Observability and overcoming coordination failure in organizations

Many organizations suffer poor performance because its members fail to coordinate on efficient patterns of behavior. In previous research, we have shown that financial incentives can be used to find a way out of such performance traps. Here we examine the sensitivity of this result to the ability of people to observe others' choices. Our experiments are set in a corporate environment where subjects' payoffs depend on coordinating at high effort levels; the underlying game being played repeatedly by the employees of an experimental firm is a weak-link game. Treatments vary along two dimensions. First, subjects either start with low financial incentives for coordination, which typically leads to coordination failure, and then are switched to higher incentives or start with high incentives, which typically yield effective coordination, and are switched to low incentives. Second, as the key treatment variable, subjects either observe the effort levels chosen by all employees in their experimenta

A change would do you good . . . An experimental study on how to overcome coordination failure in organizations

Many organizations suffer poor performance because individuals within the organization fail to coordinate on efficient patterns of behavior. Using controlled laboratory experiments, we study how financial incentives can be used to find a way out of such performance traps. Our experiments are set in a corporate environment where subjects' payoffs depend on coordinating at high effort levels; the underlying game being played repeatedly by employees is a weak-link game. In an initial phase, the benefits of coordination are low relative to the cost of increased effort. Play in this initial phase typically converges to an inefficient outcome with employees failing to coordinate at high effort levels. The experimental design then explores the effects of varying the financial incentives to coordinate at a higher effort level. We find that an increase in the benefits of coordination leads to improved coordination, but, surprisingly, large increases have no more impact than small increases. Once subj

Leadership and overcoming coordination failure with asymmetric costs

We study how the heterogeneity of agents affects the extent to which changes in financial incentives can pull a group out of a situation of coordination failure. We focus on the connections between cost asymmetries and leadership. Experimental subjects interact in groups of four in a series of weak-link games. The treatment variable is the distribution of high and low effort cost across subjects. We present data for one, two and three low-cost subjects as well as control sessions with symmetric costs. The overall pattern of coordination improvement is common across treatments. Early coordination improvements depend on the distribution of high and low effort costs across subjects, but these differences disappear with time. We find that initial leadership in overcoming coordination failure is not driven by low-cost subjects but by subjects with the most frequent cost. This conformity effect can be due to a kind of group identity or to the cognitive simplicity of acting with identical others.

Do creative industries cluster? mapping creative local production systems in Italy

An important debate on the role of creativity and culture as factors of local economic development is distinctly emerging. Despite the emphasis put on the theoretical definition of these concepts, it is necessary to strengthen comparative research for the identification and analysis of the kind of creativity embedded in the territory as well as its determinants. Creative local production systems are identified in Italy and Spain departing from local labour markets as territorial units, and focusing on two different kinds of creative

Association mapping of candidate genes for drought tolerance in Mediterranean durum wheat landraces

Treball al que se li ha concedit el premi al millor póster del congrés

A first attempt of geographically-distributed Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM): mapping human time and energy throughput in metropolitan Barcelona

This study presents a first attempt to extend the “Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM)” approach to a spatial dimension using GIS techniques in the Metropolitan area of Barcelona. We use a combination of census and commercial databases along with a detailed land cover map to create a layer of Common Geographic Units that we populate with the local values of human time spent in different activities according to MuSIASEM hierarchical typology. In this way, we mapped the hours of available human time, in regards to the working hours spent in different locations, putting in evidence the gradients in spatial density between the residential location of workers (generating the work supply) and the places where the working hours are actually taking place. We found a strong three-modal pattern of clumps of areas with different combinations of values of time spent on household activities and on paid work. We also measured and mapped spatial segregation between these two activities and put forward the conjecture that this segregation increases with higher energy throughput, as the size of the functional units must be able to cope with the flow of exosomatic energy. Finally, we discuss the effectiveness of the approach by comparing our geographic representation of exosomatic throughput to the one issued from conventional methods.

MR MAQ: algorisme de Read Mapping utilitzant la plataforma Hadoop

L’èxit del Projecte Genoma Humà (PGH) l’any 2000 va fer de la “medicina personalitzada” una realitat més propera. Els descobriments del PGH han simplificat les tècniques de seqüenciació de tal manera que actualment qualsevol persona pot aconseguir la seva seqüència d’ADN complerta. La tecnologia de Read Mapping destaca en aquest tipus de tècniques i es caracteritza per manegar una gran quantitat de dades. Hadoop, el framework d’Apache per aplicacions intensives de dades sota el paradigma Map Reduce, resulta un aliat perfecte per aquest tipus de tecnologia i ha sigut l’opció escollida per a realitzar aquest projecte. Durant tot el treball es realitza l’estudi, l’anàlisi i les experimentacions necessàries per aconseguir un Algorisme Genètic innovador que utilitzi tot el potencial de Hadoop.

