Altruistic Autonomy: Beating Congestion on Shared Roads

Traffic congestion has large economic and social costs. The introduction of autonomous vehicles can potentially reduce this congestion, both by increasing network throughput and by enabling a social planner to incentivize users of autonomous vehicles to take longer routes that can alleviate congestion on more direct roads. We formalize the effects of altruistic autonomy on roads shared between human drivers and autonomous vehicles. In this work, we develop a formal model of road congestion on shared roads based on the fundamental diagram of traffic. We consider a network of parallel roads and provide algorithms that compute optimal equilibria that are robust to additional unforeseen demand. We further plan for optimal routings when users have varying degrees of altruism. We find that even with arbitrarily small altruism, total latency can be unboundedly better than without altruism, and that the best selfish equilibrium can be unboundedly better than the worst selfish equilibrium. We validate our theoretical results through microscopic traffic simulations and show average latency decrease of a factor of 4 from worst-case selfish equilibrium to the optimal equilibrium when autonomous vehicles are altruistic.Comment: Accepted to Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) 201

The Green Choice: Learning and Influencing Human Decisions on Shared Roads

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to increase the capacity of roads via platooning, even when human drivers and autonomous vehicles share roads. However, when users of a road network choose their routes selfishly, the resulting traffic configuration may be very inefficient. Because of this, we consider how to influence human decisions so as to decrease congestion on these roads. We consider a network of parallel roads with two modes of transportation: (i) human drivers who will choose the quickest route available to them, and (ii) ride hailing service which provides an array of autonomous vehicle ride options, each with different prices, to users. In this work, we seek to design these prices so that when autonomous service users choose from these options and human drivers selfishly choose their resulting routes, road usage is maximized and transit delay is minimized. To do so, we formalize a model of how autonomous service users make choices between routes with different price/delay values. Developing a preference-based algorithm to learn the preferences of the users, and using a vehicle flow model related to the Fundamental Diagram of Traffic, we formulate a planning optimization to maximize a social objective and demonstrate the benefit of the proposed routing and learning scheme.Comment: Submitted to CDC 201

Size Effect in Market-wide Liquidity Commonality: Evidence from the Indian Stock Market

Liquidity commonality and the co-movements in trading costs related to such commonality have remarkable implications in market microstructure. Analyzing and identifying such commonality will enable the investor and policy maker to discover evidence regarding the inventory risks and asymmetric information in uencing individual securities’ liquidity. Thus, this study aims at documenting the liquidity commonality and measuring its extent in the Indian stock market. Employing fourteen liquidity measures a ributed to the cost, quantity, time, and multidimensional aspects of liquidity, it empirically proves the existence of co-movements among market-wide liquidity and the individual securities’ liquidity. The study also shows the presence of a size effect in liquidity commonality in Indian stock market. It is found that the slope coefficient indicating the interface between market-wide liquidity and individual securities’ liquidity generally increases with size

Modulation of macrophage and microglial responses to axonal injury in the peripheral and central nervous systems

Journal ArticleOBJECTIVE: After axonal injury, macrophages rapidly infiltrate and become activated in the mammalian peripheral nervous system (PNS) but not the central nervous system (CNS). We used the dorsal root pathway to study factors that modulate the response of macrophages to degenerating axons in both the PNS and the CNS. METHODS: Lewis rats underwent transection of dorsal roots (Group I), stab within the spinal cord (Group II), crush at the dorsal root entry zone (Group III), transection of dorsal roots combined with a CNS lesion (Group IV), or systemic administration of a known activator of macrophages, lipopolysaccharide, alone (Group V) or combined with transection of dorsal roots (Group VI). ED-1 antibody stained for macrophages and activated microglia at 7, 14, and 42 days postinjury. RESULTS: At early time points, Group I demonstrated ED-1 cells in the PNS but not the CNS portion of the degenerating dorsal roots. Group II revealed ED-1 cells near the stab lesion. Group III demonstrated ED-1 cells adjacent to the dorsal root entry zone crush site. Group IV revealed ED-1 cells along both the PNS and the CNS portions of the degenerating dorsal roots when the CNS lesion was placed near the transected roots. Group V demonstrated few ED-1 cells in the PNS and the CNS, whereas Group VI revealed a marked ED-1 cellular response along both the PNS and the CNS portions of the transected dorsal roots. CONCLUSION: Local CNS trauma and systemic administration of lipopolysaccharide can "prime" macrophages/microglia, resulting in an enhanced response to degenerating axons in the CNS. Such priming might prove useful in promoting axonal regeneration

Is The Indian Stock Market A Casino?

This paper examines the empirical association between stock market development and economic growth for a period of ten years around the Indian market “liberalization” event.  We find no support for the hypothesis that the Indian stock market development is associated with the economic growth in that country during the entire event study period of 1981 to 2001.  We find support for relevance of stock market to econmic development during the pre-liberalization sub-period.  We also find a negative correlation between stock market development and economic growth for the post-liberalization period.  We offer a number of hypotheses consistent with the inverse relationship between growth and stock market development in the post-liberalization period.  In particular, our results are consistent with the suggestion that the Indian Stock market is a casino for the sub-period of  post liberalization and for the entire ten-year event study period

Optical Timekeeping Wireless System

Import 05/08/2014Cílem této práce je vytvoření optického časoměrného systému, který bude schopen měřit čas, za který těleso urazí vytyčenou dráhu. V první části práce je rozebrán způsob, jakým lze detekovat přítomnost tělesa, dále práce obsahuje rozbor metod měření analogového signálu, které jsou základem pro detekování. Následuje analýza metody pro měření času na mikrokontroléru. V jedné z kapitol jsou popsány metody bezdrátového přenosu dat, důležité pro komunikaci s PC. Další částí práce je návrh schématu optického časoměrného systému a optické brány. V druhé části je popsána vizualizace, která shromažďuje a zpracovává data vysílaná časoměrným systémem. Poslední kapitola popisuje demonstrační měření a vyhodnocení dat získaných z optického časoměrného systému.The aim of this bachelor’s thesis is to create optical timekeeping system which will be able to measure time for which the orb makes specific distance. The first part of the work describes how to detect presence of some orb. Another part describes methods how to measure analog signal which are the basis for detecting orb. Next part includes method for measuring time on microcontroller. One of the chapter describes how to communicate between microcontroller and PC using Bluetooth or ZigBEE. Final chapter of the first part contains designs of schema for optical timekeeping system. The second part of the work describes visualization of timekeeping system, which collects and compiles data that are transmitting by timekeeping system. The final chapter includes demonstrational measure and result that was collected by optical timekeeping system.450 - Katedra kybernetiky a biomedicínského inženýrstvívýborn

The economic impact of climate change on road infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa countries: Evidence from Ghana

Climate change scenarios for many Sub-Saharan African countries including Ghana indicate that temperatures will increase while rainfall will either increase or decrease. The potential impact of climate change on economic systems is well-known. However, little has been done to assess its economic impact on road infrastructure. This work assesses the economic impact of climate change on road infrastructure using the stressor-response methodology. Our analysis indicates that it will cumulatively (2020-2100) cost Ghana US$473 million to maintain and repair damages caused to existing roads as a result of climate change (no adapt scenario). However, if the country adapts the designing and construction of new road infrastructure expected to occur over the asset's lifespan (adapt scenario), the total cumulative cost will increase to US$678.47 million. The paper also provides decadal and average annual costs up to the year 2100 for the ten regions through the potential impacts of 54 distinct potential climate scenarios