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We consider an environmentwhere players need to decide whether to buy a certain product (or adopt a technology) or not. The product is either good or bad, but its true value is unknown to the players. Instead, each player has her own private information on its quality. Each player can observe the previous actions of other players and estimate the quality of the product. A classic result in the literature shows that in similar settings, informational cascades occur, where learning stops for the whole network and players repeat the actions of their predecessors. In contrast to this literature, in this paper, players get more than one opportunity to act. In each turn, a player is chosen uniformly at random from all the players and can decide to buy the product and leave the market or wait. Her utility is the total expected discounted reward, and thus, myopic strategies may not constitute equilibria. We provide a characterization of perfect Bayesian equilibria (PBEs) with forward-looking strategies through a fixed-point equation of dimensionality that grows only quadratically with the number of players. Using this tractable fixed-point equation, we show the existence of a PBE and characterize PBEs with threshold strategies. Based on this characterization, we study informational cascades in two regimes. First, we show that for a discount factor $\delta$ strictly smaller than 1, informational cascades happen with high probability as the number of players $N$ increases. Furthermore, only a small portion of the total information in the system is revealed before a cascade occurs. Second, and more surprisingly, we show that for a fixed $N$ , and for a sufficiently large $\delta < 1$ , when the product is bad, there exists an equilibrium where an informational cascade can happen only after at least half of the players revealed their private information, and consequently, the probability for a “bad cascade” where all the players buy the product vanishes exponentially with $N$. Finally, when $\delta =1$ and the product is bad, there exists an equilibrium where informational cascades do not happen at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relatively little literature specific to the discipline of History aims to translate theory into practice in regard to designing effective online and flipped learning experiences. This article synthesises current literature into practical advice and reflects on previous experience as an aid to historians (a) tasked with developing online or flipped units or (b) who have transitioned online and are seeking ways to improve. Feedback from students and learning analytics from a flipped unit at a large Australian university underpin the paper's advice. Student feedback and behaviour, coupled with the reflections of the unit's designers, encourage (1) prioritising effective educational media and recording practices over the production of digital material with the longest shelf life, (2) explicit consideration of unit structure and support offered to students, (3) readings which consider the student perspective, (4) enthusiasm about the delivery format, and (5) the overarching importance of constructive alignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of the Bank of Montreal and the bank's influence on Canada's financial and economic history. It looks at how the Bank of Montreal was the first to introduce paper banknotes in Canada in 1817 and how it changed the country's financial system. Particular attention is also given to Edwin Henry King, who became president of the bank in 1869 and was known for his contributions to the business aspects of banking.

The article offers information on history of invention of paper and its uses.

Purpose: The paper combines the systems theoretical perspective on the evolution of societal differentiation and the emergence of codes in communication. By combining the approach by Niklas Luhmann with a historical theology on the development of Christian morality split between God and Devil, it recreates a sociological point of observation on contemporary moral forms by a temporary occupation of the retired Christian Devil. Design/methodology/approach: The article combines a Luhmannian systems theoretical perspective on the evolution of societal differentiation with a concept of emerging codes in communication. The latter is based on on the development of a Christian view of morality being split between God and Devil. It establishes a sociological point of observation on contemporary moral forms through the temporary invocation of the retired figure of the Christian Devil. Findings: The proposed perspective develops a healthy perspective on the exuberant distribution of a health(y) morality across the globe during the pandemic crisis of 2020–21. The temporary invocation of the retired Christian Devil as point of departure in this sociological analysis allows for a disturbing view on the unlimited growth of the morality of health and its inherent dangers of dedifferentiating the highly specialised forms of societal differentiation and organisation. Originality/value: By applying the diabolical perspective, the analytical framework creates a unique opportunity to observe the moral encodings of semantic forms in detail, while keeping the freedom of scientific enquiry to choose amongst available distinctions in the creation of sound empirical knowledge. This article adopts a neutral stance, for the good of sociological analysis. The applications of the term "evil" to observations of communication are indifferent to anything but itself and its qualities as scientific enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Powerview-Pine Falls, Manitoba, particularly examining the impact of the 2009 closure of the town's Tembec Inc. newspaper mill. It comments on companies previously based in the town, including Manitoba Pulp and Paper Company and Abitibi Power and Paper Company. The author reflects on unemployment and depopulation as results of deindustrialization.

