Human kin detection

Natural selection has favored the evolution of behaviors that benefit not only one's genes, but also their copies in genetically related individuals. These behaviors include optimal outbreeding (choosing a mate that is neither too closely related, nor too distant), nepotism (helping kin), and spite (hurting non-kin at a personal cost), and all require some form of kin detection or kin recognition. Yet, kinship cannot be assessed directly; human kin detection relies on heuristic cues that take into account individuals' context (whether they were reared by our mother, or grew up in our home, or were given birth by our spouse), appearance (whether they smell or look like us), and ability to arouse certain feelings (whether we feel emotionally close to them). The uncertainties of kin detection, along with its dependence on social information, create ample opportunities for the evolution of deception and self-deception. For example, babies carry no unequivocal stamp of their biological father, but across cultures they are passionately claimed to resemble their mother's spouse; to the same effect, neutral' observers are greatly influenced by belief in relatedness when judging resemblance between strangers. Still, paternity uncertainty profoundly shapes human relationships, reducing not only the investment contributed by paternal versus maternal kin, but also prosocial behavior between individuals who are related through one or more males rather than females alone. Because of its relevance to racial discrimination and political preferences, the evolutionary pressure to prefer kin to non-kin has a manifold influence on society at large

Negative affective state mimics effects of perceptual load on spatial perception

Recent electrophysiological evidence has shown that perceptual load and negative affective state can produce very similar, early-attention gating effects in early visual areas, modulating the processing of peripheral stimuli. Here we assessed the question of whether or not these modulatory effects of perceptual load and negative affect (NA) lead to comparable changes in spatial perception abilities, which could be captured at the behavioral level. High perceptual load at fixation impaired the precise spatial localization of peripheral textures, relative to a low perceptual load condition. By contrast, the coarse spatial encoding of these peripheral stimuli was not load-dependent, under neutral affective conditions. The transient experience of NA was induced in an independent sample of participants, who showed decreased performance in the localization task, even at a low perceptual-load level. These results were observed in the absence of any systematic eye movement toward the peripheral textures. These findings suggest that spatial location perception is an attention-dependent, as well as state-dependent process, in the sense that NA, very much like load, can dynamically shape early spatial perceptual abilities. Although NA mimics load during spatial localization, we discuss the possibility that these two effects likely depend upon nonoverlapping brain networks

Stable R&D cooperation between asymmetric partners.

The Impact of asymmetries between partners on the stability of R&D cooperation is assessed analytically in a supergame setting. Two asymmetric firms are repeatedly taking sequential R&D and production decisions, whereby they coordinate their R&D decisions, in order to maximise joint profits. The asymmetries are specified in terms of absorptive capacity (i.e. size of the spillovers), R&D efficiency (i.e. ability to implement know how) and productive efficiency or market size (i.e. net demand intercept).First of all, it is shown that these asymmetries may not be too large, in order to guarantee that the disadvantaged firm remains interested in joining an R&D cooperative agreement. Furthermore, each asymmetry is shown to make the advantaged firm more inclined to stick to the cooperative outcome (than in the symmetric case), while the reverse holds for the disadvantaged firm. Finally, these asymmetries, when occurring, simultaneously, mutually reinforce each other. All in all, R&D cooperation between asymmetric partners will typically be beneficial for the advantaged firm and will only be attractive for the disadvantaged firm if the asymmetries are not too large.Cooperation; R&D; R&D cooperation;

Hyper-realistic face masks : a new challenge in person identification

We often identify people using face images. This is true in occupational settings such as passport control as well as in everyday social environments. Mapping between images and identities assumes that facial appearance is stable within certain bounds. For example, a person's apparent age, gender and ethnicity change slowly, if at all. It also assumes that deliberate changes beyond these bounds (i.e., disguises) would be easy to spot. Hyper-realistic face masks overturn these assumptions by allowing the wearer to look like an entirely different person. If unnoticed, these masks break the link between facial appearance and personal identity, with clear implications for applied face recognition. However, to date, no one has assessed the realism of these masks, or specified conditions under which they may be accepted as real faces. Herein, we examined incidental detection of unexpected but attended hyper-realistic masks in both photographic and live presentations. Experiment 1 (UK; n = 60) revealed no evidence for overt detection of hyper-realistic masks among real face photos, and little evidence of covert detection. Experiment 2 (Japan; n = 60) extended these findings to different masks, mask-wearers and participant pools. In Experiment 3 (UK and Japan; n = 407), passers-by failed to notice that a live confederate was wearing a hyper-realistic mask and showed limited evidence of covert detection, even at close viewing distance (5 vs. 20 m). Across all of these studies, viewers accepted hyper-realistic masks as real faces. Specific countermeasures will be required if detection rates are to be improved

