Top-down mandates and advocacy will help institutional repositories continue to enhance open access content and delivery

Institutional repositories (IRs) can sometimes be perceived as a low-impact method of open access delivery. Neil Stewart explains how the rapidly changing scholarly communications ecosystem stands to greatly benefit from the continued development of repositories. The future of IRs looks bright, and they and the services built upon them will continue to assist academics, both as producers and consumers of academic literature

Coming late to the game: how to create a totally integrated (!) repository system

This paper recounts the experiences and lessons learned in developing a repository system from scratch, using Eprints and Symplectic Elements, at City University London. The system is called City Research Online (CRO). Contrary to the title, the system created is not “totally integrated” (in fact far from it!). However the author was able to draw upon experiences learned in his previous role as Repository Manager at LSE, as well as those from the broader repository community, to implement automation of processes and systems integration. These lessons were implemented in light of the fact that City was relatively late in setting up its repository, and benefited from lessons learnt by other institutions. The paper details the set-up at City; explains how decisions made on the set-up were informed by past lessons; and examines the level of integration judged by a number of different criteria

Decision by sampling

We present a theory of decision by sampling (DbS) in which, in contrast with traditional models, there are no underlying psychoeconomic scales. Instead, we assume that an attribute's subjective value is constructed from a series of binary, ordinal comparisons to a sample of attribute values drawn from memory and is its rank within the sample. We assume that the sample reflects both the immediate distribution of attribute values from the current decision's context and also the background, real-world distribution of attribute values. DbS accounts for concave utility functions; losses looming larger than gains; hyperbolic temporal discounting; and the overestimation of small probabilities and the underestimation of large probabilities

Sloppy-slotted ALOHA

Random access signaling, which allows slotted packets to spill over into adjacent slots, is investigated. It is shown that sloppy-slotted ALOHA can always provide higher throughput than conventional slotted ALOHA. The degree of improvement depends on the timing error distribution. Throughput performance is presented for Gaussian timing error distributions, modified to include timing error corrections. A general channel capacity lower bound, independent of the specific timing error distribution, is also presented

Session 3-2-F: A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Baccara Chemin de Fer

Baccara chemin de fer — review of main contributions Baccara was first mentioned in print by Van Tenac in 1847. It was analyzed by Dormoy in 1872 and Bertrand in 1889. Borel called Bertrand’s study “extremely incomplete,” but it motivated Borel to develop game theory in the 1920s. Von Neumann planned to study baccara after proving the minimax theorem in 1928, but he didn’t. The first game-theoretic solution was by Kemeny and Snell in 1957. In 1964, Foster gave a solution based on a new algorithm, unaware of the Kemeny–Snell solution. A solution under more realistic assumptions was found by Downton and Lockwood in 1975 using Foster’s algorithm. Based on the extensive form of the game, the Kemeny–Snell solution was rederived by Deloche and Oguer in 2007

Prospect relativity: How choice options influence decision under risk

In many theories of decision under risk (e.g., expected utility theory, rank-dependent utility theory, and prospect theory), the utility of a prospect is independent of other options in the choice set. The experiments presented here show a large effect of the available options, suggesting instead that prospects are valued relative to one another. The judged certainty equivalent for a prospect is strongly influenced by the options available. Similarly, the selection of a preferred prospect is strongly influenced by the prospects available, Alternative theories of decision under risk (e.g., the stochastic difference model, multialternative decision field theory, and range frequency theory), where prospects are valued relative to one another, can provide an account of these context effects

Adobe Flash as a medium for online experimentation: a test of reaction time measurement capabilities

Adobe Flash can be used to run complex psychological experiments over the Web. We examined the reliability of using Flash to measure reaction times (RTs) using a simple binary-choice task implemented both in Flash and in a Linux-based system known to record RTs with millisecond accuracy. Twenty-four participants were tested in the laboratory using both implementations; they also completed the Flash version on computers of their own choice outside the lab. RTs from the trials run on Flash outside the lab were approximately 20 msec slower than those from trials run on Flash in the lab, which in turn were approximately 10 msec slower than RTs from the trials run on the Linux-based system (baseline condition). RT SDs were similar in all conditions, suggesting that although Flash may overestimate RTs slightly, it does not appear to add significant noise to the data recorded

Using Adobe Flash Lite on mobile phones for psychological research: reaction time measurement reliability and inter-device variability

Mobile telephones have significant potential for use in psychological research, possessing unique characteristics—not least their ubiquity—that may make them useful tools for psychologists. We examined whether it is possible to measure reaction times (RTs) accurately using Adobe Flash Lite on mobile phones. We ran simple and choice RT experiments on two widely available mobile phones, a Nokia 6110 Navigator and a Sony Ericsson W810i, using a wireless application protocol (WAP) connection to access the Internet from the devices. RTs were compared within subjects with those obtained using a Linux-based millisecond-accurate measurement system. Results show that measured RTs were significantly longer on mobile devices, and that overall RTs and distribution of RTs varied across device