On Smiles, Winks, and Handshakes as Coordination Devices

In an experimental study we examine a variant of the 'minimum effort game', a coordination game with Pareto ranked equilibria, and risk considerations pointing to the least efficient equilibrium.We focus on the question whether simple cues such as smiles, winks and handshakes could be recognized and employed by the players as a tell-tale sign of each other's trustworthiness, thus enabling them to coordinate on the more risky but more rewarding Pareto efficient equilibrium.Our experimental results show that such cues may indeed play a role as coordination devices as their information value is significant and substantial.game theory;trust

Lyndon Array Construction during Burrows-Wheeler Inversion

In this paper we present an algorithm to compute the Lyndon array of a string $T$ of length $n$ as a byproduct of the inversion of the Burrows-Wheeler transform of $T$. Our algorithm runs in linear time using only a stack in addition to the data structures used for Burrows-Wheeler inversion. We compare our algorithm with two other linear-time algorithms for Lyndon array construction and show that computing the Burrows-Wheeler transform and then constructing the Lyndon array is competitive compared to the known approaches. We also propose a new balanced parenthesis representation for the Lyndon array that uses $2n+o(n)$ bits of space and supports constant time access. This representation can be built in linear time using $O(n)$ words of space, or in $O(n\log n/\log\log n)$ time using asymptotically the same space as $T$

On Smiles, Winks, and Handshakes as Coordination Devices

In an experimental study we examine a variant of the 'minimum effort game', a coordination game with Pareto ranked equilibria, and risk considerations pointing to the least efficient equilibrium.We focus on the question whether simple cues such as smiles, winks and handshakes could be recognized and employed by the players as a tell-tale sign of each other's trustworthiness, thus enabling them to coordinate on the more risky but more rewarding Pareto efficient equilibrium.Our experimental results show that such cues may indeed play a role as coordination devices as their information value is significant and substantial

Community Plan William Dunbar and William Saville Houses. South Kilburn Estate

The aim of this document is to provide a community vision that informs South Kilburn SPD 2017. The document provides a proposal for refurbishment of the existing 147 homes, infill densification with 47 additional homes, which makes a total of 194 homes, nine new community with 366 m2 of floor space, 6 new retail units with 250 m2 of floor space, and a total of 24 car park spaces for residents. As this document explains, the proposed scheme follows the general principles of the 2016 Masterplan Review and the South Kilburn SPD 2017, as well as many of the specific proposals for the WDWS site (except demolishing the buildings and continuing Denmark Road). Since it follows many of the principles of Brent Council’s Masterplan, it can be considered as a community vision that can inform the regeneration of the WDWS site. This document is an independent study carried out by UCL researchers. WDWS Tenants and Residents Association can, if they consider it appropriate, present it to Brent Council to show a community vision for the regeneration of the WDWS site

Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov exhibits a structure similar to native Solar System comets

We processed images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to investigate any morphological features in the inner coma suggestive of a peculiar activity on the nucleus of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. The coma shows an evident elongation, in the position angle (PA) ~0-180d direction, which appears related to the presence of a jet originating from a single active source on the nucleus. A counterpart of this jet directed towards PA ~10d was detected through analysis of the changes of the inner coma morphology on HST images taken in different dates and processed with different filters. These findings indicate that the nucleus is probably rotating with a spin axis projected near the plane of the sky and oriented at PA ~100d-280d, and that the active source is lying in a near-equatorial position. Subsequent observations of HST allowed us to determine the direction of the spin axis at RA=17h20m+/-15d and Dec = -35d+\-10d.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures (low resolution). Full-resolution figures and bonus material at this url https://web.oapd.inaf.it/bedin/files/PAPERs_eMATERIALs/BORISOV_comet/ Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters on 2020 April 1st (not a joke ;

Predicting the deleterious effects of mutation load in fragmented populations.

