A cooperative appproach to queue allocation of indivisible objects

We consider the allocation of a finite number of indivisible objects to the same number of agents according to an exogenously given queue. We assume that the agents collaborate in order to achieve an efficient outcome for society. We allow for side-payments and provide a method for obtaining stable outcomes.

Does bounded rationality lead to individual heterogeneity? The impact of the experimentation process and of memory constraints

In this paper we explore the effect of bounded rationality on the convergence of individual behavior toward equilibrium. In the context of a Cournot game with a unique and symmetric Nash equilibrium, firms are modeled as adaptive economic agents through a genetic algorithm. Computational experiments show that (1) there is remarkable heterogeneity across identical but boundedly rational agents; (2) such individual heterogeneity is not simply a consequence of the random elements contained in the genetic algorithm; (3) the more rational agents are in terms of memory abilities and pre-play evaluation of strategies, the less heterogeneous they are in their actions. At the limit case of full rationality, the outcome converges to the standard result of uniform individual behavior.

Rational sabotage in cooperative production

In this paper we consider a model of cooperative production in which rational agents have the possibility to engage in sabotage activities that decrease output. It is shown that sabotage depends on the interplay between the degree of congestion, the technology of sabotage, the number of agents the degree of meritocracy and the form of the sharing rule. In particular it is shown that, ceteries paribus, meritocratic systems give more incentives to sabotage than egalitarian systems. We address two questions: The degree of meritocracy that is compatible with absence of sabotage and the existence of a Nash equilibrium with and without sabotage.

Educació ambiental en camins tradicionals : una proposta de guia interpretativa pel camí de les Tosques

El primer bloc del treball, que ocupa en extensió la major part del projecte, permet una aproximació a la figura que juga el medi ambient i l’educació ambiental en la societat i en el moment actual. Al mateix temps, s’analitza el context ambiental que envolta el Parc Natural de les Muntanyes de Prades per tal de donar a conèixer l’entorn immediat del camí de les Tosques. Finalment, es descriu l’origen i els diversos camins tradicionals existents, procurant la informació necessària per entendre el valor i el potencial de que disposa aquest viari. El segon bloc, d’altra banda, resulta d’una selecció d’informació del primer i de noves aportacions, en una guia per la realització d’un itinerari autoguiat d’educació ambiental per aquest camí. Aquesta proposta es materialitza en la localització, anàlisi i interpretació de l’itinerari pel camí de les Tosques, i en l’elaboració d’una guia d’educació ambiental per a realitzar-lo.

Cooperative Transmission and Radio Resources Management for Wireless Networks

Report for the scientific sojourn at the Multimedia Communications Laboratory, University of Texas at Dallas, USA, from September to December 2005. The cooperative transmission has been analyzed taking a broadcast relay channel which assumes a scenario with one source and multiple destinations. Moreover, in order to improve the performance in terms of mutual information, it has been considered that for each destination there is another nearby terminal (called relay) which will help to improve the performance of the destination. This scheme combines different types of channels considered in the information theory, such as the relay channel, broadcast channel and interference channel (if the relays transmit information intended only to its associated destination). In this work, the author has studied the optimal way to encode the signals for the different users, known as capacity region (i.e. related to radio resources management ), of the broadcast relay channel.

Catalan Policies and Experiences on Cooperative Repositories

The Centre de Supercomputació de Catalunya (CESCA) together with the Consorci de Biblioteques Universitàries de Catalunya (CBUC) started in 1999 a cooperative repository, named TDR, to file in digital format the full-text of the read thesis at the universities of our country to spread them worldwide in open access preserving the intellectual copyright of the authors. This became operational in 2001 and today it is a service fully consolidated not only among the Catalan universities, but also used by other Spanish universities. Since then, there are four additional cooperative repositories which have been created: RECERCAT, for research papers; RACO, for scientific, cultural and erudite Catalan magazines; PADICAT, for archiving Catalan web sites; and MDC, for Catalan digital collections of pictures, maps, posters, old magazines... These five repositories have some common characteristics: they are open access, that is, they are accessible on the internet for free; they mostly comply with the Open Archive Initiative interoperability protocol for facilitating the efficient dissemination of content; and they have been built in a cooperative manner so that it is easy to adopt common procedures and to share the repository developing and managing costs, it permits more visibility of the indexed documents throughout the search engines, and a better provision for long-term preservation can be made. In this paper we present the common policy established for the Catalan cooperative repositories, we describe the five of them briefly, and we comment on the results obtained of our 6-year experience since the first one became operational.

Cooperative production and efficiency

We characterize the sharing rule for which a contribution mechanism achieves efficiency in a cooperative production setting when agents are heterogeneous. The sharing rule bears no resemblance to those considered by the previous literature. We also show for a large class of sharing rules that if Nash equilibrium yields efficient allocations, the production function displays constant returns to scale, a case in which cooperation in production is useless.

Cooperative vs. non-cooperative mechanisms in the EU decision making process

According to the account of the European Union (EU) decision making proposed in this paper, this is a bargaining process during which actors shift their policy positions with a view to reaching agreements on controversial issues.