Tax Coordination Between Regions in Spain. The Role of the Courts

Overview of the Tax Coordination of the Regions in Spain from the point of view of the role of the Courts in developing the present system

Tax Coordination Between Regions in Spain - Role of the Courts

Análisis de la jurisprudencia constitucional española sobre la distribución de competencias tributarias entre los distintos niveles de gobierno.

Recovering the Elliott invariant from the Cuntz semigroup

Let A be a simple, separable C*-algebra of stable rank one. We prove that the Cuntz semigroup of C (T, A) is determined by its Murray-von Neumann semigroup of projections and a certain semigroup of lower semicontinuous functions (with values in the Cuntz semigroup of A). This result has two consequences. First, specializing to the case that A is simple, finite, separable and Z-stable, this yields a description of the Cuntz semigroup of C (T, A) in terms of the Elliott invariant of A. Second, suitably interpreted, it shows that the Elliott functor and the functor defined by the Cuntz semigroup of the tensor product with the algebra of continuous functions on the circle are naturally equivalent.

Cortical mapping of the neuronal circuits modulating the muscle tone. Introduction to the electrophysiological treatment of the spastic hand.

L’objectiu d’aquest estudi es investigar l’organització cortical junt amb la connectivitat còrtico-subcortical en subjectes sans, com a estudi preliminar. Els mapes corticals s’han fet per TMS navegada, i els punts motors obtinguts s’han exportant per estudi tractogràfic i anàlisi de las seves connexions. El coneixement precís de la localització de l’àrea cortical motora primària i les seves connexions es la base per ser utilitzada en estudis posteriors de la reorganització cortical i sub-cortical en pacients amb infart cerebral. Aquesta reorganització es deguda a la neuroplasticitat i pot ser influenciada per els efectes neuromoduladors de la estimulació cerebral no invasiva.

An hybrid methodology for RL-based behavior coordination in a target following mission with an AUV

Proposes a behavior-based scheme for high-level control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Two main characteristics can be highlighted in the control scheme. Behavior coordination is done through a hybrid methodology, which takes in advantages of the robustness and modularity in competitive approaches, as well as optimized trajectories

Hybrid coordination of reinforcement learning-based behaviors for AUV control

This paper proposes a hybrid coordination method for behavior-based control architectures. The hybrid method takes advantages of the robustness and modularity in competitive approaches as well as optimized trajectories in cooperative ones. This paper shows the feasibility of applying this hybrid method with a 3D-navigation to an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The behaviors are learnt online by means of reinforcement learning. A continuous Q-learning implemented with a feed-forward neural network is employed. Realistic simulations were carried out. The results obtained show the good performance of the hybrid method on behavior coordination as well as the convergence of the behaviors

A behavior-based scheme using reinforcement learning for autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper presents a hybrid behavior-based scheme using reinforcement learning for high-level control of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Two main features of the presented approach are hybrid behavior coordination and semi on-line neural-Q_learning (SONQL). Hybrid behavior coordination takes advantages of robustness and modularity in the competitive approach as well as efficient trajectories in the cooperative approach. SONQL, a new continuous approach of the Q_learning algorithm with a multilayer neural network is used to learn behavior state/action mapping online. Experimental results show the feasibility of the presented approach for AUVs

Recovering Euclidean deformable models from stereo-motion

In this paper we present a novel structure from motion (SfM) approach able to infer 3D deformable models from uncalibrated stereo images. Using a stereo setup dramatically improves the 3D model estimation when the observed 3D shape is mostly deforming without undergoing strong rigid motion. Our approach first calibrates the stereo system automatically and then computes a single metric rigid structure for each frame. Afterwards, these 3D shapes are aligned to a reference view using a RANSAC method in order to compute the mean shape of the object and to select the subset of points on the object which have remained rigid throughout the sequence without deforming. The selected rigid points are then used to compute frame-wise shape registration and to extract the motion parameters robustly from frame to frame. Finally, all this information is used in a global optimization stage with bundle adjustment which allows to refine the frame-wise initial solution and also to recover the non-rigid 3D model. We show results on synthetic and real data that prove the performance of the proposed method even when there is no rigid motion in the original sequence