Modelling collective decision making in groups and crowds: Integrating social contagion and interacting emotions, beliefs and intentions

Collective decision making involves on the one hand individual mental states such as beliefs, emotions and intentions, and on the other hand interaction with others with possibly different mental states. Achieving a satisfactory common group decision on which all agree requires that such mental states are adapted to each other by social interaction. Recent developments in social neuroscience have revealed neural mechanisms by which such mutual adaptation can be realised. These mechanisms not only enable intentions to converge to an emerging common decision, but at the same time enable to achieve shared underlying individual beliefs and emotions. This paper presents a computational model for such processes. As an application of the model, an agent-based analysis was made of patterns in crowd behaviour, in particular to simulate a real-life incident that took place on May 4, 2010 in Amsterdam. From available video material and witness reports, useful empirical data were extracted. Similar patterns were achieved in simulations, whereby some of the parameters of the model were tuned to the case addressed, and most parameters were assigned default values. The results show the inclusion of contagion of belief, emotion, and intention states of agents results in better reproduction of the incident than non-inclusion.     

Special issue on International Conference on Computing,Communication and Sensor Networks (CCSN 2015) held in,Kolkata, India,Dec 24–25, 2015

Microsystem Technologies -     

Elastic properties of metastable Mo1 − xSix alloy thin films: A Brillouin light scattering study

Elastic properties of Mo_1 ? xSi_x alloy films with 0 ≤ x ≤ 1 have been investigated by the Brillouin light scattering technique thanks to the analysis of the surface acoustic waves in the film on substrate: the so-called Rayleigh surface wave and the Sezawa waves. A transition from crystalline to amorphous state is observed for a Si content, x = 0.19. This transition is accompanied by different modifications of the elastic constants, namely, C₁₁, C₃₃, C₁₃ and C₄₄ that are necessary with C₁₂ to define the effective hexagonal symmetry for the textured <110> polycrystalline alloys. A pronounced softening of the shear elastic C₄₄ constant is observed, from 110 to 60 GPa when x varies from 0 to the critical threshold composition x = 0.19. The longitudinal C₃₃ constant estimated in this work from the BLS measurements shows also a softening from 425 to 315 GPa. An intrinsic consequence of the high supersaturation of MoSi alloys is the development of an important lattice instability. In the amorphous state, the evolution of the elastic properties, that can be defined by the two independent constants C₁₁ and C₄₄ = (C₁₁ ? C₁₂)/2, exhibits two distinct behaviors depending on the electronic properties and the interatomic bonding of the amorphous alloys.     

Surfactant‐Free Sub‐2 nm Ultrathin Triangular Gold Nanoframes

Ultrathin triangular gold nanoframes are synthesized in high yield through selective gold deposition on the edges of triangular silver nanoprisms and subsequent silver etching with mild wet etchants. These ultrathin gold nanoframes are surfactant‐free with tailorable ridge thickness from 1.8 to 6 nm and exhibit adjustable and distinct surface plasmon resonance bands in the visible and near‐IR region. In comparison, etching of the nanoprism template by galvanic replacement can only create frame structures with much thicker ridges, which have much lower catalytic activity for 4‐nitrophenol reduction than the ultrathin gold nanoframes.     

Sensitivity and devaney’s chaos in uniform spaces

We give sufficient conditions for sensitivity of continuous group actions on uniform spaces.     

MINIATURE PULSE TUBE FOR THE COOLING OF ELECTRONIC DEVICES: FUNCTIONING PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICAL MODELING

The miniaturization of refrigerating systems represents a very current scientific and technical challenge to improve the performances of numerous electronic components. This work presents a global approach to the problem and suggests studying the cooling by means of small channels filled with an oscillating gas: the double inlet pulse tube refrigerator (DIPTR). A great level of miniaturization based on the technology of carving silicon is exposed. This study proposes to apply an electric analogy for modeling both hydrodynamic and thermal phenomena. Considering the complexity of the theoretical problem including mechanical, thermal, thermodynamical, and acoustic considerations, the authors take care to summarize the main governing equations in a particular form so any scientific engineer could understand the DIPTR principle.     

Mechanochemical solid-phase reaction between polyvinylidene fluoride and sodium hydroxide

Grinding a mixture of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and NaOH was conducted by a planetary ball mill at atmospheric condition to investigate mechanochemical reaction between the two substances. The grinding stimulates the reaction to form NaF and organic composites. Yield of fluorine converted from PVDF to NaF increases with an increase in grinding time and reaches 90% at 60 min or more. As for the organic phase, oxygen-bearing compounds are formed due to substitution of fluorine by OH base. The organic compounds are classified into water-soluble and insoluble ones, depending on their structures. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 81: 2249–2252, 2001