NYUAD introduces FIND cultural platform for artists and scholars

If you are interested in UAE life beyond working and partying, NYU Abu Dhabi's cultural dialogue and mapping platform FIND might interest you. I attended the public event at which the university introduced the initiative and hosted UAEU professor Yasser Elsheshtawy and Cuadro Gallery director Roberto Lopardo to discuss their work as fellows.

Yasser Elsheshtawy (L) and Roberto Lopardo (R)

The speakers talked about their projects for mapping Abu Dhabi. Dr Elsheshtawy's academic approach focused on the hidden-in-plain-sight world within the "super-blocks" of the city, observing and analyzing the human dynamics and public culture of "interstitial spaces", such as the bustling "square with a tree" in the middle of a block between Hamdan and Electra. Lopardo, on the other hand, extended his 24-hour picture-a-minute trek modus operandi, successfully executed in a number of other major cities (including Dubai, the result of which I remember seeing at Cuadro a long time ago), to 20 second video clips, and played a few of those clips for discussion. The third fellow, Reem Falaknaz, was unable to make it to the talk; too bad, as she was studying the mountain communities in the Northern Emirates, and would have added a rural perspective to what was otherwise an interesting, but very urban-set discussion.

Paper accepted, Sohan Van Souza is going Dutch

I am proud to report that the paper I co-authored and submitted in February has been accepted for publication and presentation at the 2009 annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society. We turned in the final version recently, and it looks like I will be travelling to Amsterdam to present "Gal et al (2009)" with the first author at the conference in late July. I am excited to go to Europe after all the missed chances in years past. More excited am I that my first research paper submission was accepted, and that I have a publication to my credit.

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Gal, Y., Dsouza, S., Pasquier, P., Rahwan, I. and Abdallah, S. (2009), The effects of goal revelation on computer-mediated negotiation, Proceedings of Cogsci 2009: 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society

This paper studies a novel negotiation protocol in settings in which players need to exchange resources in order to achieve their own objective, but are uncertain about the objectives of other participants. The protocol allows participants to request each other to disclose their interests at given points in the negotiation. Revealing information about participants’ needs may facilitate agreement, but it also exposes their negotiation strategy to the exploitation of others. Empirical studies were conducted using computer-mediated negotiation scenarios that provided an analogue to the way goals and resources interact in the world. The scenarios varied in the individual positions and interests of participants, as well as the dependency relationships that hold between participants. Results show that those who choose to reveal their underlying goals outperform negotiators in the same setting that use a protocol that forbids revelation. In addition, goal revelation has a positive effect on the aggregate performance of negotiators, and on the likelihood to reach agreement. Further analysis show goal revelation to be a cooperation mechanism by which negotiators are able to identify acceptable agreements in scenarios characterized by few socially (Pareto) beneficial outcomes.

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