Social Software, Groups, and Governance

Formal groups play an important role in the law. Informal groups largely lie outside it. Should the law be more attentive to informal groups? The paper argues that this and related questions are appearing more frequently as a number of computer technologies, which I collect under the heading social software, increase the salience of groups. In turn, that salience raises important questions about both the significance and the benefits of informal groups. The paper suggests that there may be important social benefits associated with informal groups, and that the law should move towards a framework for encouraging and recognizing them. Such a framework may be organized along three dimensions by which groups arise and sustain themselves: regulating places, things, and stories

Multi-Agent Systems

This Special Issue ""Multi-Agent Systems"" gathers original research articles reporting results on the steadily growing area of agent-oriented computing and multi-agent systems technologies. After more than 20 years of academic research on multi-agent systems (MASs), in fact, agent-oriented models and technologies have been promoted as the most suitable candidates for the design and development of distributed and intelligent applications in complex and dynamic environments. With respect to both their quality and range, the papers in this Special Issue already represent a meaningful sample of the most recent advancements in the field of agent-oriented models and technologies. In particular, the 17 contributions cover agent-based modeling and simulation, situated multi-agent systems, socio-technical multi-agent systems, and semantic technologies applied to multi-agent systems. In fact, it is surprising to witness how such a limited portion of MAS research already highlights the most relevant usage of agent-based models and technologies, as well as their most appreciated characteristics. We are thus confident that the readers of Applied Sciences will be able to appreciate the growing role that MASs will play in the design and development of the next generation of complex intelligent systems. This Special Issue has been converted into a yearly series, for which a new call for papers is already available at the Applied Sciences journal’s website: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Multi-Agent_Systems_2019

Save the Children: Black Liberation in the Age of the Modern Oligarchy

Two principles that are fundamental to the West is self-determination and democracy. Self-determination meaning one\u27s control over the path of their destiny and democracy being, the enforcement of egalitarian ideals. The two would seem to guarantee the livelihood of all their citizens to sustain their well-being beyond the means of having just enough to survive. The recent deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Sandra Bland question the legitimacy of these principles because of the apparent lack of regard for their Black bodies. These injustices have spurred serious debates in the public sphere, but reverberate so loudly because this represents the exclusion Black lives have faced for centuries domestically and internationally. The goal of my paper is to examine the Black Freedom Struggle as a whole, to show why Black Lives Matter as a social movement is needed after the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party, and how likely it is to succeed

Optimizing Transportation Systems with Information Provision, Personalized Incentives and Driver Cooperation

Poor performance of the transportation systems has many detrimental effects such as higher travel times, increased travel costs, higher energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions, etc. This thesis optimizes the transportation systems by addressing the traffic congestion problem and climate change impact resulting from the inefficient operation of these systems. I first focus on the key player of the transportation systems e.g., human being/traveler, and model travelers\u27 route choice behavior with real-time information. In this study, I define looking-ahead behavior in route choice as a traveler\u27s taking into account future diversion possibilities enabled by real-time information in a network with random travel times. Subjects participated in route-choice experiments in a driving simulator as well a PC-based environment. Three types of maps in increasing levels of complexity and information availability are used. Aggregate data analysis shows that network complexity negatively affects subjects\u27 ratio of choosing the risky route given an experiment environment. Higher cognitive load in the driving simulator results in a higher level of risk aversion than in the PC-based environment for the simplest map. I specify and estimate a mixed logit model with two latent classes, looking-ahead and myopic, taking into account the panel effect. The estimated latent class membership function suggests that some subjects can look ahead while others are myopic in making their route choices, and drivers learn to look ahead over time. The experiment environment plays a role in the risk attitude of myopic subjects. A bias against information is found for subjects who look ahead, however, is not significant among myopic subjects. I then shift my focus to influencing the travel patterns of individual travelers to reduce the energy and environmental impacts of the transportation sector. I present the system optimization (SO) framework of Tripod, an integrated bi-level transportation management system aimed at maximizing energy savings of the multi-modal transportation systems. From the user\u27s perspective, Tripod is a smartphone app, accessed before performing trips. The app proposes a series of alternatives each with an amount of tokens which the user can later redeem for goods or services. The role of SO is to compute the optimized set of tokens associated to the available alternatives, in order to minimize the system-wide energy consumption, under a limited token budget. I present a method to solve this complex optimization problem and describe the system architecture, the multimodal simulation-based optimization model and the heuristic method for the on-line computation of the optimized token allocation. I then present the framework with the simulation results. Finally, I optimize the systems travel time by addressing the equity issue of congestion pricing. I propose an alternative approach to an equitable and Pareto-improving transportation systems based on cooperation among travelers assisted by defector penalty. Theoretical analysis shows the existence condition of the cooperative scheme for heterogeneous value of time (VOT) of travelers. I formulate a mathematical programming problem for the optimal cooperative scheme problem in a general network with Pareto-improving constraints and practical considerations on the length the cooperation cycle. I then conduct computational tests on a simple network and evaluate the solutions in terms of efficiency improvement (total system travel time) and equitability (Gini index)

