方法综述

在深度学习的推动下,目标检测方法在近些年取得了很大的进展。但在特殊天气条件下,如在常见的雾霾、沙尘、雨天、雪天等天气条件下拍摄到的图像会退化模糊,难以提取有效特征,从而对后期的目标检测带来巨大的困难。对近年来国内外学者在特殊天气下目标检测的研究进行了总结归纳,从相关数据集的建立和用途、面向特殊天气条件下的图像恢复算法研究及其对目标检测任务的影响、迁移学习中的领域自适应方法在目标检测的应用三个方面进行分析。对相关方法的实验结果进行综合比较,并提出今后的研究重点。     

Sensory realism and mediated aggression in video games

This study investigated whether sensory realism cues in violent games – blood color (red vs. blue), screams of pain (on vs. off), and player perspective (first-person vs. third-person) – affect players’ physiological arousal (i.e., skin conductance levels), spatial presence (i.e., sense of being physically “there”), and state aggression in a popular violent game (Half-Life 2), controlling for users’ prior game experiences. A path model (N = 160) was examined to see the mediation effects of arousal and presence between realism cues and state aggression. In line with the general aggression model, results showed that realistic blood color and screams increased arousal, but no effect was found for first-person perspective. Presence significantly affected users’ state aggression. However, contrary to our expectation based on the excitation transfer theory, arousal did not show any significant effect on aggression. In addition, presence mediated the influence of realistic blood color on state aggression. In the effects of graphic realism of violence on user aggression, presence did a crucial role. Implications and future studies were discussed.     

基于BP算法的微波通信中继段性能分析

微波通信设备在运行过程中产生了大量的告警,经过数据清理可以对微波通信的性能进行分析。利用神经网络的误差反向传播算法(BP算法),结合告警、天气和工程设计几方面的数据资料建立了微波中继段告警分析预测模型。利用模型结合河北省平原地区的实际数据资料,进行了微波中继段站距、天线高差以及气候因素对告警的影响规律分析。     

Development and performance evaluation of neural network classifiers for Indian internet shoppers

The rapid growth of usage of internet has paved the way towards the use of online shopping. Consumers’ behavior is one of the significant aspects that is considered by the service providers for the improvement of various services. Consumers are generally satisfied if their needs are fulfilled. In this paper an in depth investigation is made on the behavior of Indian consumers towards online shopping. Factor analysis is carried out to extract significant factors that affect online shopping of Indian consumers and these consumers are clustered based on their behavior, towards online shopping using hierarchical clustering. Employing the results of clustering in training of multilayer perceptron (MLP), functional link artificial neural network (FLANN) and radial basis function (RBF) networks efficient classifier models are developed. The performance of these classifiers are evaluated and compared with those obtained by conventional statistical based discriminant analysis. The simulation study demonstrates that the RBF network provides best classification performance of internet shoppers compared to those given by the FLANN, MLP and discriminant analysis based methods. The simulation study on the impact of different combination of inputs demonstrates that demographic input has least effect on classification performance. On the other hand the combination of psychological and cultural inputs play the most significant role in classification followed by psychological and then cultural inputs alone.     

深度强化学习中状态注意力机制的研究

虽然在深度学习与强化学习结合后,人工智能在棋类游戏和视频游戏等领域取得了超越人类水平的重大成就,但是实时策略性游戏星际争霸由于其巨大的状态空间和动作空间,对于人工智能研究者来说是一个巨大的挑战平台,针对Deepmind在星际争霸II迷你游戏中利用经典的深度强化学习算法A3C训练出来的基线智能体的水平和普通业余玩家的水平相比还存在较大的差距的问题。通过采用更简化的网络结构以及把注意力机制与强化学习中的奖励结合起来的方法,提出基于状态注意力的A3C算法,所训练出来的智能体在个别星际迷你游戏中利用更少的特征图层取得的成绩最高,高于Deepmind的基线智能体71分。     

Integration of collaboration and interaction analysis mechanisms in a concern-based architecture for groupware systems

Collaboration and interaction analysis allows for the characterization and study of the collaborative work performed by the users of a groupware system. The results of the analyzed processes allow problems in users’ collaborative work and shortcomings in the functionalities of the groupware system to be identified. Therefore, automating collaboration and interaction analysis enables users’ work to be assessed and groupware system support and behavior to be improved. This article proposes a concern-based architecture to be used by groupware developers as a guide to the integration of analysis subsystems into groupware systems. This architecture was followed to design the COLLECE groupware system, which supports collaborative programming practices and integrates an analysis subsystem that assesses different aspects of the work carried out by the programmers and adapts the functionality of the system under specific conditions.     

Under the weather: an evaluation of different modes of presenting meteorological information for pilots

Understanding current and forecast weather conditions for a planned route of flight is vital for general aviation (GA) pilots. Weather information can be obtained from multiple sources and in multiple formats, ranging from abbreviated code provided by aviation weather forecasters to animated graphical displays available on TV and the Internet. The present study investigated the effectiveness of graphical displays of meteorological information. A commercially available graphical display was ergonomically redesigned and the original and redesigned displays were compared with an ordinary text statement. Recall of information was significantly affected by display type. Comparisons showed the ergonomically redesigned display to be superior to the ordinary text statement. Performance was affected by participants’ general level of familiarity with evaluating data displays as measured by their area of study (sciences or humanities). The generalizability of the results to the pilot population is discussed.     

Impact of the Internet on our lives: Male and female personal perspectives

Gender differences in Internet access and usage have been found in a number of previous investigations. The study reported here extends this work by providing an analysis of the impact of the Internet on men’s and women’s lives. A content analysis of 200 postings from men and 200 from women, on the topic of “Has the Internet changed your life” invited by a news website, was undertaken then examined for gender differences. Results showed more women’s postings mentioned having made new friends or having met their partner, renewing old friendships, accessing information and advice, studying online, and shopping and booking travel online, while more men’s postings mentioned that the Internet had helped or given them a career, positive socio-political effects, and negative aspects of the technology. The results are interpreted as supporting the view that the Internet represents an extension of broader social roles and interests in the “offline” world.     

Online chronemics convey social information

Chronemic research explores the involvement of time-related messages in communication, and has shown that time is an important component of the message in both traditional and online communication. Social information processing (SIP) theory posits that online communicators exchange social information through chronemic cues. This study points to a gap in SIP theory research, and proceeds to close the gap by demonstrating that changes in socially important attributes are reflected in measurable chronemic changes. A two-person social dilemma online game is used to demonstrate that changes in a simple chronemic variable, interpost pause, reflect differences in the players’ personality (level of extraversion), as well as differences in trust within the dyad. These findings support SIP theory by showing how online chronemics provide cues to important personal and situational information.     

Topology optimization of shell-infill structures using a distance regularized parametric level-set method

This paper presents a novel topology optimization formulation for shell-infill structures based on a distance regularized parametric level-set method (PLSM). In this method, the outer shell and the infill are represented by two distinct level sets of a single-level set function (LSF). In order to obtain a controllable and uniform shell thickness, a distance regularization (DR) term is introduced to formulate a weighted bi-objective function. The DR term is minimized along with the original objective, regularizing the parametric LSF close to a signed distance function. With the signed distance property, the area between the two-level sets can be contoured as the shell with a uniform thickness. Additionally, the presented formulation retains one important merit of the PLSM that new holes are able to nucleate during the optimization process. With respect to the material of the shell, the infill is filled with a weaker and lighter material with tunable parameters. Particularly, the infill can be pre-designed with isotropic microstructures. Three compliance minimization examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of this formulation.

     

Motion capture controls negate the violent video-game effect

Considerable research suggests that violent video game play increases players’ aggression. However, few studies have investigated this effect in the now ubiquitous context of motion-capture technology. Study 1 used a 2 × 2 design, with a violent (Soul Calibur) and non-violent (Lego Indiana Jones) game, played under analog (Playstation 3) and motion-capture (Nintendo Wii) conditions. Violent video game play led to less aggression when participants used motion-capture controls. Study 2 eliminated potential confounds by using the only game on the Wii system that can be played identically with or without motion capture (Punch-Out!!). Again, participants who used motion-capture were less aggressive. Study 3 looked for effects of cooperative vs. competitive play during 2-player motion-capture gaming (Soul Calibur, Wii). Participants using motion-capture controls in competitive and cooperative scenarios did not differ from baseline. These results run counter to standard models relating violent video game play to aggressive behavior, highlighting the difficulty in anticipating the effects of newer, more immersive technology.     

The effect of multimedia discrepancies on metacognitive judgments

This study investigated undergraduate students’ metacognitive judgments while learning about complex science topics using multimedia material (text and graph). A within-subjects design was used to examine the effect of discrepancies on study-time allocation, metacognitive judgments and inference generation. There were three types of discrepancies: none, text (between two ideas in the text) and text and graph (between the text and graph). Forty (N = 40) participants completed 12 trials where they were asked to provide six judgments: Ease of Learning judgments (EOLs), immediate and delayed Judgments of Learning (JOLs) for both text and graph and Retrospective Confidence Judgments (RCJs). Overall, participants provided significantly lower JOLs for content that contained discrepancies but RCJs remained high across conditions. Discrepancies did not influence study-time allocation, but did significantly influence inference scores. Overall, results suggest that participants’ judgments are different for different aspects of multimedia content and may be based on the text.     

A hybrid intelligent system to improve predictive accuracy for cache prefetching

Cache being the fastest medium in memory hierarchy has a vital role to play for fully exploiting available resources, concealing latencies in IO operations, languishing the impact of these latencies and hence in improving system response time. Despite plenty of efforts made, caches alone cannot comprehend larger storage requirements without prefetching. Cache prefetching is speculatively fetching data to restrain all delays. However, effective prefetching requires a strong prediction mechanism to load relevant data with higher degree of accuracy. In order to ameliorate the predictive performance of cache prefetching, we applied the hybrid of two AI approaches named case based reasoning (CBR) and artificial neural networks (ANN). CBR maintains the past experience and ANN are used in adaptation phase of CBR instead of employing static rule base. The novelty of technique in this domain is valued due to hybrid of two approaches as well as usage of suffix tree in populating the CBR’s case base. Suffix trees provide rich data patterns for populating case base and greatly enhanced the overall performance. A number of evaluations from different aspects with varying parameters are presented (along with some findings) where the efficacy of our technique is affirmed with improved predictive accuracy and reduced level of associated costs.