Extending Kolkata Paise Restaurant Problem to Dynamic Matching in Mobility Markets

L’objet de cet article est d’étudier expérimentalement les processus individuels et collectifs de décision vis-à-vis du risque. Cette étude s’inspire des travaux de Holt et Laury (2002). Les participants prennent leurs décisions seuls, puis au sein de petits groupes, et enfin ils peuvent choisir entre les prendre individuellement ou collectivement. Nos résultats montrent que les groupes ont des attitudes plus prudentes que les individus pris isolément. Par ailleurs, les participants les plus risquophiles sont ceux qui sont disposés à payer les montants les plus élevés pour pouvoir prendre leur décision seuls. Enfin, nos résultats montrent que si le degré d'aversion au risque est influencé par le contexte, il reste en grande partie déterminé par les caractéristiques individuelles.

El artículo estudia la Paradoja de Condorcet aplicada al funcionamiento del Cabildo Cantonal de Cuenca – Ecuador. La votación realizada al interior de un espacio político obedece a la regla de mayorías aún cuando su decisión involucre el normal desenvolvimiento organizacional. Los hallazgos determinan que por varios años las tarifas de agua potable no fueron modificadas pese a que ETAPA- EP presentaba necesidades de dinero y veía comprometida su operación. Se reconoce la Paradoja de Condorcet cuando las preferencias de los votantes son cíclicas aún a pesar de que la preferencia individual sea contraria a la grupal. El estudio presenta análisis de tipo histórico - cualitativo. Palabras clave: Empresa de agua, gobierno local, decisiones sociales, economía, política, fijación de tarifas. URL: http://revistas.uta.edu.ec/erevista/index.php/bcoyu/article/view/719

Modeling and empirical analyses of parking space choices based on individual preferences

Most of the traffic information considers a single item like travel time or delay. In the present work, enhanced traffic information displaying instantaneous travel time and its variation from the previous interval to the present, is considered. An initial investigation is made on the effectiveness of such traffic information on route choice behavior of trip makers by valuation of attributes of the traffic information. Taking a case study of two urban corridors in the Kolkata metro city, India, the valuation is done separately for private car and taxi trip makers. The stated preference (choice based) data collected from trip makers are analyzed using both multinomial logit (MNL) and mixed logit (ML) modeling techniques. Assuming sparsely used constrained triangular distribution of random parameters, two different types of ML model are developed: one with independent choice sets and the other one by accounting heterogeneity around the mean of random parameter(s). Both family income and trip purpos...

Using data from a Canadian national survey assessing dairy product preferences in 2011, individual preferences for milk and yogurts with specific attributes are examined in this study. Statements developed based on the Health Belief Model, food attitudes, beliefs about the role that nutrition plays in health, nutrition knowledge, and an individual’s propensity to make changes to improve their health are used to predict whether or not respondents consume milk/yogurt, the frequency with which they consume it, which type of product they typically consume, and how much they would be willing to pay for new milk or yogurt attributes. Results indicate that several aspects of the Health Belief Model as well as general nutrition knowledge can predict purchasing and consumption intentions for milk and yogurt products. All else being equal, the influences on an individual’s willingness to pay for unique milk or yogurt characteristics in stated choices are different then the influences on their self-identified willingness to seek out milk or yogurt to increase calcium in their diet.

Individuals' expertise in human factors and ergonomics in Malaysia was studied with a view to aiding in gauging the confusion and conjectures of the expertise in this area. The choices and preferences of individuals in dealing with the current issues of human factors and ergonomics were examined. The authors suggest the ways to meet ethical challenges in their work and professions.

The authors discuss how trip makers' route choice behavior is influenced by travel time valuation and variation levels on a road side variable message sign (VMS) board's instantaneous traffic information. The authors study two types of trip makers - taxi and private car - in two Kolkata Metro City, India competitive taxi traffic corridors. Both random parameter logit (RPL) and multinomial logit (MNL) models are used to capture responses for travel time and its variation level values estimation through a stated preference (choice based) experiment. Two RPL model types are developed assuming random parameters constrained triangular distribution: one with random parameter mean (i.e. travel time) surrounded by accounting heterogeneity and the other with independent choice sets. Valuing different levels of variation shows non-linearity existence. The authors note that mean travel time estimation heterogeneity is decomposed through trip purpose and family income.

based on Akerlof and Kranton (2005), who argue that group identity and social norms influence individual preferences towards work effort, a model is developed to understand why firms create good job conditions, taking into account the cost of implementing them and their impact on wages and productivity. Then, using individual-level data from the Gallup World Poll for 18 Latin American countries, the main predictions of the model are tested using propensity score matching. We find a positive link between good job conditions and workers' labor income and productivity when there are several simultaneous signals of a good work environment. We conclude that there is a positive payoff of investing in good job conditions for both workers and firms.