Learn from Uber: a study of dynamic capability in Chinese online pharmacy industry

The rapid development of e-commerce in China has resulted in strong competition in medical e-commerce industry, which has made online pharmacies struggling to maintain their competitive advantage. Dynamic capability is the change-oriented capability that can help online pharmacies keep pace with market development, technology development, and consumer demand changes to obtain sustainable competitive advantages thus to survive in the dynamic environment and access to market share. This dissertation focused on the dynamic capability of Chinese online pharmacy industry. Firstly, we did the literature review of strategy schools and dynamic capability theory, analyzed and summarized the measurements of dynamic capability; secondly, we studied about Uber’s dynamic capabilities; then, as for the field study, we adopted the quantitative method: we distributed questionnaires to investigate the dynamic capability application and importance in Chinese online pharmacy industry; finally, this dissertation drew the conclusion through comparison. From the study we concluded that: dynamic capability is composed by adaptive capability, absorptive capability, and innovative capability; through data analysis we found that there were distance between current application and corresponding importance of dynamic capabilities in Chinese online pharmacies especially in sensitive observing the environment, accessible knowledge management database and knowledge sharing system, and applying new knowledge into innovation.O rápido desenvolvimento do comércio eletrónico na China provocou uma forte concorrência no comércio eletrónico da indústria médica, o que fez com que as farmácias on line tivessem dificuldade em manter as suas vantagens competitivas. A construção de capacidades dinâmicas, as capacidades que permitem reorganizar os recursos para fazer face às mudanças da envolvente, pode ajudar as farmácias a acompanhar as mudanças do mercado e da tecnologia. Esta dissertação analisou as capacidades dinâmicas da indústria farmacêutica on-line Chinesa. Primeiramente, fizemos a revisão de literatura das escolas de pensamento estratégico e das capacidades dinâmicas; depois estudamos as capacidades dinâmicas da empresa Uber e finalmente realizamos um estudo empírico. No estudo empírico adotamos o método quantitativo. Com base na revisão de literatura referente às capacidades dinâmicas, construímos um questionário que foi enviado a pessoas que trabalham nas farmácias. Do estudo concluímos que as farmácias on line necessitam de melhorar asa suas capacidades dinâmicas especialmente na observação da envolvente

The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet

This is the complete text of Daniel J. Solove\u27s book, THE FUTURE OF REPUTATION: GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET (Full Text) (Yale University Press, October 2007).Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there\u27s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives - often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false - will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with stories of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.Solove explores how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cyber mobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Longstanding notions of privacy need review: unless we establish a balance among privacy, free speech, and anonymity, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free

Can Upward Brand Extensions be an Opportunity for Marketing Managers During the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond?

Early COVID-19 research has guided current managerial practice by introducing more products across different product categories as consumers tried to avoid perceived health risks from food shortages, i.e. horizontal brand extensions. For example, Leon, a fast-food restaurant in the UK, introduced a new range of ready meal products. However, when the food supply stabilised, availability may no longer be a concern for consumers. Instead, job losses could be a driver of higher perceived financial risks. Meanwhile, it remains unknown whether the perceived health or financial risks play a more significant role on consumers’ consumptions. Our preliminary survey shows perceived health risks outperform perceived financial risks to positively influence purchase intention during COVID-19. We suggest such a result indicates an opportunity for marketers to consider introducing premium priced products, i.e. upward brand extensions. The risk-as�feelings and signalling theories were used to explain consumer choice under risk may adopt affective heuristic processing, using minimal cognitive efforts to evaluate products. Based on this, consumers are likely to be affected by the salient high-quality and reliable product cue of upward extension signalled by its premium price level, which may attract consumers to purchase when they have high perceived health risks associated with COVID-19. Addressing this, a series of experimental studies confirm that upward brand extensions (versus normal new product introductions) can positively moderate the positive effect between perceived health risks associated with COVID-19 and purchase intention. Such an effect can be mediated by affective heuristic information processing. The results contribute to emergent COVID-19 literature and managerial practice during the pandemic but could also inform post-pandemic thinking around vertical brand extensions

Prospectus, December 8, 2010

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The information structure of complex sentences: an empirical investigation into at-issueness

