Project FOCUS

Forming Occupational and Community Understanding for Success Created in 2015 Has grown ever since Provides access to resources for students with intellectual disabilitieshttps://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/educ_fys_103/1051/thumbnail.jp

Gift-Exchange, Incentives, and Heterogeneous Workers

By incorporating reciprocity in an otherwise standard principal-agent model, I investigate the relation between monetary gift-exchange and incentive pay, while allowing for worker heterogeneity. I assume that some, but not all, workers care more for their principal when they are convinced that the principal cares for them. The principal can be egoistic or altruistic. Absent worker heterogeneity, an altruistic principal signals his altruism by offering relatively weak incentives and a relatively high expected total compensation. However, the latter is not always required to credibly signal altruism. Furthermore, since some workers do not reciprocate the principal’s altruism, the principal may find it optimal to write a contract that simultaneously signals his altruism and screens reciprocal worker types. Such a contract is characterised by excessively strong incentives and a relatively high expected total compensation.reciprocity, gift-exchange, signaling game, incentive contracts, screening

Isolation or joining a mall? On the location choice of competing shops

I study the location choice of competing shops. A shop can either be isolated or join a mall. A fraction of consumers is uninformed about prices and incurs costs to travel between market places and to enter a shop. The equilibrium mall size is computed for several parameter values, showing that mall and isolated shops can coexist. Several effects play a role. Mall shops attract more consumers, but isolated shops set a higher maximum price. Moreover, numerical evaluations show that an increase in mall size decreases the average price level and increases the participation level of uninformed consumers.location choice; travel costs; pricing; consumer search

Reciprocity and Incentive Pay in the Workplace

We study optimal incentive contracts for workers who are reciprocal to management attention. When neither worker's effort nor manager's attention can be contracted, a double moral-hazard problem arises, implying that reciprocal workers should be given weak financial incentives. In a multiple-agent setting, this problem can be resolved using promotion incentives. We test these predictions using German Socio-Economic Panel data. We find that workers who are more reciprocal are significantly more likely to receive promotion incentives, while there is no such relation for individual bonus pay.Reciprocity, social exchange, incentive contracts, double moral hazard, GSOEP

Non-leaching antimicrobial surfaces through polydopamine bio-inspired coating of quaternary ammonium salts or an ultrashort antimicrobial lipopeptide.

Bacterial fouling on surfaces significantly increases the resistance of bacteria toward antibiotics, which leads to medical complications and a corresponding financial burden. Here, we report on a general and robust technique for facile modification of various surfaces with different antibacterial agents. Our approach in this study was inspired by the strong adhesion of mussel adhesion proteins (MAPs) to many types of surfaces, including metals, polymers, and inorganic materials. Thus, glass and polymeric slides were dip-coated with dopamine, as a MAP mimic, and the resulting surfaces were characterized. The reactivity of dopamine-coated surfaces toward nucleophilic addition was then confirmed by reacting them with fluorescent probes containing either a free amino or a free thiol group. Laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), confocal Raman microscopy, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry studies collectively suggested that the probes had covalently attached to the surfaces. Fabrication of dopamine-coated surfaces with an antibacterial quaternary amine or an ultrashort lipopeptide analog generated surfaces that effectively kill Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureuscells on contact. Moreover, minimal leaching of the fabricated agent was detected after prolonged incubation. This technique could be further developed to a "paint-like" or self-assembling monolayer-like procedure for the preparation of antibacterial surfaces on various materials

Case report: Typhoid fever complicated by hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and rhabdomyolysis

Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and rhabdomyolysis are rare complications of typhoid fever from Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi. Herein, we describe the clinical features in a 21-year-old female from India who presented to the intensive care unit with fever, severe pancytopenia, and rhabdomyolysis