Narrow Results

Actors in the Prisoner’s Dilemma agent-based model presented here decide between cooperation and defection in binary interactions determined by distance and overall gains. The paper thus tries to answer one of the fundamental questions of international politics: how does cooperative behavior perform in an environment governed by power and location? Two kinds of noise and the reward for mutual cooperation oscillating between temptation and punishment payoffs with a variable speed were added similarly like few completely new strategies inspired by foreign policy behavior of states. The initial success of generous reciprocal altruists is no surprise, but the lacking relationship between frequency of interactions and cooperativeness at the level of pairs already suggests some similarity with the system of states. Yet, the most important outcome is victory of the balance of threat strategy in all reruns with a heterogeneous pool of actors, despite the fact that this strategy was one of the least cooperative ones. At the same time, rules pre-selected by their success in the homogeneous and cooperative environment were still able to sustain intensive cooperation among themselves even within the heterogeneous pool of strategies.

In this paper, orthogonal multiwavelets on interval [0, 1] with arbitrary compact support γ and integer dilation factor a are studied. Firstly, the concept of multiwavelets on the interval [0, 1] is generalized to the arbitrary integer dilation factor a, a ≥ 2, a ∈ ℤ, and an algorithm for constructing orthogonal multiscaling function and multiwavelets on interval [0, 1] with dilation factor a is presented. Secondly, the decomposition and reconstruction formulas of multiwavelets on interval [0, 1] are deduced. Finally, the "balancing" concept of multiwavelets on the interval [0, 1] with dilation factor a is defined, and the algorithm of balancing the unbalanced multiwavelets on the interval [0, 1] is also given.

Whole-body control (WBC) systems represent a wide range of complex movement skills in the form of low-dimensional task descriptors which are projected on to the robot’s actuator space. Using these methods allow to exploit the full capabilities of the entire body of redundant, floating-base robots in compliant multi-contact interaction with the environment, to execute any single task and simultaneous multiple tasks. This paper presents an attractor-based whole-body motion control (WBMC) system, developed for torque-control of floating-base robots. The attractors are defined as atomic control modules that work in parallel to, and independently from the other attractors, generating joint torques that aim to modify the state of the robot so that the error in a target condition is minimized. Balance of the robot is guaranteed by the simultaneous activation of an attractor to the minimum effort configuration, and of an attractor to a zero joint momentum. A novel formulation of the minimum effort is proposed based on the assumption that whenever the gravitational stiffness is maximized, the effort is consequently minimized. The effectiveness of the WBMC was experimentally demonstrated with the COMAN humanoid robot in a physical simulation, in scenarios where multiple conflicting tasks had to be accomplished simultaneously.

This paper offers a model for effectively managing ambiguity at the fuzzy front end of innovation projects. We conducted in-depth studies of four new product development projects from the medical device industry. Through the abductive process of iterative grounded theory we built a model of the management of ambiguity. The model we propose shows that innovation teams that have a higher tolerance for ambiguity are better able to exploit it. The successful management of ambiguity in innovation projects rests upon the balancing of opposing needs.

This is a study of learning and socialization in China’s foreign security policy, examining how China has at times been more assertive and in other instances has taken a more accommodating approach in its foreign security policy behavior. This paper argues that China has been “socialized” by its international security environment by exploring Kenneth Waltz’s theoretical mechanism of the “socialization” of states in the international system. The 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis and the early 2000s, the Senkaku/Diaoyutai crises from 2012 to 2015, and the South China Sea in the mid-1990s are all instances in which China has employed force only to suffer strategically. This has eventually led to a less confrontational posture and contributed to the pursuit of a more cooperative engagement strategy with both Southeast Asia (from 1998 to 2008) and Taiwan ($\sim$2006–2016). Variations in China’s assertiveness can be explained by the combination of domestic politics and signals from China’s international security environment.

In comparison to hegemony, lesser powers usually struggle for survival between two or more great powers under state power asymmetry, a perpetual phenomenon in international politics. With the rise of China and the increasingly strengthening role of the US in the Asia-Pacific region, it is important to learn how lesser powers manage their relations with the two. To explore this issue, we propose that the strength of state power will constrain the strategies of lesser powers as they choose between the US and China. Borrowing from existing theories and ideas on strategies that include balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging, we argue that the stronger a country’s power, the more likely it will choose a balancing strategy. At the same time, the weaker the country, the more likely that it will go with bandwagoning. Regional middle powers will show varied strategy choices, as they possess a higher degree of freedom in choosing which great power to side with. To validate these arguments, we construct two indicators — differences in trade dependence on the US and China and differences in the voting score consistent with the US and China — to quantify the strategies of lesser powers toward great powers and examine whether the variable of strategies follows the expected pattern. Our analysis shows that countries in the middle of the spectrum of state power demonstrated great freedom in choosing strategies toward the two powers.

Due to wide range of applications of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), lots of effort has been dedicated to solve its various issues. Among those issues, coverage is one of the most fundamental ones of which a WSN has to watch over the environment such as a forest (area coverage) or set of subjects such as collection of precious renaissance paintings (target of point coverage) and collect environment parameters and maybe, further monitor the environment. With variable sensing range, the difficulties to cover a continuous space (where number of points is infinity) in the area coverage problem becomes somewhat harder than covering limited number of discrete points in the target coverage problem. Very few papers have paid effort for the former problem. In this paper, we consider the area coverage problem for WSN where sensors can arbitrarily change their sensing ranges under some upper bound. We first improve the work in [1] so that the boundary effect is ruled out and the monitored area can be completely covered at all cases. Next, we extend that improved algorithm by introducing two distributed scheduling algorithms which are trade-off in term of network lifetime and algorithms efficiency. The major objective of each of our 3 proposed algorithms in this paper is to balance energy consumption and to maximize network lifetime. Our proposed algorithm efficiency is shown by algorithms complexity analysis and extensive simulation. In compared with the work in [1], our proposed algorithms are not only better in providing coverage quality, they could also greatly lengthen network lifetime and greatly reduce the unnecessary coverage redundancy.

This chapter offers a model for effectively managing ambiguity at the fuzzy front end of innovation projects. The innovation process is characterized by cycles of expensive (explorative) activities where ambiguity increases, and constrictive (exploitative) activities where ambiguity decreases. We argue that ambiguity oscillates in the short run and decreases in the long run while learning increases. These fluctuations in the opportunity space are driven by the balancing of creativity and constraint. We conducted in-depth studies of four new product development projects from the medical device industry. Through the abductive process of iterative grounded theory, we built a model for the management of ambiguity. The model we propose shows that innovation teams that have a higher tolerance for ambiguity are better able to exploit it. The successful management of ambiguity in innovation projects rests upon the balancing of opposing needs.

We derive algorithms that compute a balanced state representation from the differential equation describing a finite-dimensional linear system.

The unbalanced blade carrier shaft leads to mill Vibration, and affects crushing effects. Study on SG-4390 plastic crusher blade carrier shaft was conducted, the experiment of blade carrier shaft balancing test was done by hard-bearing balancing machine, and the balance level had reached 95.4%. Besides, ANSYS Workbench analysis was done for the tested blade carrier shaft. The results showed the crushing effect is significantly improved, including the blade carrier shaft dynamic characteristic. By the way, the paper provides a reference for crusher similar mill structure optimization.