This PhD project investigates the sentence-structural and information-structural features of complex sentences. Specifically, this thesis investigates the influence of sentence- structural features (clause type and clause position) on at-issue status, to then probe the effects of these sentence-structural features as well as information-structural features (new/givenness of information) on the processing of complex sentences. At-issueness refers to the status of a clause within a sentence. Does its content express the main point of a sentence (at-issue content), or a point that is more peripheral (not- at-issue content)? A clause’s at-issue status is relevant for interlocutors’ understanding of how to build up a representation of unfolding discourse, what emphasis and attention to place on the content of a clause, and how to make predictions about what content will be picked up going forward in subsequent sentences. There are three main theories of at-issueness. These theories agree that matrix clauses can always achieve at-issue status and that temporal adverbial clauses (TACs) are not-at-issue. However, they make contrasting predictions about the at-issue status of Appositive Relative Clauses (ARCs). Q(uestion under discussion)-at-issueness, considers content at-issue if it can felicitously answer the question under discussion. Under this view, at-issue status is an immutable property of clauses resulting from their type, and ARC content can never achieve at-issue status. P(roposal)-at-issueness considers content at-issue if it proposes an update to the common ground and C(oherence)-at-issueness considers content at-issue if subsequent discourse can coherently connect to it. Both P- and C-at-issueness theories predict ARCs to have at-issue potential in sentence-final position. Under both of these views, at-issue status is a variable property that is influenced by clause type but also clause position. This thesis is an empirical investigation into C-at-issueness divided into two main parts. The first part (Chapter 2) investigates the C-at-issue status of clauses in sentences with an ARC and sentences with a TAC [experiments 1–6]. The second part (Chapter 3) investigates effects of C-at-issue status and other information-structural and sentence-structural features on sentence processing [Experiment 7]. Chapter 2 of this thesis investigates the C-at-issue status of TACs, ARCs and the matrix clauses that subordinate these. Sentences that consist of multiple clauses are generally expected to contain one (matrix) clause that carries the main point of the utterance, the at-issue content, and other (subordinate) clauses whose content is more peripheral and therefore not-at-issue. Under C-at-issueness, ARCs are expected to achieve at-issue status in sentence-final position, but TACs are not. The C-at-issue content then in such sentences is expected to be more likely to connect to subsequent discourse than content that is not C-at-issue. In this chapter, the results of the first six self-paced reading experiments are reported in which reading times when an ambiguous pronoun It is disambiguated to a referent in a subordinate clause or a matrix clause in varying positions were measured. We find that not only ARCs, but also TACs can be C-at-issue in sentence-final position, and even more so than the matrix clause that precedes them, suggesting clause position is the most important factor in determining C-at-issue status. In sentence-early position, however, we do observe differences between matrix clauses and TACs/ARCs: only matrix clauses in this position are C-at-issue, suggesting that clause type does play a role in sentence-early position. This study highlights the im- portance of distinguishing between different theories of at-issueness, but it also observes an interdependence between the three theories: ARCs and TACs might never achieve Q-at-issue status, but when they are C-at-issue and/or P-at-issue, they can contain the question under discussion for content which subsequently is Q-at-issue. As such, research carried out within any of the three theories could benefit from complementary inclusion of one (or both) of the other theories. In Chapter 3 of this thesis, the processing of complex sentences with an ARC is inves- tigated [experiment 7]. If the ARC in these sentences is in early position, it does not compete for C-at-issue status with the matrix clause: only the matrix clause is expected to be C-at-issue. Consequently, only the matrix clause needs to be held in memory to make a potential connection to subsequent discourse. When the ARC is in sentence-final position, however, this ARC competes with the matrix clause preceding it for C-at-issue status. As such, both clauses need to be held in memory to create a potential discourse connection, which would lead to processing difficulty compared to the other situation in which only one clause is likely to carry the at-issue content. We refer to this as the at-issueness principle. This principle, in addition to three other ordering principles – the given-new principle (given before new information ordering facilitates processing), the clause structure principle (matrix clause before subordinate clause ordering facilitates processing) and the clause-type mapping of information principle (given information in subordinate clause and new information in matrix clause facilitates processing) – are investigated in this chapter. While these three ordering principles are well-established, it is not clear if they apply to sentences with an ARC. ARCs stand out among sub- ordinate clauses for their matrix clause-like characteristics from both a syntactic and an information-structural perspective. While we find no evidence for the at-issueness principle, we replicate previous studies in finding evidence for predictions made by the given-new principle and the clause structure principle in sentences containing an ARC. In addition we find indirect evidence for the special status of ARCs through the observed behaviour of matrix clauses in sentence-early position: These seem to have a ground- ing function here: the matrix clause provides the context which is necessary to support understanding of the ARC. This grounding function is something which has previously been attributed to subordinate clauses. This project sheds more light on the C-at-issue status of clauses in sentences with a TAC and in sentences with an ARC through a series of self-paced reading experiments. Results suggests that C-at-issue status is more flexible than has previously been found, and is distinct from both Q- and P-at-issue status. However, it also observes an in- terdependence between the three theories, suggesting that they should be investigated in a complementary fashion. While the study in Chapter 3 does not reveal C-at-issue potential to affect the processing of sentences with an ARC, it highlights the relevance of established ordering principles. When the at-issueness principle was investigated in tandem with these, effects of C-at-issue status might have been obscured through greater effects of clause order and information order. This leaves open questions about how and if at-issue status can be observed through the processing of at-issue content, and by extension, if a relation between at-issue status and processing time can even be assumed