The Difficult and tortuous path of agricultural cooperative networks in spain, 1890-1935

The rural associationism developed from the last decades of the XIX century could be consider as an answer of the agriculturists to the increasing integration of agriculture in the market, and to the effects of the Great Depression. In the case of Spain, the initiatives in this sense arose with certain delay in relation to the countries of Western Europe. The beginning of the Spanish cooperativism is closely bound to the Law of 1906. It granted the agrarian cooperatives with fiscal exemptions and other types of supports to the associates, although the process did not really accelerate until the promulgation of the law regulation in 1908.

Memory in contracts: the experience of the EBRD (1991-2003)

The objective of this paper is to identify the role of memory in repeated contracts with moral hazard in financial intermediation. We use the database we have built containing the contracts signed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EBRD between 1991 and 2003. Our framework is a standard setting of repeated moral hazard. After having controlled for the adverse selection component, we are able to prove that client reputation is the discrimination device according to which the bank fixes the amount of credit for the established clients. Our results unambiguously isolate the effect of memory in the bank's lending decisions.

Cooperative strategies for imperfect CSI scenarios based on distributed Alamouti

Les comunicacions cooperatives estan guanyant un gran interès en les comunicacions modernes degut a que permeten millorar la transmissió dʼinformació entre un emissor i un receptor utilitzant una sèrie de terminals situats entre ells. Aquest projecte és un estudi complet del sistemes cooperatius, analitzant el seu rendiment i comparant lʼús dʼun sol dʼaquests terminals amb lʼús del codi Alamouti, que utilitza dos terminals. Primer hi ha una introducció als sistemes cooperatius i a la teoria de la informació. Després hem estudiat un sistema cooperatiu amb la teoria de la informació com a base, en termes de probabilitat de fallada del sistema, i posteriorment lʼhem adaptat a un sistema cooperatiu real utilitzant una modulació QPSK, estudiant la seva probabilitat dʼerror de paquet. Finalment es proposen diversos protocols que permeten millorar el rendiment del sistema cooperatiu estudiat.

Brianna, un camí hippie

Treball de recerca realitzat per una alumna d’ensenyament secundari i guardonat amb un Premi CIRIT per fomentar l'esperit científic del Jovent l’any 2008. El hippysme és un moviment sociològic arrelat i justificat per les mentalitats dels anys 60 i que encara té amplies repercussions avui dia. Els seus gèrmens es troben en processos històrics dels segles XIX i XX en què s’adverteix la influència de personatges, d’ideologies i de moviments estètics. La revisió d’aquesta genèsi històrica i les seves extensions fins avuí han portat a concloure que si bé el moviment hippy ha influït en estètiques, en ergologia, en el llenguatge, ha acabat devaluat pels interessos del capitalisme, que l’han transformat en un nou simbolisme per al comerç.

Reading Ng Kim Chew: Malaysian-Chineseness and memory in contemporary Malaysian Chinese literature in taiwan

The idea of Chineseness as a geographic, cultural-specific and ethnically-charged concept, and the pivotal role assumed by memory linger throughout the writings of most authors hailing from Chinese community in Southeast Asia. Among these communities, being the Malaysian Chinese the more prolific in terms of number of writers and pieces of literature produced, this paper deals specifically with it. Its focus is put on the literature produced by Malaysian Chinese authors residing in Taiwan, which topic constitutes an important part of the first chapter, and on one of its main representatives, Ng Kim Chew, to whom chapter two and three are fully dedicated. A literary analysis of one of his short stories, Huo yu tu, will allow the reader to have a first-hand experience, through excerpts from the original text, of the importance of Chineseness and memory in the literary production of Ng and of many authors sharing with him similar life and literary experiences. I started this research from the assumption that these authors make large use of their own memories and memories from their own community in their writing as a way to re-tie themselves to the Chineseness they left in their places of origin. However in the case of Ng Kim Chew, the analysis of his works led be to theorizing that the identity he is imbued with, if there is one, is not Chinese, nor Malaysian, but purely and distinctively Malaysian-Chinese. This paper can also serve as an introduction for the general public to the field of Sinophone literature from Southeast Asia and to promote wider and innovative paths of research within the realm of Chinese studies that go beyond China proper.

Disseny d'un sistema d'indicadors ambientals en camins i diagnosi socioambiental del Camí de Cavalls: sector sud-oest

Menorca va ser declarada Reserva de la Biosfera per la UNESCO l’any 1993. Entre d’altres, un dels aspectes més emblemàtics de l’Illa és el Camí de Cavalls. Preservar la diversitat que aquest ofereix comporta una gestió complexa. Per això, és necessària per una millor gestió ambiental la realització prèvia d’una diagnosi per determinar en quina situació es troba actualment el Camí, i així poder optimitzar els mecanismes de gestió de l’espai. Aquesta diagnosi té com a objectius desenvolupar un sistema d’indicadors ambientals i socioeconòmics i validar-los per avaluar els canvis que es poden donar en el litoral de Menorca en els propers anys en relació a aquest espai. Dins d’aquest marc de treball, el sistema d’indicadors dissenyat a nivell teòric ha estat validat a través d’un exhaustiu treball de camp. Amb aquest objectiu s’ha volgut crear un disseny eficient, de forma que qualsevol persona que vulgui aplicar-lo al Camí de Cavalls o en altres tipologies de camí pugui fer-ho d’una manera correcte.