Face Detection and Recognition for Android Smart Phone

The level of processing power of mobile phones have been steadily increasing over the past few years and it has now reached an extent at which there are mobile phones that could run big applications with relative success. Applications with facial detention and recognition capabilities has also been advancing over the same period of time to a point where successful facial recognition could be implemented with considerable less amount processing power. Due to these two advancement it has now become possible to run facial recognition application on mobile phones. Facial recognition which is the process of identifying specific people in a digital image by comparing and analyzing patterns [6] is now possible on mobile phones. This project would be developing a mobile application capable of performing facial detection and recognition

A comparative assessment of methodologies used to evaluate competition policy

Research by academics and competition agencies on evaluating competition policy has grown rapidly during the last two decades. This paper surveys the literature in order to (i) assess the fitness for purpose of the main quantitative methodologies employed, and (ii) identify the main undeveloped areas and unanswered questions for future research. It suggests that policy evaluation is necessarily an imprecise science and that all existing methodologies have strengths and limitations. The areas where the need is most pressing for further work include: understanding why Article 102 cases are only infrequently evaluated; the need to bring conscious discussion of the counterfactual firmly into the foreground; a wider definition of policy to include success in deterrence and detection. At the heart of the discussion is the impact of selection bias on most aspects of evaluation. These topics are the focus of ongoing work in the CCP

Evaluating the Emotional State of a User Using a Webcam

In online learning is more difficult for teachers identify to see how individual students behave. Student’s emotions like self-esteem, motivation, commitment, and others that are believed to be determinant in student’s performance can not be ignored, as they are known (affective states and also learning styles) to greatly influence student’s learning. The ability of the computer to evaluate the emotional state of the user is getting bigger attention. By evaluating the emotional state, there is an attempt to overcome the barrier between man and non-emotional machine. Recognition of a real time emotion in e-learning by using webcams is research area in the last decade. Improving learning through webcams and microphones offers relevant feedback based upon learner’s facial expressions and verbalizations. The majority of current software does not work in real time – scans face and progressively evaluates its features. The designed software works by the use neural networks in real time which enable to apply the software into various fields of our lives and thus actively influence its quality. Validation of face emotion recognition software was annotated by using various experts. These expert findings were contrasted with the software results. An overall accuracy of our software based on the requested emotions and the recognized emotions is 78%. Online evaluation of emotions is an appropriate technology for enhancing the quality and efficacy of e-learning by including the learner´s emotional states

Effect of heated wall inclination on natural convection heat transfer in water with near-wall injection of millimeter-sized bubbles

Natural convection heat transfer from a heated wall in water with near-wall injection of millimeter-sized bubbles is studied experimentally. Velocity and temperature measurements are conducted in the nearwall region. In the range of the heated wall angles from 0 to 40 degrees from the vertical, the heat transfer coefficient increases by up to an order of magnitude with bubble injection. The ratio of the heat transfer coefficient with bubble injection to that without injection increases with the wall inclination angle. Based upon measured liquid temperature distributions and liquid flow velocity profiles, enhancement of heat transfer by bubble injection is explained by two mechanisms. First, wall-parallel transport of cold liquid into the thermal boundary layer is enhanced by the bubble-driven flow. Second, wall-normal mixing of warm liquid and cold liquid occurs, as a result of wall-normal velocity fluctuations of the liquid phase activated by a combination of bubble rising motion, vortex shedding from the bubbles, and unsteady vortices formed within the boundary layer. The unsteady vortices travel along the wall together with the bubbles, primarily contributing to the enhancement of heat transfer at higher wall inclination angles