Do social preferences matter in competitive markets?

Experimental evidence stresses the importance of so–called social preferences for understanding economic behavior. Social preferences are defined over the entire allocation in a given economic environment, and not just over one’s own consumption as is traditionally presumed. We study the implications for competitive market outcomes if agents have such preferences. First, we clarify under what conditions an agent behaves as if she was selfish—i.e. when her demand function is independent of others’ behavior. An agent behaves as if selfish if and only if her preferences can be represented by a utility function that is separable between her own utility and the allocation of goods for all other agents. Next, we study equilibrium outcomes in economies where individual agents behave as if selfish. We show that one can identify a corresponding ego–economy such that the equilibria of the ego–economy coincide with the equilibria of the original economy. As a consequence, competitive equilibria exist and they are material efficient. In general, however, the First Welfare Theorem fails. We introduce the class of Bergsonian social utility functions, which are social utility functions that are completely separable in all agents’ material utility. For such social preferences, the Second Welfare Theorem holds under a suitable growth condition. We also establish that in uncertain environments, agents with social preferences typically do not behave as if selfish. Furthermore, in the presence of public goods, both demand and equilibrium outcomes depend on social preferences.

Nicolas of Cusa His Life and Thought

Most interesting to the present writer were Cusa’s mysticism and his universalist approach to Christian truth and values. A mystic, he, nevertheless, strove to communicate his insight rationally. Though a sincere reformer, he remained a loyal adherent of the Roman church

Eine neue Vitrea art aus der Balearischen Insel Ibiza

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Computing in the RAIN: a reliable array of independent nodes

The RAIN project is a research collaboration between Caltech and NASA-JPL on distributed computing and data-storage systems for future spaceborne missions. The goal of the project is to identify and develop key building blocks for reliable distributed systems built with inexpensive off-the-shelf components. The RAIN platform consists of a heterogeneous cluster of computing and/or storage nodes connected via multiple interfaces to networks configured in fault-tolerant topologies. The RAIN software components run in conjunction with operating system services and standard network protocols. Through software-implemented fault tolerance, the system tolerates multiple node, link, and switch failures, with no single point of failure. The RAIN-technology has been transferred to Rainfinity, a start-up company focusing on creating clustered solutions for improving the performance and availability of Internet data centers. In this paper, we describe the following contributions: 1) fault-tolerant interconnect topologies and communication protocols providing consistent error reporting of link failures, 2) fault management techniques based on group membership, and 3) data storage schemes based on computationally efficient error-control codes. We present several proof-of-concept applications: a highly-available video server, a highly-available Web server, and a distributed checkpointing system. Also, we describe a commercial product, Rainwall, built with the RAIN technology

Spatial Interpolation of Air Quality Data with Multidimensional Gaussian Processes

The central question of this paper is whether interpolation techniques applied to a distributed sensor network can indeed provide more information than using the constant background of an urban reference station to measure air pollution. We compare different interpolation techniques based on temporal-spatial machine learning in terms of their applicability for correctly predicting personal exposure. Using a dataset of stationary low-cost sensors, we estimate exposure on a route through the city and compare it to mobile measurements. The results show that while different machine learning-based interpolation methods yield quite different results, validation of machine learning-based approaches is still challenging

Corrigendum: Data-Driven Digital Twins in Surgery utilizing Augmented Reality and Machine Learning

Das Dokument ist ein Corrigendum zu dem veröffentlichten Paper ”Data-Driven Digital Twins in Surgery utilizing Augmented Reality and Machine Learning”. Es enthält Korrekturen zu den fehlerhaften Abschnitten des Originalpapers.This document is a corrigendum for the published paper 'Data-Driven Digital Twins in Surgery utilizing Augmented Reality and Machine Learning'. It contains corrections for faulty sections of the original paper

Optimal stopping with signatures

We propose a new method for solving optimal stopping problems (such as American option pricing in finance) under minimal assumptions on the underlying stochastic process. We consider classic and randomized stopping times represented by linear functionals of the associated rough path signature, and prove that maximizing over the class of signature stopping times, in fact, solves the original optimal stopping problem. Using the algebraic properties of the signature, we can then recast the problem as a (deterministic) optimization problem depending only on the (truncated) expected signature. The only assumption on the process is that it is a continuous (geometric) random rough path. Hence, the theory encompasses processes such as fractional Brownian motion which fail to be either semi-martingales or Markov processes

Optimal stopping with signatures

We propose a new method for solving optimal stopping problems (such as American option pricing in finance) under minimal assumptions on the underlying stochastic process. We consider classic and randomized stopping times represented by linear functionals of the associated rough path signature, and prove that maximizing over the class of signature stopping times, in fact, solves the original optimal stopping problem. Using the algebraic properties of the signature, we can then recast the problem as a (deterministic) optimization problem depending only on the (truncated) expected signature. The only assumption on the process is that it is a continuous (geometric) random rough path. Hence, the theory encompasses processes such as fractional Brownian motion which fail to be either semi-martingales or Markov processes

Heterogeneity of oxygen reactivity: key for selectivity of partial methanol oxidation on gold surfaces

Recent evidence for low-temperature oxidation of methyl formate on Au(332) may affect the selectivity of gold catalysts during partial oxidation of methanol. Under isothermal conditions, overoxidation of methyl formate is significantly slower than methanol oxidation which can be attributed to special oxygen species required for overoxidation

Estimation of the Economic Benefit of Air Jamaica to Jamaica between 1995 and 2004

In this study, we estimate the economic benefit of Air Jamaica to Jamaica between 1995 and 2004. Specifically, we determine the economic benefit of Air Jamaica by estimating the economic contribution of air transportation for the case where Air Jamaica does not exist and then subtracting this value from the economic contribution of air transportation for the case where Air Jamaica does exist. Thus the value we determine is the incremental contribution of Air Jamaica to the Jamaican economy, i.e. the benefit that can only be attributed to the presence of Air Jamaica. Although there are many different ways in which airlines contribute to socioeconomic growth, only two of these mechanisms are explored in this study: 1) the portion of airline revenues that remain in Jamaica by virtue of the wages that are paid to residents of Jamaica, and the goods and services that are purchased from companies in Jamaica; 2) the expenditures of foreign visitors. Therefore, this study represents a conservative estimate of the benefit of Air Jamaica to the Jamaican economy. The results of our analysis indicate that the economic benefit of Air Jamaica to Jamaica between 1995 and 2004 economy was US5.491 Billion of which US$1.830 Billion was a direct incremental contribution to the economy and US$3.661 Billion is the corresponding indirect incremental contribution