Game Theoretic Modeling of Economic Systems and the European Debt Crisis

A game theoretic model of six kinds of players is analyzed, i.e. countries, central banks, banks, firms, households, and financial inter-governmental organizations. Each player has a strategy set, with strategies such as setting interest rates, lending, borrowing, producing, consuming, investing, importing, exporting, defaulting, and penalizing default. Markets for goods, debt, and capital are modeled endogenously. This conceptualization of strategic opportunities for as many as six types of players is richer than anything that has been attempted earlier. 2005–2011 empirical data for Greece is used to analyze how utility is impacted by public consumption and lump sum transfers, and negative productivity shocks, and to analyze equilibrium over several time periods with and without the possibility of default. 2007–2008 empirical data for Greece and Germany is used to determine how the two countries’ utilities depend on Greece’s public 2007 consumption, with and without negative productivity shocks. Greece’s high debt burden is shown to make default optimal when productivity shocks are large and the default penalty is small. We find that Germany has limited ability, through its available strategies, to prevent a Greek default, and may need to resort to unconventional tools such as debt forgiveness and changing the default penalty.     

Schematic change as a result of an intensive group-therapy day-treatment programs.

Treatment effects of a 12-wk day-treatment program were explored on measures of psychiatric distress (Brief Symptom Inventory) and maladaptive schemas (Schema Questionnaire Short Form; J. Young, 1990). 84 program completers (aged 22–57 yrs) showed significant pre–post change in psychiatric distress and on 3 of 15 schema: vulnerability to harm, social alienation, and defectiveness. Other schema did not change over the 12 wks. 15 waiting-list controls demonstrated no improvement in either distress level or in any of the 15 schema while waiting to be admitted to the program. Only 1 of the 15 schema, abandonment, predicted treatment outcome on changes in psychiatric distress level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A computational paradigm for space-time multiuser detection

In a general wireless system, cells are loosely defined and user signals appear at multiple antennas with various powers and delays. Despite the enormous performance benefits of system-wide maximum-likelihood multiuser detection (ML MUD), its application to such systems is hampered by the lack of a regular structure. Prior work usually dismisses the possibility on computational grounds as exponential in the total number of users, at least. This paper is the first to address efficient computation of system-wide ML MUD. We present a computational organization that achieves dramatic reduction in complexity through exploitation of the partial overlap of user sets at different antennas. This algorithm, which applies to code-division multiple access or narrowband systems, can be viewed as a spatio-temporal extension of the well-known Viterbi algorithm (VA), and, like the VA, it is derived from dynamic programming principles.     

Multiuser macrodiversity detection in asynchronous DS-CDMA systems

The authors present a performance analysis for the reverse link of a wireless DS-code division multiple access (CDMA) system that exploits macrodiversity reception while adopting the maximum likelihood (ML) multiuser detector for the basic detection. This appears to be the first analytical treatment of the ML multiuser macrodiversity detector in asynchronous DS-CDMA systems. They also include the effects of frequency selective fading, imperfect synchronization, and imperfect channel state information. Power control and connection control companion algorithms are presented to assess the value of this detector in a system context. The authors have shown that the ML multiuser-macrodiversity detector is capable of reducing the bit-error rate for many users by several orders of magnitude compared with multiuser detectors that operate on each antenna separately.     

Impact of distracted driving on safety and traffic flow

Studies have documented a link between distracted driving and diminished safety; however, an association between distracted driving and traffic congestion has not been investigated in depth. The present study examined the behavior of teens and young adults operating a driving simulator while engaged in various distractions (i.e., cell phone, texting, and undistracted) and driving conditions (i.e., free flow, stable flow, and oversaturation). Seventy five participants 16–25 years of age (split into 2 groups: novice drivers and young adults) drove a STISIM simulator three times, each time with one of three randomly presented distractions. Each drive was designed to represent daytime scenery on a 4 lane divided roadway and included three equal roadway portions representing Levels of Service (LOS) A, C, and E as defined in the 2000 Highway Capacity Manual. Participants also completed questionnaires documenting demographics and driving history. Both safety and traffic flow related driving outcomes were considered. A Repeated Measures Multivariate Analysis of Variance was employed to analyze continuous outcome variables and a Generalized Estimate Equation (GEE) Poisson model was used to analyze count variables. Results revealed that, in general more lane deviations and crashes occurred during texting. Distraction (in most cases, text messaging) had a significantly negative impact on traffic flow, such that participants exhibited greater fluctuation in speed, changed lanes significantly fewer times, and took longer to complete the scenario. In turn, more simulated vehicles passed the participant drivers while they were texting or talking on a cell phone than while undistracted. The results indicate that distracted driving, particularly texting, may lead to reduced safety and traffic flow, thus having a negative impact on traffic operations. No significant differences were detected between age groups, suggesting that all drivers, regardless of age, may drive in a manner that impacts safety and traffic flow negatively when distracted.     

Accurate error-rate calculations through the inversion of mixed characteristic functions

This article presents a new computational tool for use in general fading channel analysis when the detection scheme can be expressed as a quadratic form in zero-mean complex Gaussian random variables. We develop a simple numerical algorithm which is capable of inverting a characteristic function consisting of both simple and multiple poles. The approach benefits from the inherent symmetry in the residue calculations and uses the well-known Vandermonde matrix in order to take advantage of this symmetry. It is numerically stable, eliminates singularities, and circumvents the need for differentiation.     

Posttranslational Modifications of GLUT4 Affect Its Subcellular Localization and Translocation

The facilitative glucose transporter type 4 (GLUT4) is expressed in adipose and muscle and plays a vital role in whole body glucose homeostasis. In the absence of insulin, only ~1% of cellular GLUT4 is present at the plasma membrane, with the vast majority localizing to intracellular organelles. GLUT4 is retained intracellularly by continuous trafficking through two inter-related cycles. GLUT4 passes through recycling endosomes, the trans Golgi network and an insulin-sensitive intracellular compartment, termed GLUT4-storage vesicles or GSVs. It is from GSVs that GLUT4 is mobilized to the cell surface in response to insulin, where it increases the rate of glucose uptake into the cell. As with many physiological responses to external stimuli, this regulated trafficking event involves multiple posttranslational modifications. This review outlines the roles of posttranslational modifications of GLUT4 on its function and insulin-regulated trafficking.     

Pilot signals improve the performance of a Reed-Solomon errors anderasures decoder in Rayleigh fading channels

Errors and erasures decoding has the capability to improve the performance of a Reed-Solomon decoder if each error location is correctly identified, or “flagged”, and is considered as an erasure. However, the erasure flagging must be extremely reliable. In this paper, we present a new way to flag erasures, based on the side information provided by pilot signals. We derive a Bayesian method for optimum character erasure flagging, using both the received data signals and the channel estimates provided by pilot signals, and we present a simpler method which flags erasures on a modulation symbol basis. The simulation results demonstrate that the method results in significant transmit power savings compared to errors-only decoding