Collective Strategy Condensation: When Envy Splits Societies

Human societies are characterized by three constituent features, besides others. (A) Options, as for jobs and societal positions, differ with respect to their associated monetary and non-monetary payoffs. (B) Competition leads to reduced payoffs when individuals compete for the same option as others. (C) People care about how they are doing relatively to others. The latter trait—the propensity to compare one’s own success with that of others—expresses itself as envy. It is shown that the combination of (A)–(C) leads to spontaneous class stratification. Societies of agents split endogenously into two social classes, an upper and a lower class, when envy becomes relevant. A comprehensive analysis of the Nash equilibria characterizing a basic reference game is presented. Class separation is due to the condensation of the strategies of lower-class agents, which play an identical mixed strategy. Upper-class agents do not condense, following individualist pure strategies. The model and results are size-consistent, holding for arbitrary large numbers of agents and options. Analytic results are confirmed by extensive numerical simulations. An analogy to interacting confined classical particles is discussed.     

采用多元化的教学手段,提高物理人才的综合素质——南开大学物理学基础科学人才培养基地建设经验介绍

介绍了南开大学国家物理学基础科学研究人才培养基地在十多年的建设中,通过多元化的教学手段提高学生的学习自主性,通过加强科研训练提高物理人才综合素质的经验和取得的成果.     

运用量子约束动力学对具有耗散的量子位的追踪控制

在有限温度环境内，量子约束动力学及其追踪控制可使退相干系统的相干性稳定一段时间.约束方程产生的控制场能够按量子比特的动力学状态进行控制(量子动力学轨道的反馈控制)；依靠量子比特的这种反馈效应，可使量子位稳定在设定的时间内.同时，在量子位的稳定方面，温度扮演一种消极的角色. 关键词： 量子约束动力学 耗散量子位的控制 追踪控制 量子比特的反馈效应     

两个安全第一思想模型的比较分析

针对投资者可能的投资需求确立了基于安全第一思想下两个相近的投资目标:1、极大化投资末期总收益率超过给定水平α的概率;2、极小化投资末期总收益率与给定水平α的距离.并分别就这两个目标建立了优化决策模型,得到了模型解析解,最后对两个模型结果进行了比较分析和经济解释.     

光突发交换的交换控制策略和光缓存配置

光突发交换是面向下一代互联网的光交换模式.讨论了异步光突发交换系统的交换控制策略以及相应光缓存的优化配置策略.除了传统预约模式的交换策略,还研究了非预约和改进型预约模式,它们的性能评估由计算机仿真给出.结果表明:在条件相当情况下,改进型预约模式具有最低的丢包率.同时光缓存的配置对上述几类交换控制策略的性能都有很大影响,仿真结果指出:光缓存的粒度对系统性能具有重要影响,所讨论的几类交换模式都存在最佳时延粒度,研究结果对光交换矩阵的设计有指导意义.     

企业合作联盟成员位次竞争战略的Shapley值分析

针对Yanowitz和Bruckstein的二值字图像后处理算法存在的问题，提出了一种新的基于灰度期望值的后处理算法。实验结果表明，该算法能自动选取阈值、运算速度快、处理效果好，具有良好的噪声适应性。     

Dynamic Strategic Pricing and Speed of Diffusion

Defining speed of diffusion as the amount of time it takes to get from one penetration level to a higher one, we introduce a dynamic model in which we study the link between pricing policy, speed of diffusion, and number of competitors in the market. Our analysis shows that, in the case of strategic (oligopolistic) competition, the speed of diffusion has an important influence on the optimal pricing policy. In particular, we find that higher speeds of diffusion create an incentive to strategically interacting firms to lower their prices.     

The effect of voice lessons on the clinical and perceptual skills of graduate students in speech-language pathology

Two groups of 10 speech-language pathology graduate students were each given 7 weeks of singing lessons to determine whether voice lessons could have an effect on their clinical and perceptual skills. Pre-, mid-, and posttests to measure various skills were designed and implemented. With use of paired sample statistical testing, statistically significant results were obtained. In addition, the subjective responses of the students show that the lessons were effective in improving pitch perception, breath control, and legato production or easy onset. This study supports efforts to integrate curricula in vocal performance and speech-language pathology.     

A Pilot Survey of Vocal Health in Young Singers

The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of vocal problems in young choir singers and to correlate vocal problems with demographic and behavioral information. A questionnaire addressing vocal habits and hygiene was offered to 571 young choir singers, up to 25 years of age, who sing at least weekly; 129 (22.6%) responded. More than one-half of the respondents had experienced vocal difficulty, particularly older adolescents. Detrimental behaviors and circumstances surveyed were not reflective of the incidence of vocal difficulty, except for morning hoarseness, chronic fatigue, insomnia, and female gender after puberty. Voice care professionals should be aware that self-reported voice difficulties are common among young choral singers, especially postpubescent girls, and children with symptoms consistent with reflux (morning hoarseness) and emotional stress (insomnia). Laryngologists should communicate with choral conductors and singing teachers to enhance early identification and treatment of children with voice complaints, and to develop choral educational strategies that help decrease their incidence.     

Memory and a priori best strategy in complex adaptive systems

We employ an agent‐based model to show that memory and the absence of an a priori best strategy are sufficient for self‐segregation and clustering to emerge in a complex adaptive system with discrete agents that do not compete over a limited resource nor contend in a winner‐take‐all scenario. An agent starts from a corner of a two‐dimensional lattice and aims to reach a randomly selected site in the opposite side within the shortest possible time. The agent is isolated during the course of its journey and does not interact with other agents. Time‐bound obstacles appear at random lattice locations and the agent must decide whether to challenge or evade any obstacle blocking its path. The agent is capable of adapting a strategy in dealing with an obstacle. We analyze the dependence of strategy‐retention time with strategy for both memory‐based and memory‐less agents. We derive the equality spectrum to establish the environmental conditions that favor the existence of an a priori best strategy. We found that memory‐less agents do not polarize into two opposite strategy‐retention time distributions nor cluster toward a center distribution. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 9: 41–46, 2004