Finite-time influence systems and the Wisdom of Crowd effect

Recent contributions have studied how an influence system may affect the wisdom of crowd phenomenon. In the so-called naive learning setting, a crowd of individuals holds opinions that are statistically independent estimates of an unknown parameter; the crowd is wise when the average opinion converges to the true parameter in the limit of infinitely many individuals. Unfortunately, even starting from wise initial opinions, a crowd subject to certain influence systems may lose its wisdom. It is of great interest to characterize when an influence system preserves the crowd wisdom effect. In this paper we introduce and characterize numerous wisdom preservation properties of the basic French-DeGroot influence system model. Instead of requiring complete convergence to consensus as in the previous naive learning model by Golub and Jackson, we study finite-time executions of the French-DeGroot influence process and establish in this novel context the notion of prominent families (as a group of individuals with outsize influence). Surprisingly, finite-time wisdom preservation of the influence system is strictly distinct from its infinite-time version. We provide a comprehensive treatment of various finite-time wisdom preservation notions, counterexamples to meaningful conjectures, and a complete characterization of equal-neighbor influence systems

Facilitating leadership decisions

This chapter illustrates that in order to reach a decision a leader must decide which persons should be involved in the process and when. A relatively common method of involving others is delegating the decision to a group. A main objective of this is often to generate as many innovative ideas as possible, and different techniques can be employed for this, including brainstorming. The proposal generated must then be validated by the group using different criteria on the basis of which it is then relatively easy to filter out proposals that do not reach the goals that have been set. However, a leader needs to collect additional information in order to reach a decision. By the use of information technology vast amounts of information may be accumulated. Thus, different kinds of filtering or weeding methods must be used in order to quickly obtain relevant information. This information can help leaders create forecasts and minimize risks. They must also be able to present their ideas in the most attractive way possible in order to be heard and arrive at decisions. The design of the presentation is therefore critical. Sometimes it is not enough for leaders just to present an idea, they are then obliged to negotiate in order to reach a decision

Incorporating Local Wisdom Into Creative Writing: Exploring the Students Perception Towards the Significance of Cultural Identity

Telah banyak penelitian yang menunjukkan bahwa nilai-nilai kearifan lokal, secara umum, telah banyak bergeser dan bahkan cenderung tergerus. Dalam banyak hal, globalisasi menggeser persepsi para agen budaya masa kini atas pentingnya warisan nilai-nilai budaya yang luhur. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dan memetakan posisi kearifan lokal dalam persepsi mahasiswa Program Studi S1 Sastra Inggris Universitas Brawijaya Malang. Hal ini dimaksudkan untuk melacak bagaimana mahasiswa mempersepsi pentingnya nilai-nilai kearifan lokal dan sejauh mana mereka meresapi nilai-nilai tersebut sebagai bagian dari konsepsi diri mereka, khususnya dalam konteks menulis kreatif. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode campuran (mixed method), yaitu gabungan antara metode kuantitatif dan kualitatif. Pengambilan data kuantitatif dilakukan dengan cara menyebarkan kuesioner kepada 88 mahasiswa semester 5. Sedangkan data kualitatif diperoleh dengan cara observasi kelas dan mencermati materi ajar dalam kelas creative writing. Meskipun sebagian besar mahasiswa sadar akan pentingnya nilai- nilai kearifan lokal, hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ada jarak (gap) antara kesadaran mahasiswa akan pentingnya pengetahuan kearifan lokal dalam menulis, dan akses mereka terhadap kearifan lokal itu sendiri. Bagi mereka, nilai-nilai kearifan lokal kurang cukup terjangkau (inaccessible). Oleh karena itu, mereka menganggap bahwa penting kiranya untuk memasukkan materi tentang kearifan lokal ke dalam mata kuliah creative writing

TTVFast: An efficient and accurate code for transit timing inversion problems

Transit timing variations (TTVs) have proven to be a powerful technique for confirming Kepler planet candidates, for detecting non-transiting planets, and for constraining the masses and orbital elements of multi-planet systems. These TTV applications often require the numerical integration of orbits for computation of transit times (as well as impact parameters and durations); frequently tens of millions to billions of simulations are required when running statistical analyses of the planetary system properties. We have created a fast code for transit timing computation, TTVFast, which uses a symplectic integrator with a Keplerian interpolator for the calculation of transit times (Nesvorny et al. 2013). The speed comes at the expense of accuracy in the calculated times, but the accuracy lost is largely unnecessary, as transit times do not need to be calculated to accuracies significantly smaller than the measurement uncertainties on the times. The time step can be tuned to give sufficient precision for any particular system. We find a speed-up of at least an order of magnitude relative to dynamical integrations with high precision using a Bulirsch-Stoer integrator.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. Our code is available in both C and Fortran at: http://github.com/kdeck/TTVFast . If you download this version, please check back after the referee process for a possibly updated versio

Buddhist Hymnal

Prayer to the Perfection of Wisdo