Open Access to Telecommunications Infrastructure and Digital Services: Competition, Cooperation and Regulation

Open Access, defined as the non-discriminatory access to an upstream bottleneck resource, takes a central role in information and communications technology markets. This thesis investigates the competitive and cooperative interactions in these markets, where firms require access to an essential input resource. Theoretical analyses and experimental evaluations are employed to examine market outcomes under alternative regulatory institutions and voluntary access agreements

Privacy Risks in Digital Markets: The Impact of Ambiguity Attitudes on Transparency Choices

Transparency is viewed as an essential prerequisite for consumers to make informed privacy decisions in digital markets. However, it remains an open research question whether and when individuals actually prefer transparency about privacy risks when given a chance to avoid it. We investigate this question with a randomized controlled online experiment based on an Ellsberg-type design, where subjects repeatedly choose between risk and ambiguity while facing the threat of an actual disclosure of their personal data. We find empirical support for ambiguity attitudes as a novel behavioral mechanism underlying people\u27s transparency choices in privacy contexts. In particular, we find that most individuals avoid ambiguity and prefer transparency for low likelihood privacy losses. However, this pattern reverses for high likelihood losses and when subjects perceive data disclosure as a gain. Most notably, a significant share of people seek ambiguity and thus prefer to avoid transparency when facing high likelihood privacy risks

Competition Between Human and Artificial Intelligence in Digital Markets: An Experimental Analysis

In digital markets business decisions are increasingly taken by artificial intelligence (AI). Especially in e-commerce, a growing share of retailers uses AI-driven algorithmic pricing, whereas remaining vendors rely on manual price setting. However, policymakers have raised concerns about anti-competitive tacit collusion between humans and AI that could allow firms to soften competition. Therefore, we empirically investigate outcomes that arise when humans and AI repeatedly interact in digital market environments. Based on an economic laboratory experiment in near real-time, we compare the degree of tacit collusion among humans and reinforcement learning algorithms to market settings where only humans or only algorithms compete. Preliminary findings demonstrate that tacit collusion emerges between humans and AI, although at lower levels than in settings with only humans or only algorithms. Altogether, our study sheds light on competition in digital markets where AI plays an increasingly important role and thus bears timely policy and managerial implications

SpaceWire Protocol ID: What Does It Mean To You?

Spacewire is becoming a popular solution for satellite high-speed data buses because it is a simple standard that provides great flexibility for a wide range of system requirements. It is simple in packet format and protocol, allowing users to easily tailor their implementation for their specific application. Some of the attractive aspects of Spacewire that make it easy to implement also make it hard for future reuse. Protocol reuse is difficult because Spacewire does not have a defined mechanism to communicate with the higher layers of the protocol stack. This has forced users of Spacewire to define unique packet formats and define how these packets are to be processed. Each mission writes their own Interface Control Document (ICD) and tailors Spacewire for their specific requirements making reuse difficult. Part of the reason for this habit may be because engineers typically optimize designs for their own requirements in the absence of a standard. This is an inefficient use of project resources and costs more to develop missions. A new packet format for Spacewire has been defined as a solution for this problem. This new packet format is a compliment to the Spacewire standard that will support protocol development upon Spacewire. The new packet definition does not replace the current packet structure, i.e., does not make the standard obsolete, but merely extends the standard for those who want to develop protocols over Spacewire. The Spacewire packet is defined with the first part being the Destination Address, which may be one or more bytes. This is followed by the packet cargo, which is user defined. The cargo is truncated with an End-Of-Packet (EOP) marker. This packet structure offers low packet overhead and allows the user to define how the contents are to be formatted. It also provides for many different addressing schemes, which provide flexibility in the system. This packet flexibility is typically an attractive part of the Spacewire. The new extended packet format adds one new field to the packet that greatly enhances the capability of Spacewire. This new field called the Protocol Identifier (ID) is used to identify the packet contents and the associated processing for the packet. This feature along with the restriction in the packet format that uses the Protocol ID, allows a deterministic method of decoding packets that was not before possible. The first part of the packet is still the Destination Address, which still conforms to the original standard but with one restriction. The restriction is that the first byte seen at the destination by the user needs to be a logical address, independent of the addressing scheme used. The second field is defined as the Protocol ID, which is usually one byte in length. The packet cargo (user defined) follows the Protocol ID. After the packet cargo is the EOP, which defines the end of packet. The value of the Protocol ID is assigned by the Spacewire working group and the protocol description published for others to use. The development of Protocols for Spacewire is currently the area of greatest activity by the Spacewire working group. The first protocol definition by the working group has been completed and is now in the process of formal standardization. There are many other protocols in development for missions that have not yet received formal Protocol ID assignment, but even if the protocols are not formally assigned a value, this effort will provide synergism for future developments

Exploring the processes of emergent leadership in a netball team. Providing empirical evidence through discourse analysis

In line with recent developments in leadership research which conceptualise leadership as a discursive and collaborative process rather than a set of static attributes and characteristics displayed by individuals, this paper explores some of the discursive processes through which leadership emerges in a sports team. Drawing on over ten hours of naturally occurring interactions among the players of a women’s netball team in the UK, and applying the concepts of deontic and epistemic status and stance, we identify and describe some of the specific processes through which leadership is claimed and assigned, as well as rejected, passed on, and eventually accepted by different team members at different points throughout an interaction. While the processes outlined in our analysis contribute to theoretical discussions regarding the notion of emergent leadership, this paper also demonstrates the benefits of taking a discourse analytical approach to leadership, and outlines how such an approach enables researchers to empirically capture emergent leadership in situ