A dynamical model of a GRID market

We discuss potential market mechanisms for the GRID. A complete dynamical model of a GRID market is defined with three types of agents. Providers, middlemen and users exchange universal GRID computing units (GCUs) at varying prices. Providers and middlemen have strategies aimed at maximizing profit while users are 'satisficing' agents, and only change their behavior if the service they receive is sufficiently poor or overpriced. Preliminary results from a multi-agent numerical simulation of the market model shows that the distribution of price changes has a power law tail.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

If Your Language Was a Car… The Object(s) of Linguistic Research, or: Towards a Shared Geography of Linguistics

The article suggests that there are underexplored possibilities for fruitful communication between formal and functionalist linguistics. A key issue is the question of exactly what each approach is aiming to capture about language. This is especially relevant for understanding the status of claims about autonomy. The role of distributional regularities and their precise relations with semantic motivation is argued to be a shared problem that could fruitfully be addressed from both sides of the divide – and the role of niche construction as a dimension of evolutionary theory is put forward as providing a new take on the innateness debate. Torben Thrane’s work is discussed as an illustration example

Hvad skal der egentlig stå i en grammatik i dag? En note om deskriptiv og teoretisk lingvistik

No abstract

Who is leading the campaign charts? Comparing individual popularity on old and new media

Traditionally, election campaigns are covered in the mass media with a strong focus on a limited number of top candidates. The question of this paper is whether this knowledge still holds today, when social media outlets are becoming more popular. Do candidates who dominate the traditional media also dominate the social media? Or can candidates make up for a lack of mass media coverage by attracting attention on Twitter? This study addresses these question by paring Twitter data with traditional media data for the 2014 Belgian elections. Our findings show that the two platforms are indeed strongly related and that candidates with a prominent position in the media are generally also most successful on Twitter. This is not because more popularity on Twitter translates directly into more traditional media coverage, but mainly because largely the same political elite dominates both platforms

Washington Pension System Review

The purpose of this study is to analyze the incidence of Total Permanent Disability (TPD)pensions in Washington State's workers' compensation program. Concerns exist at both thelegislature and in the Department of Labor and Industries as there appears to have been a sharp upturn in the number of pensions awarded since late in the 1990s. This report examines the factors that may be causally related to any upsurge in such awards. Our task is to evaluate pension incidence for both the state fund and the self-insured populations, with a view towards identifying causes of the trend in both sectors, although we concentrate more on the state fund Cclaims due to data limitations

Peroxisome biogenesis in Hansenula polymorpha: different mutations in genes, essential for peroxisome biogenesis, cause different peroxisomal mutant phenotypes

In Hansenula polymorpha, different monogenic recessive mutations mapped in either of two previously identified genes, PER1 and PER3, produced different peroxisomal mutant phenotypes. Among five per1 mutants, four showed a Pim- phenotype: the cells contained few small peroxisomes while the bulk of the matrix enzymes resided in the cytosol. One of these mutants, per1-124 had an enhanced rate of peroxisome proliferation. The fifth mutant completely lacked peroxisomes (Per- phenotype). Of seven per3 mutants, four displayed a Pim- phenotype, two others a Per- phenotype, while one mutant showed pH-dependent growth on methanol and was affected in oligomerization of peroxisomal matrix protein. Thus, the protein products of both PER1 and PER3 genes appear to be essential in different aspects of peroxisome assembly/proliferation.

Can we improve indicator design for complex sustainable development goals? A Comparison of a Values-Based and Conventional Approach

A conceptual framework was constructed for United Nations’ complex Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 4.7 focusing on education for sustainable development (ESD), and used to analyse the usefulness and character of indicators produced from a values-based approach called ESDinds, compared to a UN process. The analysis shows that the latter generated very few indicators concerning the wider aspects of knowledge such as ‘critical thinking’ or ‘learning to learn’. The values-based approach, created for a different purpose, produced complementary if not better coverage of Target 4.7, including finely-developed concepts for competencies and less tangible aspects. It is suggested that the UN process would benefit from ESDinds design elements such as intersubjective and slightly disruptive elements, purposeful contextualisation at group level, and a holistic and inductive consideration of values. The use of a reference ‘fuzzy framework’ of slightly generalised proto-indicators suited for deep contextualisation locally is recommended, rather than any rigid global-level indicator with unclear local value. It is recommended that ESD practitioners immediately develop localised interpretations of valid measures for whatever final Target 4.7 indicator is selected by the UN, as this localisation process will itself cause important learning towards local ESD achievements