Bounded Rational Decision-Making in Changing Environments

A perfectly rational decision-maker chooses the best action with the highest utility gain from a set of possible actions. The optimality principles that describe such decision processes do not take into account the computational costs of finding the optimal action. Bounded rational decision-making addresses this problem by specifically trading off information-processing costs and expected utility. Interestingly, a similar trade-off between energy and entropy arises when describing changes in thermodynamic systems. This similarity has been recently used to describe bounded rational agents. Crucially, this framework assumes that the environment does not change while the decision-maker is computing the optimal policy. When this requirement is not fulfilled, the decision-maker will suffer inefficiencies in utility, that arise because the current policy is optimal for an environment in the past. Here we borrow concepts from non-equilibrium thermodynamics to quantify these inefficiencies and illustrate with simulations its relationship with computational resources.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, NIPS 2013 Workshop on Planning with Information Constraint

Total Photonic and Hadronic Cross-sections

We discuss total cross-sections within the context of the QCD calculable mini-jet model, highlighting its successes and failures. In particular we show its description of $\gamma \gamma \to hadrons$ and compare it with OPAL and L3 data. We extrapolate this result to $\gamma p$ total cross-sections and propose a phenomenological ans\"atz for virtual photon cross-sections. We point out that the good agreement with data obtained with the Eikonal Minijet Model should not hide the many uncertainties buried in the impact parameter distribution. A model obtained from Soft Gluon Summation is briefly discussed and its application to hadronic cross-sections is shown.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX, uses aipproc.sty. To appear in the proceedings of Photon 2000, Ambelside, U.K., Aug 2000. The title, the number of pages and the number of figures in the announcement were corrected to correspond to the submitted pape

Total Cross-sections

We examine the energy dependence of total cross-sections for photon processes and discuss the QCD contribution to the rising behaviourComment: 5 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, talk presented by G. Pancheri at Photon - 2001, The International Conference on Structure and Interactions of Photons, Ascona, Sept. 2-7,2001. To appear in the proceeding

QCD and Total Cross-sections

We discuss models for total cross-sections, show their predictions for photon-photon collisions and compare them with the recent LEP measurements. We show that the extrapolations to high center of mass energies within various models differ by large factors at high energies and discuss the precision required from future measurements at the proposed Linear Collider which would allow to distinguish between them.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, laTeX, requires sprocl.sty, added at the end. To appear in the Proceedings of XXIX International Symposium on Mutliparticle Dynamics, Brwon University, U.S.A., June 9

"Lose 30lbs in 30 days" : assigning responsibility for deceptive advertising of weight-loss products

Purpose &ndash; The aim of this paper is to outline key social marketing issues apparent in deceptive weight-loss advertising, from the perspective of government policy-makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers. The purpose is to examine the complexity of one aspect of the obesity battle and provide a framework for coordinated and integrated social marketing initiatives from a multiple stakeholder perspective.Design/methodology/approach &ndash; The results of deceptive weight-loss advertising are framed using the harm chain model, and the paper offers recommended solutions based on a framework of marketing, education and policy changes across the network of stakeholders.Findings &ndash; This paper concludes that a resolution to the harm created by deceptive weight-loss advertising can be achieved by the creation of a more holistic, system-wide solution to this important health and policy issue. This networked approach must involve all aspects of harm in a multi-stakeholder solution, including both upstream and downstream integration. Specific recommendations are made for policy-makers, manufacturers, the media, and consumers to achieve this goal.Social implications &ndash; From a marketing perspective, analyzing the issue of deceptive weight-loss advertising using the harm chain allows for the creation of a more holistic, system-wide solution involving stakeholders in all aspects of harm for this important health and policy issue.Originality/value &ndash; This research examines the problem of obesity and weight-loss advertising from the unique perspective of the harm chain framework. The authors make unified recommendations for various stakeholders including industry, media, government and consumers, in order to direct integrated social marketing and consumer-oriented strategies within this industry.<br /

Predictions for the γγ\gamma \gamma total cross-section in the TeV region: an update

In this talk we present an update of model predictions for the $\gamma \gamma$ total cross-section in the TeV region. The update includes preliminary results for $\gamma \gamma$ cross-sections using the Bloch-Nordsieck model for the overlap function of the partons in the transverse space, use of the CJLK parametrisation of the photonic parton densities that has recently become available and extension to the higher $\gamma \gamma$ energies relevant to the planned CLIC collider.Comment: Talk presented by A. De Roeck at the International Linear Collider Workshop, Jeju Island, Aug. 26-30,2002. To appear in the proceedings. 10 pages, LaTeX file, requires A4.sty, four figure

QCD Mini-jet contribution to the total cross section

We present the predictions of a model for proton-proton total cross-section at LHC. It takes into account both hard partonic processes and soft gluon emission effects to describe the proper high energy behavior and to respect the Froissart bound.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, presented at MPI08, Perugia, October 27-31, 200