Modeling economic systems as locally-constructive sequential games

Real-world economies are open-ended dynamic systems consisting of heterogeneous interacting participants. Human participants are decision-makers who strategically take into account the past actions and potential future actions of other participants. All participants are forced to be locally constructive, meaning their actions at any given time must be based on their local states; and participant actions at any given time affect future local states. Taken together, these essential properties imply real-world economies are locally-constructive sequential games. This paper discusses a modeling approach, Agent-based Computational Economics, that permits researchers to study economic systems from this point of view. ACE modeling principles and objectives are first concisely presented and explained. The remainder of the paper then highlights challenging issues and edgier explorations that ACE researchers are currently pursuing

Culture as history: envisioning change across and beyond "eastern" and "western" civilizations in the May Fourth era

This essay examines an influential debate that took place during China’sMay Fourth era (circa 1915–1927) concerning the character of ‘‘Eastern’’ and ‘‘Western’’ civilizations. In this debate, both moderates and radicals wrestle with a growing awareness that cultures have not only a spatial existence but also a historical career, which has encouraged the development of certain institutions and attitudes and discouraged others. Spatial terms mark not only the places where knowledge circulates, but also the particular pasts-and thus futures-toward which Chinese thinkers align themselves. This way of figuring ‘‘East’’ and ‘‘West’’ enables May Fourth thinkers to do more than sort civilizational characteristics into categories of the inevitably universal and the irredeemably particular, as many commentators have assumed. It also facilitates the travel of cultural products and practices across the spatial as well as temporal boundaries originally seen to contain them

Private damages actions under EU competition policy : an exploration of the ongoing sea change in respect of such actions concerning articles 101 and 102 TFEU infringements

The EU has an established history of public enforcement concerning antitrust infringements under what are now Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Yet, until recently, this has not been true in respect of private compensatory damages actions in relation to the said Articles. Hence, these actions are now seen as reinforcing the existing deterrent provided by pubic enforcement fines. This paper focuses upon the ongoing sea change that aims to enable and encourage compensatory damages claims in relation to harm caused by breaches of 101 and 102 TFEU. It reveals that both the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Commission have played pioneering roles in advancing this sea change. It further asserts that, although the rulings of the CJEU have created a hybrid architecture that makes possible private actions in relation to the said breaches under Member state procedural laws before national courts, the architecture itself is problematic as it fails to guarantee that Member states’ procedural rules have a high degree of uniformity, thereby failing to guarantee a regulatory level playing field across the Union concerning the said damages actions. Moreover, not only is the architecture problematic, but it needed further development in respect of rules and requirements in several key areas, such as the right of evidential disclosure, the limitation period issue, collective redress and the quantification of harm, so as to facilitate and encourage claims. The Commission was aware of these concerns, and this paper explores its response. The issues could have been addressed by the establishment of a set of EU procedural rules which national courts would apply in the said actions but the Commission decided upon a different way forward. Working with the said hybrid architecture, and through the vehicle of the 2014 Directive on certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions of the Member States and of the European Union, the Commission has amended and created rules and requirements which will form part of member states’ domestic procedural law - and therefore will be applied by national courts – in order to establish a more level regulatory playing field across the Union which should facilitate and encourage private compensatory damages actions for harm caused by EU antitrust breaches. Of course, a more level playing field means that differences will still remain. Moreover, it will be some time before the success of the Directive can be gauged, and further measures may be required in the future

Ending the silence : a documentary theatre response to the impact of German war guilt on intergenerational, bi-cultural identity in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

This exegesis forms the written accompaniment to the documentary theatre production Ending the Silence. Together, these creative and critical components form the basis for a Performance as Research (PAR) project undertaken as part of a Masters in English at Massey University. This research aims to explore and utilise the potentials of the ‘documentary theatre’ form to better understand how issues of heritage and inheritance have informed intergenerational Kiwi/German bicultural identity. The research also aims to analyse how engaging with a creative process enables a closer investigation into topics which may be regarded as taboo. The PAR project also aimed to give a voice to those who have been silenced due to the pressures of social constructs regarding German War Guilt. This term is defined as a response shared by Germans for Germany’s involvement in the Second World War. This project explores the themes of identity, guilt, history and fiction, and authenticity and the representation of trauma. The thesis begins by describing the ethnographic methodology utilised for devising the documentary theatre script Ending the Silence, highlighting how the creative process enabled a closer investigation of the key research themes. The research highlights how history and fiction can work symbiotically to explore taboo topics in greater depth. It concludes that documentary theatre is a useful tool for exploring taboo topics in history, arguing that there is a need to encourage intergenerational, inter-cultural communication around these topics in order to talk responsibly about past injustices

The rise of social ereading : interactive ebook platforms and the development of online reading communities : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

Ebooks have caused a revolution in how people read fiction. Ereading devices and apps now integrate interactive features which have led to the development of digital reading communities populated by millions of readers from around the world, with a resurgence of social reading practices in new forms. Two of the biggest social reading communities in existence today are hosted by Amazon’s Kindle and Wattpad. This thesis offers an analysis of how these platforms’ readers are using the interactive technology within the pages of their ebooks to participate in these online reading communities. Original research into popular texts on Wattpad reveals that while only a small percentage of users are actively engaging with the ebooks and other readers during the process of reading, all active and passive interactions have a significant influence on the reading experience. Thus, the infrastructure of such communities ‘rewards’ serialised books which encourage higher levels of reader interactivity with greater recognition within the community, but this reward is short-lived. The application of Genette’s paratextual theory to the interactive features of these ereading platforms reveals new processes of authorisation and readers-as-writers. New paths for the evolution of digital paratextual theory see paratexts developing from ‘thresholds’ into ‘vectors’. The statistical notations of reader interactions are now informational paratexts attached to each ebook, and these online reading communities may be considered paratexts themselves, operating through the new paratextual phenomenon of digital marginalia. Furthermore, the existence of these reading communities on free platforms such as Wattpad is supported by commercial paratexts found within the ebook pages. These new paratexts are iii having a significant impact on social ereading and reading communities - such as how they operate and judge the ‘value’ of ebooks - but historical precedents suggest these paratexts will be readily accepted by most readers, leading to an increase in the incidence and influence of such digital paratexts. These new interactive technologies and paratexts will potentially lead to significant changes in how fiction is read. Exactly how these technologies may develop, and how public, industrial, and academic stakeholders might take advantage of these opportunities, requires further research