The paper focuses on the life and work of Michal Kováč-Adamov, the historian, bibliographer, theatrologist and playwright. Author summarizes his life milestones and most important activities, which significantly influenced every area of his interest. Apart from his publishing and pedagogical activities, he was an advocate of civic and democratic principles and has supported many reform trends which were at that time not in line with normalization tendencies in society. He served as the custodian of Matica Slovenská, but also as the deputy of Minister of Culture of the Slovak Republic, which in many ways complicated his professional as well as private life. Michal Kováč-Adamov is considered as an important personality of the Martin city and Slovak culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the optimal decentralized state-feedback control of large-scale systems. The large-scale system is composed of subsystems and defined over a connected digraph. One step time is required for information to travel across an edge in the graph. Under the above-mentioned setup, when subsystem process noises are uncorrelated, the explicit optimal state-feedback controller can be designed by independence decomposition based on information hierarchy graph. However, this decomposition method fails when the subsystem process noises are correlated. In this paper, we propose a new decomposition method for system state and control input, and split the optimal state-feedback control problem with correlated process noises into two subproblems that can be solved separately. The solution to the first subproblem can be obtained by solving a linear matrix equation. The second subproblem is solved by algebraic Ricatti equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies two-player zero-sum repeated Bayesian games in which every player has a private type that is unknown to the other player, and the initial probability of the type of every player is publicly known. The types of players are independently chosen according to the initial probabilities, and are kept the same all through the game. At every stage, players simultaneously choose actions, and announce their actions publicly. For finite horizon cases, an explicit linear program is provided to compute players’ security strategies. Moreover, this paper shows that a player's sufficient statistics, which is independent of the strategy of the other player, consists of the belief over the player's own type, the regret over the other player's type, and the stage. Explicit linear programs, whose size is linear in the size of the game tree, are provided to compute the initial regrets, and the security strategies that only depends on the sufficient statistics. For discounted cases, following the same idea in the finite horizon, this paper shows that a player's sufficient statistics consists of the belief of the player's own type and the antidiscounted regret with respect to the other player's type. Besides, an approximated security strategy depending on the sufficient statistics is provided, and an explicit linear program to compute the approximated security strategy is given. This paper also obtains a bound on the performance difference between the approximated security strategy and the security strategy, and shows that the bound converges to 0 exponentially fast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the robustness to model mismatch of a preexisting collocated boundary adaptive feedback law is investigated. This control law was originally designed for an antidamped pure wave partial differential equation (PDE). Actuation and measurements are located at the same boundary. Adaptive terms account for uncertain parameters located at the antidamped boundary, opposite to the collocated actuation and measurement. By extending and transforming the system state using, in particular, backstepping, this paper establishes that this controller is robust to sufficiently small in-domain damping. In particular, both stability and attractivity (convergence) are established similarly as in the nominal case. Note moreover that, assuming that some parameters are known, the exponential stability to an attractor holds. Simulations are performed to illustrate the interest of this study to attenuate mechanical vibrations in an oil-drilling context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses British novelist Martin Amis as of July 2012, focusing on his book "Lionel Asbo: State of England," as well as Amis' fascination with U.S. politics and cultural excesses. Amis' first novel "The Rachel Papers" is also mentioned, along with his relationship with fellow author Christopher Hitchens.

Takes a look at the history of the invention of paper currency. John Palmstruch and the founding of the Stockholm Banco that issued bank notes in Sweden; Methods used to verify validity of the currency; Failure of the bank notes that become overvalued and the fate of Palmstruch; John Law and his patronage from the Banque Royale in France; The issue of credibility of paper currency; History of the growing use of paper to avoid metal as currency; Inflation.

