Open Market operations: beyond the New Consensus

This paper examines the changing role of central bank open market operations within the new operating framework for monetary polic

Towards a New Democracy: Consensus Through Quantum Parliament

We compare different actual forms of democracy and analyse in which way they are variations of a 'natural consensus decision process'. We analyse how 'consensus decision followed by majority voting' is open to 'false play' by the majority, and investigate how other types of false play appear in alternative types of democratic decision procedures. We introduce the combined notion of 'quantum parliament' and 'quantum decision procedure', and prove it to be the only one, when applied after consensus decision, that is immune to false play.Comment: 12 page

Variance Analysis of Randomized Consensus in Switching Directed Networks

In this paper, we study the asymptotic properties of distributed consensus algorithms over switching directed random networks. More specifically, we focus on consensus algorithms over independent and identically distributed, directed Erdos-Renyi random graphs, where each agent can communicate with any other agent with some exogenously specified probability $p$. While it is well-known that consensus algorithms over Erdos-Renyi random networks result in an asymptotic agreement over the network, an analytical characterization of the distribution of the asymptotic consensus value is still an open question. In this paper, we provide closed-form expressions for the mean and variance of the asymptotic random consensus value, in terms of the size of the network and the probability of communication $p$. We also provide numerical simulations that illustrate our results.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to American Control Conference 201

MAX-consensus in open multi-agent systems with gossip interactions

We study the problem of distributed maximum computation in an open multi-agent system, where agents can leave and arrive during the execution of the algorithm. The main challenge comes from the possibility that the agent holding the largest value leaves the system, which changes the value to be computed. The algorithms must as a result be endowed with mechanisms allowing to forget outdated information. The focus is on systems in which interactions are pairwise gossips between randomly selected agents. We consider situations where leaving agents can send a last message, and situations where they cannot. For both cases, we provide algorithms able to eventually compute the maximum of the values held by agents.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 56th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 17). 8 pages, 3 figure

Cause of Chirality Consensus

Biological macromolecules, proteins and nucleic acids are composed exclusively of chirally pure monomers. The chirality consensus appears vital for life and it has even been considered as a prerequisite of life. However the primary cause for the ubiquitous handedness has remained obscure. We propose that the chirality consensus is a kinetic consequence that follows from the principle of increasing entropy, i.e. the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Entropy increases when an open system evolves by decreasing gradients in free energy with more and more efficient mechanisms of energy transduction. The rate of entropy increase is the universal fitness criterion of natural selection that favors diverse functional molecules and drives the system to the chirality consensus to attain and maintain high-entropy non-equilibrium states.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure