Reasonable Goals

Assume that a number of autonomous agents are going to act in such a way that their respective goal states constitute a global plan. A main question that arises in this situation is whether there is such a plan at all, i.e. whether a solvable conflict prevails. In some sense. this means that the set of common goals is non-empty. Furthermore, if the agents are allowed to act in accordance with the result of some decision process, a situation may occur where subsets of their possible goal sets are consistent, but in actual fact the individual agents may nevertheless always terminate in states that are in conflict. We present a formal framework for the analysis of conflicts in sets of autonomous agents restricted in the sense that they can be described in a (first-order) language and by a transaction mechanism. This is also enriched by processes for evaluating decision situations given imprecise background information. The agent specifications are analysed with respect to a concept of consistency that requires the formulae of one specification together with a set of correspondence assertions to not restrict the models of another specification. i.e. the agent system does not essentially restrict the individual agents. The main emphasis is on the specifications being compatible with respect to reasonable probable states. i.e. states for which it is reasonable to assume that they eventually will be reached

Learning from information crises: Exploring aggregated trustworthiness in big data production

In a crisis situation when traditional venues for information dissemination aren't reliable and information is needed immediately "aggregated trustworthiness", data verification through network evaluation and social validation, becomes an important alternative. However, the risk with evaluating credibility through trust and network reputation is that the perspective can get biased. In these socially distributed information systems there is therefore of particularly high importance to understand how data is socially produced by whom. The purpose with the research project presented in this position paper is to explore how patters of bias in information production online can become more transparent by including tools that analyze and visualize aggregated trustworthiness. the research project consists of two interconnected parts. We will first look into a recent crisis situation, the case Red Hook after Hurricane Sandy, to see how the dissemination of information took place in the recovery work, focusing on questions of credibility and trust. Thereafter, this case study will inform the design of two collaborative tools where we investigate how social validation processes can be made more transparent

Evaluating Decision Trees under Different Criteria

Based on our earlier results in decision theory, we demonstrate how decision trees can be integrated into a general framework for analysing decision situations with respect to different criteria, and suggest an evaluation rule taking into account all strategies, criteria, probabilities and utilities involved in the situations under consideration. A significant property of the framework is that it admits the representation of imprecise information at all stages. This information is modelled in sets of measures constrained by interval estimates. The strategies are then evaluated relative to different decision rules, e.g., a set of generalisations of the principle of admissibility. Decision situations are evaluated using fast algorithms developed particularly for solving these kinds of problems. The presented framework has been developed and used within a large-scale evaluation project at the Swedish National Rail Administration

Trade-offs for Ordinal Ranking Methods in Multi-Criteria Decisions

Weight elicitation methods in multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) are often cognitively demanding, require too much precision and too much time and effort. Some of the issues may be remedied by connecting elicitation methods to an inference engine facilitating a quick and easy method for decision-makers to use weaker input statements, yet being able to utilize these statements in a method for decision evaluation. One important class of such methods ranks the criteria and converts the resulting ranking into numerical so called surrogate weights. We analyse the relevance of these methods and discuss how robust they are as candidates for modelling decision-makers and analysing multi-criteria decision problems under the perspectives of several stakeholders

Effective mass and band nonparabolicity in remote doped Si/Si0.8Ge0.2 quantum wells

The effective masses in remote doped Si/Si0.8Ge0.2/Si quantum wells having sheet densities, Ns in the range 2 × 1011–1.1 × 1012 cm – 2 have been determined from the temperature dependencies of the Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations. The values obtained increase with magnetic field and Ns. This behavior is taken as evidence for the nonparabolicity of the valence band and accounts for the discrepancies in previously reported masses. Self-consistent band structure calculations for a triangular confinement of the carriers have also been carried out and provide confirmation of the increase in mass with Ns. Theory and experiment give extrapolated Gamma point effective masses of 0.21 and 0.20 of the free-electron mass, respectively

A robustness study of state-of-the-art surrogate weights for MCDM

A vast number of methods for solving multi-criteria decision problems have been suggested for assessing criteria weights requiring more exact input data than users normally are able to provide. In particular, the selection of adequate criteria weights is difficult and in order to be realistic, other methods must be introduced. One class of such methods is to introduce so called surrogate weights, where numerical weights are assigned to each criterion based on a cardinal or ordinal rank ordering, assumed to represent the information extracted from the user. One essential problem is the robustness of such methods. In this article, we compare state-of-the-art methods based on surrogate weights from the literature and, utilizing a simulation approach, discuss underlying assumptions and robustness properties. This results in a quantitative measurement of these weighting methods and a methodology applicable also to forthcoming methods

Assessment of potential ICT-related collaboration and innovation capacity in east Africa

Due to a significant investment in digital infrastructure and a pro-innovation policy and regulatory framework, the Innovation Ecosystems in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Kampala have considerably expanded over the last five years, incorporating new national and international Innovation Stakeholders. This is important in the context of realising the objectives of National Development Plans, and addressing high levels of youth and graduate unemployment. This paper presents a sub-set of results from a comprehensive baseline analysis of Innovation Ecosystems in these cities with a focus on assessing the current level of ICT-related Collaboration, Innovation Absorption capacity and challenges to be addressed. In order to benefit from these developments, it is recommended that the public sector take a leadership role in establishing necessary mechanisms that will stimulate multi-stakeholder collaboration amongst existing Innovation Actors to foster a sustainable Collaborative Open Innovation and Entrepreneurial culture