Brain interaction during cooperation: Evaluating local properties of multiple-brain network

Subjects’ interaction is the core of most human activities. This is the reason why a lack of coordination is often the cause of missing goals, more than individual failure. While there are different subjective and objective measures to assess the level of mental effort required by subjects while facing a situation that is getting harder, that is, mental workload, to define an objective measure based on how and if team members are interacting is not so straightforward. In this study, behavioral, subjective and synchronized electroencephalographic data were collected from couples involved in a cooperative task to describe the relationship between task difficulty and team coordination, in the sense of interaction aimed at cooperatively performing the assignment. Multiple-brain connectivity analysis provided information about the whole interacting system. The results showed that averaged local properties of a brain network were affected by task difficulty. In particular, strength changed significantly with task difficulty and clustering coefficients strongly correlated with the workload itself. In particular, a higher workload corresponded to lower clustering values over the central and parietal brain areas. Such results has been interpreted as less efficient organization of the network when the subjects’ activities, due to high workload tendencies, were less coordinated

Adaptive use of task assignment models in team-based mobile business processes

Most mobile business processes are executed under uncertain and dynamic working environments. This makes the traditional centralized approach for the management of mobile tasks inappropriate to respond to the changes in working environment quickly as collecting the changing information from geographically distributed workforces in real time is expensive if not impossible. This raises the need of a distributed approach in the management of mobile tasks. This paper proposes a distributed architecture for team-based coordination support for mobile task management. In this architecture, tasks are managed via peer-to-peer style coordination between team members who have better understanding on the changing working environment than a centralised system. The novelty of the design of the architecture is explained by applying it to a real business process in the UK

DIPL 1001 Games of International Relations

In this concentrated module, you will 1. become aware of concepts from game theory and 2. learn how to apply them to historical and current events in international relations, including international conflicts and international negotiations 3. gain knowledge of this complex topic in a way that is enjoyable, retainable and useful for your further study at the Whitehead School. Class discussion will be emphasized, as well as historical knowledge and analytical thinking. A significant, but short writing assignment will be used to assess your learning. There will be a series of critical readings, but no single textbook. The level of the reading is advanced, but you are expected to \u27stretch\u27 in order to grasp what is being discussed, and in-class discussions will be used to clarify and apply these concepts. Failures to do the readings, tum in assignments on time or to properly cite sources (plagiarism) are grounds for a grade of F, and possible expulsion from the Whitehead School

When a precedent of donation favors defection in the Prisoner's dilemma

In this paper we examine the question of wether a collective activity can influence cooperation in a subsequent repeated one shot prisoner's dilemma (PD) game. We conduct two series of experiments. The first consists of control experiments in which 30 periods of a PD game are played, with a random re-matching of the pairs in every period. In a second series of experiments, subjects first play a donation game and then the PD game. In the donation game they collectively discuss the amount of a donation to a given charity, before putting the question to an individual and anonymous vote. Cooperation levels in the PD games preceded by the donation game are signficantly lower than those observed in the control experiment.DONATION;COOPERATION;DEFECTION;REPEATED ONE SHOT PRISONER'S DILEMMA;EXPERIMENT

Bid-ask spreads in multiple dealer settings: Some experimental evidence

We report the results of an experiment designed to investigate the behavior of quoted spreads in multiple-dealer markets. We manipulate verbal communication (not allowed and allowed) and order preferencing (not allowed, allowed, and allowed with order-flow payment) between eighteen sessions. Without preferencing, spreads are wider when communication is allowed. With preferencing (and no order-flow payments), individuals do not have incentives to narrow the spread and a wide spread may be maintained without a collusive agreement. However, spreads narrow somewhat when individuals are given the opportunity to compete using alternatives to price (that is, payment for order flow).Financial markets

Parents and Teens Training Together: A Powerful Force for Risk-Prevention

This poster session will focus on research demonstrating how a program combining parent education and teen life skills training can make a significant difference in preparing middle school teens to face the challenges of drugs, sexuality, and violence they will likely encounter as they continue to mature

Flexible Task coordination for mobile workforce

With the advancement of networking and mobile devices, more and more mobile business processes are automated and supported using the technologies. Mobile businesses processes are naturally exposed to uncertainty and dynamic changes that require distributed coordination. In large business organizations, the complexity of the processes also makes central control difficult due to the large number of variables to consider and mobile workers involved. To this end, this paper presents a flexible coordination mechanism for mobile workforce where multiple task assignment models are used together to adapt to dynamic changes and achieve efficiency. The overall system is flexible in that the assignment models are easily added because they are constructed as components, and the switch between assignment models are easy using manual or automated transition between the models. An example application of the model is presented using a real telecommunication organization in Europe where field workers install and repair telecommunication networks for customers