Human-induced habitat fragmentation constitutes a major threat to biodiversity. Both genetic and demographic factors combine to drive small and isolated populations into extinction vortices. Nevertheless, the deleterious effects of inbreeding and drift load may depend on population structure, migration patterns, and mating systems and are difficult to predict in the absence of crossing experiments. We performed stochastic individual-based simulations aimed at predicting the effects of deleterious mutations on population fitness (offspring viability and median time to extinction) under a variety of settings (landscape configurations, migration models, and mating systems) on the basis of easy-to-collect demographic and genetic information. Pooling all simulations, a large part (70%) of variance in offspring viability was explained by a combination of genetic structure (F(ST)) and within-deme heterozygosity (H(S)). A similar part of variance in median time to extinction was explained by a combination of local population size (N) and heterozygosity (H(S)). In both cases the predictive power increased above 80% when information on mating systems was available. These results provide robust predictive models to evaluate the viability prospects of fragmented populations

Co-Producing a Social Impact Assessment with Affected Communities: Evaluating the Social Sustainability of Redevelopment Schemes

This paper explores the role of social impact assessment (SIA) as a tool to evaluate the social sustainability of council estate redevelopment or regeneration. The paper first revises the evolution of the concept of SIA in recent years, arguing that it should be included as a core part of the planning approval process to enhance community-centred planning decision-making practices, as claimed by the Just Space network in London. To contribute to this argument, the paper explores how to co-produce an SIA with those communities that are potentially affected by the scheme. We use as a case study William Dunbar and William Saville houses, two housing blocks located in South Kilburn Estate, London Borough of Brent, which are planned to be demolished as part of a large estate redevelopment scheme. The paper uses a diversity of participatory action research methods to co-produce an SIA with residents from the two housing blocks. From the experience of co-producing an SIA with residents, the paper comes out with three sets of findings and contributions. Firstly, the paper provides findings on the impact that demolishing the homes and re-housing residents would have on residents. Secondly, from these findings, the paper contributes to the argument that SIA should be incorporated into the planning system, but they should be co-produced with residents and carefully applied rather than becoming another box-ticking exercise. Thirdly, the paper provides very relevant methodological contributions on how to co-produce the SIA with those potentially affected

An investigation of perceptions of football players and officials on the provision of employee assistance programs by football clubs in South Africa.

The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of football players and officials on the provision of employee assistance programs by football clubs in South Africa. The study used interviews to collect data from ten football players playing for different football clubs in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) of South Africa, two officials from the PSL and two officials from South African Football Players Union. The results of this study indicate that football players believe that employee assistance programs need to be made available by football clubs. Although football officials consider the provision of employee assistance programs to be significant, they shifted the responsibility for its provision to football clubs. The results led to the conclusion that South African clubs must provide EAPs to improve the morale and performance of players. Direction for future research could focus on investigating the provision of EAPs by football clubs in Africa and in Europe to compare the differences between clubs that offer EAPs and clubs that do not

Stratosphere-troposphere coupling at inter-decadal time scales: Implications for the North Atlantic Ocean

Evidence of stratosphere-troposphere coupling at inter-decadal time scales is searched for in a 260-year simulation performed with a climate model including a state-of-the-art stratosphere. The boundary conditions of the simulation are specified according to preindustrial conditions and are kept constant from year to year. It is shown that long lasting (∼20 years) positive and negative anomalies of the northern winter stratospheric polar vortex exist in the simulation. Given that there are no externally imposed low frequency time variations, these persistent variations are due to internal dynamical processes of the modeled coupled atmosphere ocean system. By composite analysis, it is shown that the long lasting stratospheric vortex anomalies are connected through the troposphere to mean sea level pressure, surface temperature and sea ice cover anomalies. These connections are reminiscent of intra-seasonal stratosphere-troposphere coupling. Over the ocean, the surface temperature and sea ice cover anomalies are indicative of the delayed Atlantic meridional overturning circulation response to atmospheric forcing. The latter is indeed found to be anomalously strong/weak during the long lasting positive/negative stratospheric vortex anomalies, providing evidence for a potential role of the stratosphere in decadal prediction. Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical Union