Receptor cells with electrically coupled axons can improve both their input sensitivity and dynamical range due to collective non-linear wave properties. This mechanism is illustrated by a network of axons modeled by excitable maps subjected to a Poison signal process with rate r. We find that, in a network of N cells, the amplification factor A (number of cells excited by a single signal event...

Deg ra da tion of natu ral re sources has be come a global prob lem that threat ens the live li hood of mil lions of poor peo ple. Many prom is ing tech nolo gies for natu ral re source man age ment are avail able to ad dress these prob lems, but farm ers and oth ers of ten fail to adopt them. Why is this? Al though many fac tors can be iden ti fied, lack of se cure prop erty rights and col lec...

This paper offers a rationale for gradual privatization in transitional economies through studying property rights structures and the nature of Chinese collective enterprises. First, we pose a puzzle for existing theories of property rights, and then we provide a theoretical model for determining the optimal ownership arrangements for transitional economies. This theory argues that ownership ar...

By use of a stochastic generalization of the Hodgkin-Huxley model we investigate both the phenomena of stochastic resonance (SR) and coherence resonance (CR) in variable size patches of an excitable cell membrane. Our focus is on the challenge how internal noise stemming from individual ion channels does affect collective properties of the whole ensemble. We investigate both an unperturbed situ...

When modelling a system, often there are properties and operations related to a group of objects rather than to a single object only. For example, given a person object with an income property, the average income applies to a group of persons as a whole rather than to a single person. In this paper we propose to extend programming languages with the notion of collective behavior. Collective beh...

In the literature of collective intentions, the ‘we-intentions’ that lie behind cooperative actions are analysed in terms of individual mental states. The core forms of these analyses imply that all Nash equilibrium behaviour is the result of collective intentions, even though not all Nash equilibria are cooperative actions. Unsatisfactorily, the latter cases have to be excluded either by stipu...