This article presents some remarks about cultural services in Italy, and an attempt to establish criteria useful to assess costs and benefits when it is difficult to define individual and collective utility, and reconcile economic efficiency with education and intellectual satisfaction. The endowment of arts and sites inherited from the past, is an opportunity of economic development, and a means of human capital accumulation enhancing tourist activities and educational opportunities. However, as pointed out by several models of the literature, there are some problems in translating individual preferences into willingness to pay, solving conflicts due to the goal of a large diffusion of cultural services, while respecting budget constraints of the non profit organizations producing them. The authors discuss the qualitative enhancement of cultural activities for productivity growth and the best use of limited public resources. In these perspectives more managerial autonomy is needed, thanks to private contributions and law incentives to collect them.

We address the problem of Electric Vehicle (EV) drivers' assistance through ITS. Drivers of EVs that are low in battery may ask a navigation service for advice on which charging station to use and which route to take. A rational driver will follow the advice if there is no alternative choice that lets her reach its destination in a shorter time, i.e., in game-theory terms, if such advice corresponds to a Nash-equilibrium strategy. Thus, we envision two game-theoretic models, namely, a congestion game and a game with congestion-averse utilities, both known to admit at least one pure-strategy Nash equilibrium. The former represents a practical scenario with a high level of realism, although at a high computational price. The latter neglects some features of the real-world scenario but it exhibits very low complexity, and is shown to be an excellent approximation of the former. Importantly, we show that the average per-EV trip time yielded by the Nash equilibria is very close to the one attained by solving a centralized optimization problem that minimizes such a quantity.

Privacy-enhancing personalized (PEP) systems address individual users' privacy preferences as well as privacy laws and regulations. Building such systems entails modeling two different domains: (a) privacy constraints as mandated by law, voluntary self-regulation, or users' individual privacy preferences, and modeled by legal professionals, and (b) software architectures as dictated by available software components and modeled by software architects. Both can evolve independently, e.g., as new laws go into effect or new components become available. In prior work, we proposed modeling PEP systems using a product line architecture (PLA). However, with an extensional PLA, these domain models became strongly entangled making it difficult to modify one without inadvertently affecting the other. This paper evaluates an approach towards modeling both domains within an intensional PLA. We find evidence that this results in a clearer separation between the two domain models, making each easier to evolve and maintain.

Oliver Kruger discusses some empirical problems of Internet research in his contribution. Analysis of online discussion groups within the Wiccan and neopagan movement that refer to rituals indicates that new social and hierarchical structures also emerge within the ”online community”. Nonetheless, only subsequent interviews with users of those discussion forums could reveal some basic aspects of online communication and its social dimension. This gives rise to some further questions. How much can we tell about communication on religious Web sites? What are the limits of an immanent analysis of Web sites? What can we tell about social structures within online communities and about individual user preferences in a ritual discourse? How can we deal with the problem of identity of Internet users? What is empirically invisible for us? Acknowledging the limits of our conclusions on postmodern religion and religious people derived purely from online research, Kruger advocates combining online research with classical empirical fieldwork, such as quantitative surveys or qualitative interviews with users and Webmasters.

Personalization of multimedia learning content means to classify the multimedia content to meet a specific user’s individual interest, preference, background and situational context – captured by a user profile. Appropriate choice of multimedia learning content has become as one of the most important challenges in order to provide user with personalized distance learning material. The main contribution of this paper is the creation of new model for adaptive multimedia learning that dynamically changes the content depending of the mapping relations between the QoS and QoE metrics. The proposed model delivers personalized multimedia content tailored to user cognitive style and adapting the content according the context – aware network conditions. Main focus is given to tracking the context-aware user behavior in order to generate an appropriate and fine-grained user profile with personalized learning content. The simulation of different models of individual user profiles were developed using the OPNET network simulation software. The presented simulation results confirmed the correctness of the developed model. Keywords-personalized multimedia content; adaptive distance learning system; context-aware; OPNET; user profile.

Over the last decade the importance of network games has seen a tremendous growth. A large part includes the size reduction of the handheld devices. Mobile gaming in a wireless environment and the availability to play games at any place is receiving major importance. Thus more and more games are released in this section (including a huge number of different mobile phone games).Thus, the mobile market offers a wide variety of devices, such as the new handhelds like Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. With the increase in opportunities one must first look at the user behavior to understand how to improve current problems. This paper gives an introduction into the differences of current mobile gaming platforms and their capabilities. Furthermore it features a user survey about individual preferences and social coefficients with unexpected results. The current survey system features a database to handle the huge amount of answers (the predecessor used a polling system). Concluding the results of the previous inquiry, this paper contains a lobby tool based on J2ME and C# to increase the matching mechanisms in a local environment.KeywordsMobile Phone GamesMobile GamesUser Case StudyHand-heldsLobby Tool

An attempt is made to propose a concept of limited rationality for choice junctions based on computability theory in computer science. Starting with the observation that it is possible to construct a machine simulating strategies of each individual in society, one machine for each individual's preference structure, we identify internal states of this machine with strategies or strategic preferences. Inputs are possible actions of other agents in society thus society is effectively operating as a game generated by machines. The main result states that effective realization of game strategies bound by the “complexity of computing machines'.