Coordination and Conflict: The Persistent Relevance of Networks in International Financial Regulation

This thesis presents SiGe(C)/Si(C) multi quantum well (MQW) layers individually or in combination with Si(C) Schottky diodes as material structures to detect infrared (IR) radiation. The performance of devices was investigated in terms of SiGe/Si periodicity and quality of SiGe/Si interface. The structures were grown by chemical vapour deposition using GeH4 and SiH4 sources at 650 °C and processed into pixel arrays with sizes of 25×25, 100×100 and 200×200 μm2. The device response to thermal variations was expressed by temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) and the signal-to-noise-ratio was evaluated by noise measurements. The strain relaxation in SiGe layers was investigated by implementing oxygen at the interface of SiGe/Si or during SiGe growth. A minor amount of 10 ppb oxygen at the interface can be detected by noise measurements while the material characterizations could reveal defects for significantly higher defect density. Oxygen and water contaminations should be accounted for in low temperature epitaxy (350-650 °C) of the layers. Furthermore, an empirical model was developed to describe the kinetics of the SiGe growth using Si2H6 and Ge2H6 as precursors at low temperature. The model takes into account the energy for dissociation of gas molecules, diffusion of the molecules from the gas boundaries toward the substrate and the incorporation of absorbed molecules. A good consistency was observed between the experimental and calculated data.QC 20150211</p

Multiparty Dynamics and Failure Modes for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

An important challenge for safety in machine learning and artificial intelligence systems is a~set of related failures involving specification gaming, reward hacking, fragility to distributional shifts, and Goodhart's or Campbell's law. This paper presents additional failure modes for interactions within multi-agent systems that are closely related. These multi-agent failure modes are more complex, more problematic, and less well understood than the single-agent case, and are also already occurring, largely unnoticed. After motivating the discussion with examples from poker-playing artificial intelligence (AI), the paper explains why these failure modes are in some senses unavoidable. Following this, the paper categorizes failure modes, provides definitions, and cites examples for each of the modes: accidental steering, coordination failures, adversarial misalignment, input spoofing and filtering, and goal co-option or direct hacking. The paper then discusses how extant literature on multi-agent AI fails to address these failure modes, and identifies work which may be useful for the mitigation of these failure modes.Comment: 12 Pages, This version re-submitted to Big Data and Cognitive Computing, Special Issue "Artificial Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy

Averting economic collapse and the solipsism bias

We study the behavior of experimental subjects who have to make a sequence of risky investment decisions in the presence of network externalities. Subjects follow a simple heuristic-investing after positive experiences and reducing their propensity to invest after a failure. This result contrasts with the theoretical findings of Jeitschko and Taylor [Jeitschko, T.D., Taylor, C., 2001. Local discouragement and global collapse: A theory of coordination avalanches. Amer. Econ. Rev. 91 (1), 208-224] in which even agents who have only good experiences eventually stop investing because they account for the fact that others with worse experiences will quit. This can trigger sudden economic collapse-a coordination avalanche-even in the most efficient Bayesian equilibrium. In the experiment, subjects follow their own experiences and disregard the possible bad experiences of others-thus exhibiting behavior that we term "solipsism bias." Solipsism results in sustained investment activity and thus averts complete collapse. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

The Lisbon Strategy: Which failure? Whose failure? And why? Egmont European Affairs Program Paper, March 2006

Pessimistic comments are crowding the medias about the failure of the Lisbon strategy. At the end of 2004, the latest Kok group's report has emphasized "the failure of the Lisbon strategy". There is now a debate about the remodeling or the rationalization of the strategy. Before taking decisions, it would be opportune to organize a reflection about the extent of the failure and its causes. Otherwise any reform runs the risk of being not adapted or even counterproductive. Different questions must be examined : what is the real competitiveness problem ? is there a real need of an EU initiative ? do the different characteristics of the approach chosen in 2000 make sense

Optimal Degree of Public Information Dissemination

Financial markets and macroeconomic environments are often characterized by positive externalities. In these environments, transparency may reduce expected welfare from an ex-ante point of view: public announcements serve as a focal point for higher-order beliefs and affect agents’ behaviour more than justified by their informational contents. Some scholars conclude that it might be better to reduce the precision of public signals or entirely withhold information. This paper shows that public information should always be provided with maximum precision, but under certain conditions not to all agents. Restricting the degree of publicity is a better-suited instrument for preventing the negative welfare effects of public announcements than restrictions on their precision are

