Dynamics in atomic signaling games

We study an atomic signaling game under stochastic evolutionary dynamics. There is a finite number of players who repeatedly update from a finite number of available languages/signaling strategies. Players imitate the most fit agents with high probability or mutate with low probability. We analyze the long-run distribution of states and show that, for sufficiently small mutation probability, its support is limited to efficient communication systems. We find that this behavior is insensitive to the particular choice of evolutionary dynamic, a property that is due to the game having a potential structure with a potential function corresponding to average fitness. Consequently, the model supports conclusions similar to those found in the literature on language competition. That is, we show that efficient languages eventually predominate the society while reproducing the empirical phenomenon of linguistic drift. The emergence of efficiency in the atomic case can be contrasted with results for non-atomic signaling games that establish the non-negligible possibility of convergence, under replicator dynamics, to states of unbounded efficiency loss

Dollars for Degrees: Financial Aid and its Impact on Post-Secondary Degree Completion in Texas

Researchers have begun to investigate more deeply the specific effects of rising college costs, increasing debt, and the impact of financial aid on degree completion. Specifically, this paper describes the various sources and types of financial aid available to postsecondary students in Texas, how financial aid is packaged at different types of institutions, and the effects of financial aid types and packages on post-secondary persistence and completion. An appendix contains additional detail on federal, state, institutional and private aid sources as well as a list of the advisors, interviewees, and focus group members we spoke with during our research. While this paper focuses on financial aid in Texas given GTF's state-based purview, we believe many of the lessons are applicable across the country

Dollars for Degrees: Structuring Post-Secondary Scholarships to Increase Student Success

This report explores how funders can structure their scholarship awards and provide access to key non-financial supports to improve post-secondary persistence and completion

Issues in forest restoration: Workforce needs of the four forest restoration initiative project: An analysis

Northern Arizona is home to the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in North America - spanning the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab, and Tonto national forests. This vast forest is part of a dry ecosystem that has always been subject to the powerful transformative forces of wildfire, in particular the thinning effects of low-intensity surface fires on pine seedlings and saplings. Suppression of natural fire began on a large scale at the turn of the last century, altering this natural process. As a result, stand density has increased exponentially since the settlement of the state. Recent wildfires, such as the Wallow and the Rodeo-Chediski, are fostered by these overgrown forest conditions

Baryogenesis, Dark Matter and the Pentagon

We present a new mechanism for baryogenesis, which links the baryon asymmetry of the universe to the dark matter density. The mechanism arises naturally in the Pentagon model of TeV scale physics. In that context, it forces a re-evaluation of some of the assumptions of the model, and we detail the changes that are required in order to fit observations.Comment: JHEP3 LaTeX, 15 pages. New version corrects errors in the electroweak baryon violating and matter radiation temperatures, which were pointed out by the referee. Substantial quantitative but no qualitative change to our conclusion