Time Pressure and the Development of Integrative Agreements in Bilateral Negotiations

A laboratory experiment examined the effects of time pressure on the process and outcome of integrative bargaining. Time pressure was operationalized in terms of the amount of time available to negotiate. As hypothesized, high time pressure produced nonagreements and poor negotiation outcomes only when negotiators adopted an individualistic orientation; when negotiators adopted a cooperative orientation, they achieved high outcomes regardless of time pressure. In combination with an individualistic orientation, time pressure produced greater competitiveness, firm negotiator aspirations, and reduced information exchange. In combination with a cooperative orientation, time pressure produced greater cooperativeness and lower negotiator aspirations. The main findings were seen as consistent with Pruitt’s strategic-choice model of negotiation

Ballistic aggregation: a solvable model of irreversible many particles dynamics

The adhesive dynamics of a one-dimensional aggregating gas of point particles is rigorously described. The infinite hierarchy of kinetic equations for the distributions of clusters of nearest neighbours is shown to be equivalent to a system of two coupled equations for a large class of initial conditions. The solution to these nonlinear equations is found by a direct construction of the relevant probability distributions in the limit of a continuous initial mass distribution. We show that those limiting distributions are identical to those of the statistics of shocks in the Burgers turbulence. The analysis relies on a mapping on a Brownian motion problem with parabolic constraints.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures include

Individual Differences in Need for Cognition and Decision-Making Competence among Leaders

When making decisions, people sometimes deviate from normative standards. While such deviations may appear to be alarmingly common, examining individual differences may reveal a more nuanced picture. Specifically, the personality factor of need for cognition (i.e., the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities; Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) may moderate decision makers’ susceptibility to bias, as could personality factors associated with being a leader. As part of a large-scale assessment of high-level leaders, participants completed a battery of decision-making competence and personality scales. Leaders who scored higher on need for cognition performed better on two of four components of a decision-making competence measure: framing and honoring sunk costs. In addition, the leader sample performed better than published controls. Thus, both individual differences in need for cognition and leadership experience moderate susceptibility to decision biases. Implications for broader theories of individual differences and bias are discussed

The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings

Examines lifetime earnings by educational attainment, occupation, age, gender, and race/ethnicity; variations in earnings at the same degree level by occupation and in the same occupation by degree level; and top-earning occupations by degree level

A Cross-Over in the Enstrophy Decay in Two-Dimensional Turbulence in a Finite Box

The numerical simulation of two-dimensional decaying turbulence in a large but finite box presented in this paper uncovered two physically different regimes of enstrophy decay. During the initial stage, the enstrophy, generated by a random Gaussian initial condition, decays as t^{-gamma} with gamma approximately 0.7-0.8. After that, the flow undergoes a transition to a gas or fluid composed of distinct vortices. Simultaneously, the magnitude of the decay exponent crosses over to gamma approximately 0.4. An exact relation for the total number of vortices, N(t), in terms of the mean circulation of an individual vortex is derived. A theory predicting that N(t) is proportional to t^{-xi} and the magnitudes of exponents gamma=2/5 and xi=4/5 is presented and the possibility of an additional very late-time cross-over to gamma=1/3 and xi=2/3 is also discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

Le paludisme urbain à Yaoundé, Cameroun : 1. Etude entomologique dans deux quartiers centraux

Une étude entomologique longitudinale sur les moustiques agressifs pour l'homme et la transmission du paludisme a été réalisée dans deux quartiers centraux de la ville de Yaoundé (Cameroun) d'avril 1989 à mars 1990. Le quartier Essos borde un bas-fond marécageux. Le quartier Obili est comparable à Essos, mais il y a beaucoup de bassins de pisciculture mal entretenus et couverts de végétation aquatique. Les moustiques furent échantillonnés de nuit, dans les maisons, sur appât humain, deux fois par mois dans chaque quartier. A Essos, un habitant reçoit annuellement près de 4000 piqûres de moustiques. Quatre espèces de moustiques sont capturées : #Culex #quinquefasciatus (84%), #Mansonia$(9$ #gambiae$(6$. #Funestus$(1$. #gambiae$est de 78$. #Funestus est absent et la proportion d'#A. #gambiae$est très basse (1$. #gambiae$, sur 11 dissections, sont pares. Aucune glande salivaire sur 16 dissections n'a été trouvée positive; cependant, l'indice sporozoïtique peut être estimé à 4$ (49% de la faune culicidienne agressive) est liée à l'abondance de la végétation aquatique due au manque d'entretien des bassins. (Résumé d'auteur

Neural dynamics of perceptual detection under temporal uncertainty

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Física Teórica. Fecha de lectura: 17-10-2014Among the large number of functions that compose our mental life, perception is arguably the most fundamental one. Perception is the cognitive process by which external sensory signals are transformed into meaningful information that represents our environment and guide decisions and behavior. What is the neural basis of this transformation? Several key issues limit our understanding of the neurobiology of perception and perceptual decision-making. First, the neural codes used by the brain to represent sensory information are still unclear. Second, perceptual decisions presumably arise from the coordinated activity of populations of neurons. However, the analytical tools best suited to study decision signals in neuronal populations remain unknown. Third, perception is not a passive process. On the contrary, external stimuli and internal brain states dynamically interact to give rise to percepts. In this thesis, I address these questions using computational simulations and neural data recorded while monkeys perform a vibrotactile detection task. Three fundamental issues are examined: (1) the dynamics of correlated variability, (2) the decoding of decisions from neural population's activity and (3) the neural mechanisms underlying the use of temporal expectations. I study the dynamics of choice-conditioned noise correlations and show that they reveal an internal component of the decision-making process. By developing novel statistical measures, I quantify how predictive is the activity of populations of cortical neurons about the subject's decision. As a result, I nd that a speci c subset of premotor cortex neurons unequivocally predict the animal's decision report. The vibrotactile detection task studied in this work requires subjects to make decisions under temporal uncertainty. I nd that subjects bene t from temporal expectations by modulating their response criterion over the course of a trial. I show that this modulation is represented by the population dynamics of premotor cortex neurons. A trained recurrent neural network reproduces the experimental ndings and reveals the dynamical mechanism implementing a exible response criterion. Knowledge about the probability of stimulation over time, acquired during training, is intrinsically encoded in the neural population activity, allowing a dynamic control of the response criterion to improve performanceEntre el gran número funciones cognitivas que componen nuestra vida mental, la percepción es, quizá, la más fundamental. La percepción es el proceso mediante el cual el cerebro interpreta, organiza y da sentido a la gran cantidad de señales sensoriales que recibe del mundo exterior. De esta forma, la información sensorial es transformada en una representaci ón relevante de nuestro entorno, útil para guíar nuestro comportamiento. ¿Cuál es el correlato neuronal de esta transformación? Hay varias cuestiones clave que limitan nuestro entendimiento de la neurobiología de la percepción y de las decisiones perceptuales. En primer lugar, el código neuronal que el cerebro utiliza para representar información sensorial no es del todo claro. En segundo lugar, las decisiones presumiblemente emergen de la actividad conjunta de un gran número de neuronas. Sin embargo, las herramientas analíticas más adecuadas para estudiar estas señales poblacionales todava no son enteramente conocidas. En tercer lugar, la percepción no es un proceso pasivo. Por el contrario, los estímulos externos y los estados internos del cerebro interactúan dinámicamente para construir nuestra experiencia subjetiva. En esta tesis, abordo estos asuntos utilizando simulaciones computacionales y analizando registros neuronales obtenidos en monos mientras realizan una tarea de detección vibrotáctil. Tres cuestiones fundamentales son examinadas: (1) la dinámica de la variabilidad neuronal correlacionada, (2) la decodi_- cación de señales de decisión a partir de la actividad de poblaciones de neuronas y (3) los mecanismos neuronales que subyacen a la incorporaci ón de expectativas temporales en el proceso de decisión. Estudiando la dinámica de las correlaciones del ruido, muestro que éstás revelan una componente interna del proceso de decisión. Mediante el desarrollo de nuevas medidas estadísticas, cuantifico el poder predictivo de la actividad de conjuntos de neuronas acerca de las decisiones del sujeto. Como resultado, encuentro que la decisión del animal puede predecirse inequívocamente a partir de la actividad de poblaciones específicas de neuronas de la corteza premotora. La tarea de detección estudiada en esta tesis require que los animales tomen decisiones en un contexto de incertidumbre temporal. En esta tesis muestro que los sujetos construyen y utilizan expectativas temporales para aumentar su rendimiento mediante la modulación de su criterio de respuesta a través del tiempo. Además, encuentro que la actividad de las neuronas de la corteza premotora es consistente con un mecanismo neuronal específico para implementar esta modulación. Finalmente, derivo un modelo de red recurrente que reproduce los resultados experimentales y permite estudiar la estructura dinámica subyacente. El conocimiento previo acerca de la probabilidad de estimulación como función del tiempo, adquirido durante el entrenamiento, puede ser intrínsecamente codificado por una población de neuronas, permitiendo el control dinámico del criterio de durante el proceso de decisión

Toronto Augmented Reality Map: Enhancing citizen engagement with open government data using contemporary media platforms

This thesis investigates how visualization strategies and media platforms affect citizen engagement with urban public data. There is currently an international movement towards government transparency and accessible information as developed nations become more urbanized and information technology more ubiquitous. Concurrently, new media platforms (e.g., virtual and augmented reality) are evolving rapidly and show promise of mass adoption. These factors together offer design researchers a unique opportunity to develop new forms of citizen-facing media. I therefore developed an interactive augmented reality application that works with a printed map of the city of Toronto to overlay open government data as visualized digital content. An iterative practice-based research approach was used. Usability tests demonstrated that a strength of augmented reality is its facilitation of multi-user engagement. This thesis concludes by discussing how the Toronto augmented reality map can be made into an interactive citizen-facing installation in the public sphere