2,760 research outputs found
Saturation Effects and the Concurrency Hypothesis: Insights from an Analytic Model
Sexual partnerships that overlap in time (concurrent relationships) may play
a significant role in the HIV epidemic, but the precise effect is unclear. We
derive edge-based compartmental models of disease spread in idealized dynamic
populations with and without concurrency to allow for an investigation of its
effects. Our models assume that partnerships change in time and individuals
enter and leave the at-risk population. Infected individuals transmit at a
constant per-partnership rate to their susceptible partners. In our idealized
populations we find regions of parameter space where the existence of
concurrent partnerships leads to substantially faster growth and higher
equilibrium levels, but also regions in which the existence of concurrent
partnerships has very little impact on the growth or the equilibrium.
Additionally we find mixed regimes in which concurrency significantly increases
the early growth, but has little effect on the ultimate equilibrium level.
Guided by model predictions, we discuss general conditions under which
concurrent relationships would be expected to have large or small effects in
real-world settings. Our observation that the impact of concurrency saturates
suggests that concurrency-reducing interventions may be most effective in
populations with low to moderate concurrency
Analytic Methods for Optimizing Realtime Crowdsourcing
Realtime crowdsourcing research has demonstrated that it is possible to
recruit paid crowds within seconds by managing a small, fast-reacting worker
pool. Realtime crowds enable crowd-powered systems that respond at interactive
speeds: for example, cameras, robots and instant opinion polls. So far, these
techniques have mainly been proof-of-concept prototypes: research has not yet
attempted to understand how they might work at large scale or optimize their
cost/performance trade-offs. In this paper, we use queueing theory to analyze
the retainer model for realtime crowdsourcing, in particular its expected wait
time and cost to requesters. We provide an algorithm that allows requesters to
minimize their cost subject to performance requirements. We then propose and
analyze three techniques to improve performance: push notifications, shared
retainer pools, and precruitment, which involves recalling retainer workers
before a task actually arrives. An experimental validation finds that
precruited workers begin a task 500 milliseconds after it is posted, delivering
results below the one-second cognitive threshold for an end-user to stay in
flow.Comment: Presented at Collective Intelligence conference, 201
Space use by foragers consuming renewable resources
We study a simple model of a forager as a walk that modifies a relaxing
substrate. Within it simplicity, this provides an insight on a number of
relevant and non-intuitive facts. Even without memory of the good places to
feed and no explicit cost of moving, we observe the emergence of a finite home
range. We characterize the walks and the use of resources in several
statistical ways, involving the behavior of the average used fraction of the
system, the length of the cycles followed by the walkers, and the frequency of
visits to plants. Preliminary results on population effects are explored by
means of a system of two non directly interacting animals. Properties of the
overlap of home ranges show the existence of a set of parameters that provides
the best utilization of the shared resource
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