Purpose: This study aims to explore the use of evolutionary and institutionalization models to understand the technical progression of sustainability in political organizations and their contribution to sustainable effectiveness. It describes the evolution of mass media, political marketing, in the organization's strategy and design and the methods it is using to institutionalize this political and transition change. Design/methodology/approach: The study describes models of sustainability evolution and political and technical change, in political and social life in transition state Montenegro. Findings: Online and internet presentations of political programs, political blogs, sites that promote the national history and culture of the desired perception – the achievements have already risen in Montenegro in the first decade of the new millennium and beyond. Internet presentation of political subjects are reduced mainly to a brief presentation of history and of political parties, and mostly during the current election campaign, serving to inform the public about the program and promotion announcements. Originality/value: The findings of this study will help senior executives with responsibility for transition states. The aim of this paper is to show the transformation of the media during the transition period from one political system to another. With the use of descriptive methodological postulates and numerous case studies. With a wealth of facts and examples, which contributes to the originality and value of the article. The significance and originality of this research and article is reflected in a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to the transition process and quantitative and qualitative development of the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the profile of two Baseball legends Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey who created history in their own ways.

The article discusses the discovery that that "Buz Sawyer" comic strip from the 1950s, which features former U.S. Navy pilot John "Buz" Sawyer battling various American Cold War enemies such as the Soviet Union, was produced through a collaboration between cartoonist Roy Crane and the U.S. government. Crane's personal papers in the Syracuse University Archives are examined, along with pulp literature and propaganda in the U.S. America's foreign relations with Iran and Asia are assessed.

The article discusses the author's claim that the Catholic Church has addressed egalitarian (equality) economics for centuries, but it is not always the pope who leads the way on such issues. Catholic Pope Francis' release of his "Laudato si'" encyclical paper on ecology and poverty is examined, along with the views of German nuns and Italian economist Stefano Zamagni. Dominican nun Corinne Florek's views about capitalism are assessed, along with Catholic social teaching and U.S. politics.

This paper introduces an explicit reference governor to supervise closed-loop linear time-delay systems. The proposed scheme enforces state and input constraints by modifying the reference of the supervised system so that the state vector always belongs to admissible sublevel sets of a suitably defined Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. To accomplish this, this paper extends the existing definition of “dynamic safety margin” to a time-delay setting and illustrates how to employ classic Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals even though the reference is time varying. Constraint enforcement for arbitrary reference signals and asymptotic convergence to any strictly steady-state admissible set point is rigorously proven. Experimental results are reported to demonstrate the simplicity, practicality, and robustness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offers information on several books about history. "Scottish Smugglers," by Gavin D. Smith; "Black Indian Slave Narratives," edited by Patrick Minges; "Watermark," by Joseph Christy-Vitale; "Massachusetts at a Glance," Jack Tager.

The article looks at issues in the history of computing and computer science. The author assesses computer scientist Donald Knuth's criticisms of historiographic trends in the history of computer science, particularly as described by computer scientist Martin Campbell-Kelly in a 2007 paper entitled "The History of the History of Software." Topics include computer scientists versus historians as researchers on the history of computing.

An interview with former U.S. military analyst Daniel Ellsberg is presented. When asked about his view of World War II as a justified war, Ellsberg refers to the defeat of Hitler as an important part of the war but dislikes certain tactics used by the Allied Forces during the war. He focuses on the justification of violent tactics against enemy attacks, his book 'The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner', and the Pentagon Paper Leak in 1971.

In this paper, we apply Thompson sampling to a class of average reward stochastic control problems with parameter uncertainty. Specifically, we study an average reward stochastic control problem over an infinite horizon in which both the reward and state transition distributions are parameterized by an unknown parameter taking values in a finite space. The main result of this paper is a proof showing that Thompson sampling achieves a worst case average per period regret of O(T^-1), which is asymptotically optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]