What drives contract design in strategic alliances? Taking stock and how to proceed

We collect and assess prior empirical evidence on contract design in alliances that has been published since Parkhe’s (1993) seminal study on inter-firm contracts. We elaborate on the effects of transaction-related factors, experience gained from prior relationships, and deliberate learning efforts on contracts. Our paper offers three contributions. First, we systematically review the existing literature on alliance contracts and summarize our findings. Second, while prior research has traditionally focused on contractual complexity, we place the content of contracts center stage and identify three contractual functions. While existing studies on contractual functions predominantly refer to safeguarding as a response to appropriation concerns, we also consider coordination and contingency adaptability as outcomes of adaptation concerns. Third, we disentangle the differential influences of previous experiences on distinct contractual functions and show that experience gained from prior relationships has different effects on safeguarding and contingency adaptability than on coordination. Overall, we add to the systematization of the current debate on alliance contract design and trace promising avenues for future research on the impact of transaction- and experience-related factors on the complexity and content of alliance contracts

An experimental study of communication and coordination in noncooperative games

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test the usefulness of alternative solution concepts to explain players' behavior in noncooperative games with preplay communication. In the experiment subjects communicate byplain conversationprior to playing a simple game. In this setting, we find that the presumption ofindividualisticandindependentbehavior underlying the concept of Nash equilibrium is inappropriate. Instead, we observe behavior to becoordinatedandcorrelated. Statistical tests reject Nash equilibrium as an explanation of observed play. The coalition proof correlated equilibrium of the game, however, explains the data when the possibility of errors by players is introducedPublicad

Disruptions in large value payment systems: an experimental approach

This experimental study investigates the behaviour of banks in a large value payment system. More specifically,we look at 1) the reactions of banks to disruptions in the payment system, 2) the way in which the history of disruptions affects the behaviour of banks (path dependency) and 3) the effect of more concentration in the payment system (heterogeneous market versus a homogeneous market). The game used in this experiment is a stylized version of a model of Bech and Garrett (2006) in which each bank can choose between paying in the morning (efficient) or in the afternoon (inefficient). The results show that there is significant path dependency in terms of disruption history. Also the chance of disruption influences the behaviour of the participants. Once the system is moving towards the inefficient equilibrium, it does not easily move back to the efficient one. Furthermore, there is a clear leadership effect in the heterogeneous market

Payoff levels, loss avoidance, and equilibrium selection in the Stag Hunt: an experimental study

Game theorists typically assume that changing a game’s payoff levels—by adding the same constant to, or subtracting it from, all payoffs—should not affect behavior. While this invariance is an implication of the theory when payoffs mirror expected utilities, it is an empirical question when the “payoffs” are actually money amounts. In particular, if individuals treat monetary gains and losses differently, then payoff–level changes may matter when they result in positive payoffs becoming negative, or vice versa. We report the results of a human–subjects experiment designed to test for two types of loss avoidance: certain–loss avoidance (avoiding a strategy leading to a sure loss, in favor of an alternative that might lead to a gain) and possible–loss avoidance (avoiding a strategy leading to a possible loss, in favor of an alternative that leads to a sure gain). Subjects in the experiment play three versions of Stag Hunt, which are identical up to the level of payoffs, under a variety of treatments. We find differences in behavior across the three versions of Stag Hunt; these differences are hard to detect in the first round of play, but grow over time. When significant, the differences we find are in the direction predicted by certain– and possible–loss avoidance. Our results carry implications for games with multiple equilibria, and for theories that attempt to select among equilibria in such games

Conformance relations for distributed testing based on CSP

Copyright @ 2011 Springer Berlin HeidelbergCSP is a well established process algebra that provides comprehensive theoretical and practical support for refinement-based design and verification of systems. Recently, a testing theory for CSP has also been presented. In this paper, we explore the problem of testing from a CSP specification when observations are made by a set of distributed testers. We build on previous work on input-output transition systems, but the use of CSP leads to significant differences, since some of its conformance (refinement) relations consider failures as well as traces. In addition, we allow events to be observed by more than one tester. We show how the CSP notions of refinement can be adapted to distributed testing. We consider two contexts: when the testers are entirely independent and when they can cooperate. Finally, we give some preliminary results on test-case generation and the use of coordination messages. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing